Six Strategies For B2B Marketing During Uncertain Times

Many business-to-business organizations are finding it challenging to drive efficient growth as they navigate how to respond to the economic downturn and the increase in inflation.

How should B2B leaders recalibrate during this time period as they reassess campaigns, budget allocation and expectations? As the CMO at Demandbase, I believe maintaining your investments can be a good thing, but that doesn't mean it's time for business as usual. Here are six strategies you can consider for marketing during a downturn:

Focus on key accounts.

An account-based approach is perfect as budgets become scarce because it focuses your limited resources on the companies most likely to do business with you. Rather than waiting for buyers to find you, prioritize outreach to the right people at high-value target accounts.

For a successfully orchestrated, account-based approach, you'll need the right target account list. Take into account the value of the account as well as the ease of selling to them. To build that list, marketing should work in lockstep with sales, and weigh a number of factors, including:

• Company characteristics (e.g., size, industry, number of locations)
• Their current use of technology (or complementary solutions to yours)
• Engagement (such as past sales into the account and how engaged they are with your marketing efforts now)
• Intent data (i.e., if they are actively looking for solutions like yours)

Pro tip: Don't overthink it. Good is better than perfect when you're just beginning with an account-based approach.

Market to the people you already know.

You'll likely be spending less money on demand-generation campaigns to generate new names. Now is the time to focus on the people already in your database. Reach out to them with relevant information and messaging that can truly help them.

Let insights guide relevant outreach.

There's an old adage that applies now more than ever: "People don't hate buying; they hate to be sold to." It's essential that your sales efforts do not ignore the reality of the current crisis. Now is not the time to pretend it's "business as usual" for all of your target accounts.

Instead, think about the steps your company can take to be sensitive to the needs of buyers. For example, here's how my team is using Account Intelligence to avoid this:

• We've done research on our most high-value target accounts. That insight allows us to tailor outreach based on relevant audience priorities and their mindset right now.
• We are relying heavily on engagement data such as virtual event attendance, content downloads or intent data to ensure every touchpoint is both relevant and timely based on the behavior of our prospects.
• We are using intent data and predictive analytics to identify the hot accounts most worth our limited time and budget.

Efforts such as these can enable your company to ensure relevant outreach sequences are based on your understanding of the buyer and what they need. It's rarely a hard sales pitch, but rather helpful content that will help each account during trying times.

Consider orchestration.

Sales and marketing will align naturally if they share responsibility for a defined universe of named prospects. But to get the most out of these teams in a time when every dollar spent is under scrutiny, consider automating their activities. A number of businesses (my own included) offer orchestration solutions, or you can orchestrate your sales and marketing departments on your own.

In an "orchestration" model, marketing crafts relevant, engaging outreach that is approved and executed by your sales or customer success teams. Rather than operating independently, your sales, marketing and customer success teams synchronize outreach to a target account and its multiple stakeholders.

Overall, if you choose to transition to an orchestrated approach, be mindful of the following common speed bumps:

• Going it alone: Orchestration is a team-based approach. Your goal is to align revenue teams (i.e., marketing, sales and customer success).?You can download The B2B Marketing & Sales Orchestration Playbook to go deeper on orchestration and learn 20 orchestrated plays that you can utilize immediately.
• Generic outreach: Personalize to each buyer at valuable accounts, and ensure content and messaging is relevant to the key contact in the account.
• Funnel tunnel vision: Use orchestration through the entire life cycle of the account, from awareness and acquisition to renewal and customer advocacy. Don't limit yourself to just one part of the funnel.

Be empathetic toward nervous buyers.

During uncertain times, buyers are more uncertain and risk-averse, which means you need to step up your efforts to build trust. Make sure every marketing touch is reinforced with validation, such as reviews, analyst opinions, customer references, awards, etc.

Measure everything.

In down economies, marketing budgets are often the first to get cut. So ensure you're measuring the return on investment of every campaign and activity. This enables marketers to both allocate their budgets to the areas of maximum impact and ensure their budgets are making a difference.

I hope these recommendations help you to adapt to these changing times. If you succeed, it's not only good for your bottom line, but it's also good for your buyers. Everybody wins.

Note: A variation of this article was originally posted in Forbes.