Should I Stop Marketing Now?

- A summary review of B2B search and marketing activity

As part of EvettField Partners commitment to drive enterprise value for our clients, we recently conducted a deep-dive on ‘market demand’ across all B2B categories, and for each individual client category. We then made client-specific recommendations based on the data and their online market performance to assist our clients consider their marketing presence and activity during coronavirus, and ensure they are capturing available market opportunities.

For example, our research revealed that for many consumer items and categories (not including the obvious and topical items such as toilet paper, sanitiser, face-masks, dried goods etc.), demand has significantly increased. Categories include home based items, reflecting the work-from-home (WFH) response to the current market conditions, such as garden kits for apartments, seeds, herbs, worm farms, and associated products.

Demand for home office desks, stand up desks, small home printers, audio visual equipment (especially for teleconferencing equipment and services such as internet, webcams and headsets) has all increased. There is also a huge uplift in home education and entertainment options such as children’s books, puzzles, games, children's desks and associated items to assist with managing home schooling requirements.

Similarly, in B2B markets we have observed continued growth in demand (based on search activity and volume) for mining and agricultural services, building and construction and other key categories. Most categories are stable although some are in decline. The search focus may change, for example a prospective client may now search for finance options and managed maintenance services, rather than the technical or product specifications.

Although the purchase transaction may be delayed, the purchase intention remains strong, and the prospective clients have more time to deeply research a potential purchase or prospective supplier as people use time differently in work-from-home (WFH) environments, without the distractions and interruptions of the office environment.

In difficult and rapidly changing market conditions, many business owners and managers don’t really know what to do about marketing, and in the absence of quality data and insights, it can be tempting to just ‘switch it off’ and think about rebooting it once it all ‘settles down’. Our observation is that for many businesses, this may not be the best course of action, particularly if demand is stable or is maintaining a steady growth curve.

Businesses that remain active and visible in the market inevitably win the lion’s share of the market as it returns to confidence. You cannot afford to be invisible in a constrained market.

In the current environment, as your competitors ‘switch off’ their marketing, there is often a very real (evidence-based) opportunity to substantially increase your market share at a much lower cost-per-reach. As market demand is still active, and competitors are no longer bidding on the demand, a savvy business can capture a much larger share of the market (even if the overall market is slightly declined), and at a much lower cost-per-reach.

By comparison, the fast-acting negative impacts of reducing marketing and advertising presence, is the loss of velocity and the resulting reduction in rankings. Momentum matters in online marketing and ‘dead stops’ are much more damaging than gradual decreases or staged reductions.

The rankings that successful businesses are currently achieving across a number of primary keywords and phrases is often the result of cumulative effort and many years of hard work, supported by the consistency of new and fresh content and regular advertising support. Google rewards both of these activities and punishes ‘emergency stops’. It may stay afloat for a few weeks, however once all activity stops, the rankings tend to fall off a cliff and become much more difficult to rebuild once market confidence is back.

Think of it as a ‘flywheel’ or a steam train trying to get out of the station. Starting and gaining momentum is much more difficult (and costly) than maintaining momentum once speed is achieved.

Want to know more? Telephone our Sydney office on +61 2 9299 8883 or visit www.evettfield.com

#B2B #competitive #strategy #marketing #advertising