10 Marketing Tips to Survive & Thrive COVID-19 in a B2B World

Has life changed for you the past 12 months or so? I bet. It sure has for businesses we market to and their clients.

This is why it is more important than ever that your marketing strategy is connecting with your audience and considering their experiences today. COVID has changed experiences for each of us as more people work at home, many have even lost jobs or taken pay cuts, fewer people socialize, we wear masks which cover expressions of feelings, there’s more online buying, more people are binge watching, people are traveling less and through it all many people have more uncertainty and stress in their lives than before the pandemic.

From September 2020 to March 2021, about two-thirds of consumers remained hesitant to regularly venture out of home shared the McKinsey Report. Experiences are changing as life is different now.

Companies need to immerse themselves into understanding the needs of their customers at a deeper level and have empathy for their experiences. Observing these experiences can help companies to find the “why care” that will resonate more with their clients. This, in turn, will help companies achieve higher sales and accelerate growth. Regardless of the situation and company goals, marketing must pivot to address the change of experiences COVID has created.

10 Marketing Tips to Survive and Thrive the COVID-19 Fallout:

#1 Brand loyalty is at risk >> Demonstrate empathy

According to the 2021 McKinsey report, over 75% of consumers have tried new brands during the global pandemic. This is evidence that brands can no longer rely on loyal clients for their growth. They must reach out with empathy and not a hard sell if they want to strengthen relationships. 

#2 Inside out approach >> Outside in approach

Not only should your messaging and content be more empathetic and relevant than ever but all of Marketing needs to be thinking first about the customer needs (outside the company) then how the company can address those needs. Not what the company has internally (or inside the walls) and wants to sell to the customer just because it is cool or a shiny object so they assume the customer will love it as much as employees do. (I imagine many of us can relate to this feeling.)

I worked at a design thinking firm where we often debated if we say we are “humanizing” our content and messaging to be portrayed as helpful and valuable. In fact, we were because we strived to show honesty and empathy and not be a sales pitch. Clients want content that shows how your brand is helpful to them in everyday life. This is looking outside your company first to create value.

#3 “Spray and pray “demand gen >> Targeted revenue marketing

Before 2020 many companies used the “spray and pray” approach to building a lead funnel by casting a wide net and seeing who they caught in the funnel. With the need to get more effective, companies began to try an ABM approach with LinkedIn, Paid search and content syndication. This has expanded to add in intent behavior. Then as COVID hit, companies sought even more ways to boost Marketing ROI and lower CAC. This has led to shifting the Demand Generation role to one of Growth Marketer or Revenue Marketer so the focus is on the quality of leads not quantity and the impact the leads have to the bottom-line so the leads that propel through the funnel are all that matter.

#4 Find customers >> Be found by the right prospects

Forrester says 62% of the buying process is done online before a buyer even speaks to a sales rep. Texting and other quick answers to augment the buyer’s online discovery can be efficient. In person meetings can often be replaced with online meetings—especially since COVID. This means ramping up digital efforts is critical and having a digital brand presence is critical to capturing the right prospects when they are ready to engage. SEO, Paid Search and Social Media, when done right, are even more important to driving traffic to your website than ever before.

#5 Be safe >> Be innovative (take risk, #okaytofail)

With the elimination of live events for about a year now and Zoom online events the norm now, it is harder to engage prospects in innovative ways that are not “me too” approaches. A/B testing, finding new email grabbers, having the most effective martech stack to optimize your increased digital touchpoints must be thought through and carefully tracked to find the best ways to optimize results. And innovative messages and approaches from Marketing and SDR’s are key to breaking through the noise and getting and converting leads throughout the funnel.

#6 Database dependent >> Leverage 3rd party databases

Often companies spend a lot of people resources marketing to their own databases and building nurture streams. This is definitely important in order to accelerate growth (as so many companies are aiming toward the light out of this COVID tunnel), the focus on marketing to 3rd party databases and leveraging the 3rd party brand relationship is key. After all, Sirius Decisions says it can take 8-12 touches to get someone to engage. If they know your brand or your 3rd party vendor’s brand, they will be more likely to engage sooner. And if you want to grow your database with relevant prospects, this is a good way to go about it.

#7 Data >> Insights

We need data to have insights. However, since COVID has strained so many companies we see more “Business Analyst” or “Data Scientist” titles being hired for than ever before. Marketing needs these insights added to the renewed dashboards and reporting to make real-time decisions on what to pivot. Add to that, with the deeper insights into the data and the “why pivot” being better understood, this will boost marketing’s impact.

#8 Point-in-time blasts >> Timely engagements

Planning your touchpoints of cadences ahead and having sales and marketing agree on SLA’s is critical to converting leads in an efficient manner.

Zant’s “The Definitive Guide to Sales Cadence” provides some excellent stats and examples to use for SDR follow up. You are 7X more likely to qualify a lead if reach out is in the 1st hour, and 60X less likely to qualify a lead if you wait over 24 hours. Remember that it takes multiple touches to pull people into your funnel so you need coordinated, timely, relevant touchpoints that make sense to a prospect in order to get engagement that matters.

#9 CRM+MAP >> Revisit your Martech Stack

The pandemic has required that companies relook at their martech stack and ensure it is streamlined and driving the expected results. Gartner research showed 26% of a pre-pandemic marketing budget was spent on the martech stack. This investment has been looked at to do more with the same amount and in some cases a slight budget boost. There are nearly 10,000 marketing technology tools be careful not to jump to the shiny object if you want to achieve your goals.

#10 Traditional Marketing >> Ramp Digital & Innovation

The digital transformation is not optional. It is here to stay.

COVID has forced marketers to seek higher ROI and do more with less. We have seen the shift away from live events to digital events and so many people working remote due to COVID. This has shifted us to digital marketing to drive attendance as direct mail does not reach many people working remote. Investing in SEO and digital marketing with intent are ways to grab the engagement of people actively in the buying process. These are less costly than events and can boost ROI and be used to engage customers and prospects when budgets are frozen or cut during the pandemic.

More people have grown comfortable with digital event tools like Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams so these are here to stay and likely will replace some live events even after we are all vaccinated.

Video marketing is another aspect of digital that is growing exponentially. It helps SEO and is a very digestible and desired medium that has cropped up even more in popularity during COVID. People crave the informational, high quality video experience over direct mail and other basic digital communications.

Ten Tips and More...

I hope these ten tips give you something to think about in your marketing planning. The bottom-line is that marketing has changed due to the pandemic. Marketers must be more accountable, set clear goals and quantify results.

The goals are still brand awareness, generating leads, growing customer loyalty and business, and accelerating revenue. But the way we attain goals has shifted. ROI is looked at harder and the digital world comes to the forefront here. Great marketers will adapt and achieve success. Those waiting for the live event and direct mail to come back to the forefront will not succeed. It truly is a digital world with clients demanding even more relevancy and empathy post-pandemic.

What tips would you add to help Marketers pivot and succeed after the pandemic?