Archive for Marketing
Prospects are doing more on their own, but they also welcome human contact.
Salespeople need to start a new conversation with their prospects.
When priorities shift, opportunities emerge!
Marketers emerging into a “new normal” after weeks of isolation are discovering there’s nothing normal about the “return to normal.” For one thing, a good chunk of the world is not returning to the office at all. These people have discovered they can function perfectly well in their home setting. Most companies (including Verdi) are working out accommodations for this remote function, but it takes a toll on marketing and sales managers who need to work out the scheduling of meetings, deadlines, and deliverables with new considerations and tools.
Verdi is hearing that the cheese has moved for many salespeople.
Prospects’ needs have shifted. Sales techniques have changed—some of your old hot leads have used the time at home to research new partners and vendors. Meanwhile, other unsuspected prospects have developed a new need for your services, but you might not be aware of their interest. Some of your leads have decided to stay home—no more “lunch and learns,’ no more dinners, golf outings, or after-work meetings. Sales people need help from
marketing!
Marketing to the rescue!
This is the time for marketing to come to the rescue of your sales team with a plan to recover.
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Requalify your hot leads. Make sure you still know how (and where!) to reach them. Make sure their interest has not flagged, that their need has not shifted, and that their budgets are intact. Cost: a few hours of telemarketing. Value? Priceless!!
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Take the money you set aside for show attendance and redeploy it into a high-impact, multitouch marketing campaign that will help you identify prospects at every stage of the buying continuum. Spend the money while you can, or you’ll find that next year you won’t have it in your budget. Salespeople need you to refill your lead funnel—and fast enough so that your salespeople can make a start on filling their quotas. Cost? A fraction of what you would have spent on the show. Value? Priceless!!
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Integrate your program follow-up with your sales team. This is the time to tear down the traditional obstacles and barriers between sales and marketing. For once, salespeople will be grateful for the leads you provide, and will be happy to work with you on the follow-up, the lead nurture efforts, and the development of content for each stage of the buying journey. Cost: Time to over-communicate, provide sales-enablement tools, and a program sales playbook, along with personalized communications to support each member of the team. Value? Priceless!!
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Marketing automation: Use it! If you have a marketing platform and you are using it consistently, you’re ahead of the game. (If not, you can use ours!) Now is the time to put your marketing automation through its paces. It can help you sort out those prospects whose needs have changed, and quickly allow you to direct or redirect appropriate content to them, measure their engagement, and recalculate their lead scores. Cost: Reasonable. Value? Priceless!!
Use your agency as your partner. As an agency, Verdi works with many companies, and we can talk about the post-COVID experience across many industries. We are reviewing plans with all of our clients. Requalifying leads for most. Planning strategies to replenish their lead funnels, helping them with marketing automation, and working on account-based-marketing programs to help jump-start the third and fourth quarters of the year. Some of our clients are still in shock from the change they have lived through. But we are helping them start up again. We can help you!
At this writing, it looks as if we are past the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. We’re in the recovery stages, and it’s time to do some planning.
The first half of the year has slipped away, and we all have a lot of catching-up to do. As an agency, Verdi is here to help.
Let’s do the easy stuff first:
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Let’s rebuild and verify your lead funnel. We need to make sure your prospects are where they said they were four months ago. Has their contact information changed? Are they back to work, or are they working from home? Are they still interested in engaging with you? Don’t assume; be sure! The Verdi Group can do that for you. You can’t afford to lose any ground with your best prospects or waste time on those who have shifted. The sooner you know where they stand, the better you’ll be able to plan for the future.
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Meet with your agency to plan your third and fourth-quarter activity. Make sure you are comfortable with the tactics already under development. A lot has changed this quarter, and your plans need to be reviewed. A strategy session with your agency – even if you leave your plans unchanged – is well worth the couple of hours it will take, and you’ll enter the second half of the year with more confidence.
Meet (online) with your agency team. The agency, with its position as an outside partner with a creative outlook, can be a great asset to your planning and can bring a new perspective to your strategy. Long term, your goals will have changed, your prospects and sales process need to change to reflect the new reality. This means that your marketing strategy should be adjusted to account for the cultural shift of fewer public events, working from home, and Zooming.
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With your marketing agency, take a hard look at your martech stack. Technology has advanced – making possible personalized custom content directed to the various members of your prospects’ buying influences. It’s now easy to assess engagement, buying intent, and readiness to buy. Some of this technology is useful, but other parts are costly and offer more hype than practical benefits. Your agency can advise you on what is working and what may not be fully baked yet.
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Last – but not least – work with your agency to strengthen your relationship, to encourage them to become more collaborative with your team, and to help each other through these difficult times.
Many of our B2B clients are rethinking their marketing strategy to compensate for the projected closing of many, if not all, the shows they were planning to attend. Often these shows have been the basis of projections for meeting projections. They are also frequently the single most costly part of a B2B marketing budget.
Check out this article from last week’s Rochester Business Journal where our very own John D Clayton, SME in predictive analytics, discussed how analytics can help the construction industry by taking out the guesswork.
The Verdi Group is an award-winning, full-service direct marketing agency. We exceed response expectations by delivering creative that delights our clients and their customers. If you would like to work with us or find out more information. Fill out the following form as we will get back to you as soon as possible.