There is a lot of bad news being reported in the Summer of 2020. Many companies are struggling and there is much uncertainty in the economy.
There has always been risk and uncertainty in the results seen from digital marketing and there is risk in any business venture. During the pandemic of 2020 this risk has intensified. The pressure is on sales and marketing teams to produce results.
There is hope.
Let’s take a break from bad news and look on the bright side. There are many positives coming out of uncertain times leading to sales and marketing success. Here are 10 digital marketing upsides to take away in these challenging times.
1. Get Your Digital Marketing in Order
There is no better time than now to get your digital marketing in order. Your team has more time at their desk and in front of their computers. They can use this time to develop better marketing and sales strategies and improve digital marketing tactics.
No more wasting time or settling for less from your website and digital marketing efforts. It’s time to get serious about marketing as it may determine success or failure for your company. Stop ignoring a poorly-performing website and implement digital tactics to attract prospects to you. Follow our Four-Step Process and start with a strategic digital marketing plan.
Inbound marketing has become more challenging during the pandemic, but several opportunities have arisen. These trends can be seen in Google Ads and search traffic. Research these trends and find ways to make them work for your business. Transform and evolve your products and services to be of value during this challenging time.
This is the time to focus on marketing.
2. Coordinate Your Sales and Marketing Teams
Get your marketing and sales efforts working together. Train your sales team to deal with a highly-educated buyer who has researched your company in-depth before they make contact.
Schedule meetings where sales people talk with the marketing team and relate the stories they are hearing from prospective customers. These stories become the basis for value-added content for your website and digital marketing efforts. Marketing staff must listen to sales people to understand what content will attract people to your company.
Remember, marketing generates leads and sales people close business. Coordinating their efforts closely will drive results and grow sales.
3. Bring Diversity Into Your Digital Marketing
Seek various opinions of what works in digital marketing and look for diversity in your marketing and sales teams. Now is the time to try new approaches and look for new markets. This is not done well using approaches that got you where you are today.
Diversity will open up new target markets and fresh content to better connect with a diverse set of prospective customers and clients.
4. Upgrade Lead Generation Efforts
Marketing automation is needed for your sales team and email marketing efforts to drive efficiencies and improve sales. If you are not doing this already, your competitors will, and take away market share.
HubSpot is an excellent option for marketing automation and lead nurturing. Tools like HubSpot help you reach targeted leads, stay in touch with them and convert them into sales. The data seen in HubSpot allows you to better understand call-to-actions (CTAs) and what works to convert visitors into sales leads.
It’s time to remove all the “learn more” buttons from your website. Make these buttons value-added and give prospects a reason to click. Better CTAs are:
- Buy Now
- Speak to an Expert
- Get a Demo
- Free Quote
- Free Consultation
- Start Growing Sales
- Start Saving Now
- Email newsletter sign-up
- eBook or PDF download request
- Webinar sign-up
- Workshop or seminar sign-up
Your best leads will come from your current database of followers, influencers and customers. HubSpot is a tool to stay in touch with these contacts so your company is top of mind when they are ready to buy.
Intuitive Websites is a certified HubSpot partner and reseller, contact us to get a free HubSpot trial and start improving sales.
Click here to read more about HubSpot and get started with a free HubSpot demo.
5. Work The Middle of The Funnel
This is where the hard work takes place. Many companies focus on driving awareness and have excellent sales people to close new business. However, they struggle to grow because there are not enough prospects in the middle of the funnel. This happens because your company is not producing enough content and resources for people to review during their buying journey.
The good news is you can find content writers to help you and video producers can now shoot and edit excellent videos on their phone. This gets the middle of the funnel content done.
Also, work live digital events into your content mix like webinars and live podcasts. The growth in webinars and digital content is driven by the current pandemic. Don’t be left behind and start developing the middle of funnel content today to get found and help people research your company.
6. Increase Engagement From Social Media
Transform social marketing from “busy work” to fill space into a key top of funnel tactic. Look at social media strategically and provide direction to the staff making posts.
This means your social media content must have value and CTAs should be appropriate for social media posts. This includes webinars and remote events, which can do very well in social media. This is a good place to experiment with paid ads in social media to boost your posts and expand your reach. Always have a clear CTA when boosting posts.
7. “StoryBrand” Your Content
Make your prospective customer the hero and become their guide. Read Don Miller’s book “Building a StoryBrand” and use those concepts to write content better connecting with the needs of your audience. This starts with your website homepage tagline and flows through all the key product and service landing pages. Get up to speed on StoryBrand to drive higher engagement with your content.
8. Build Your Digital Marketing Scorecards and Track ROI
This step is usually skipped in a booming economy. The current pandemic has made tracking ROI in digital marketing critical. Lack of accountability for digital marketing spend increases risk!
Watch the digital marketing data and manage digital reports. Review your traffic channels to see what’s changing during COVID-19. Is the use of mobile up or down? Which regions are people coming from to visit your website? Are there opportunities to use Google Ads or new approaches to find customers?
Use A/B testing to measure your content and CTAs. More importantly, use a scorecard for each digital marketing channel to measure the team’s effectiveness towards your company goals. Schedule a digital marketing meeting and ask team members to bring a scorecard with goals and their approach to measuring ROI.
9. Assess Your Team’s Ability Based on Results
The challenging times a world-wide pandemic are driving high levels of accountability in sales and marketing and may result in team members leaving. Their work must be replaced by those who can meet or exceed digital marketing goals. Most likely, these team members are already on your team or you may have to outsource to fill in the gaps.
It’s easy to get by when sales are going well, but challenging times require difficult decisions. Get the right people, in the right digital marketing seats.
10. Take Advantage of Government Assistance
The government has been providing significant resources to help small businesses through the economic turbulence. This will likely continue until things turn around.
Invest your PPP money and other government support wisely in the growth of your company. Don’t just keep your employees around, take the time to train them on digital marketing and sales. Motivated employees can do amazing things when trained properly!
If you are in the B2B space, remember many companies added PPP funds to their cash reserves and are looking for ways to invest. Your improved content and digital marketing efforts will attract them to you as an option. Their decision to buy from you will not be based on price, but rather value and ROI. That perceived value is first seen in your digital marketing content and nurtured in your digital marketing funnel.
Summary
Many companies must completely change their business model to survive the pandemic and this will not be easy. To make these marketing strategies work, you may need to offer new products and services or modify what you are already doing. At Intuitive Websites we are working with clients to offer remote services and products that can be sold online.
With every challenge comes an opportunity. The Internet and apps like Zoom gives your company the ability to reach almost every person on the planet with your message.
Companies must now wake up and take their digital marketing seriously as they can no longer ride a strong economy. Take advantage of the global pandemic as a time to maximize your marketing and sales strategy to get your business on track in 2020 and beyond.
