Marketing leaders are reacting to the consequences of Covid-19 by re-wiring their marketing strategy. The existing plan is worthless today. In our previous article – why do you need to re-wire your marketing strategy – you have read the significant changes and impacts on business. Now, let’s take a more in-depth look at how you can solve the questions that arose in such an article and what the marketing priorities are.
Optimizing marketing budget
Where are we going to spend the budget? Thinking about how to distribute the yearly budget has been historically a marketing important task and has produced more than one headache to the responsible person. From it, it depends on how you are going to achieve the desired results. How much are you going to outsource? How much are you going to invest in paid advertising? Which tools are you going to use? These are some of the questions that any budget holder could ask oneself.
The uncertainty and upcoming financial crisis have led to marketers to optimize their budget. It is time to adjust yours to cope with the situation. But how can you start optimizing yours? First, think about what tools or platforms your company is subscribed to. Analise them and try to keep the essential ones. Second, pause all ad campaigns you were running so far. The scenario has changed entirely for both your company and your customer. Where is the need now? Third, there are no more physical events at the moment. How much budget have you planned for it? That is already something you could spare and contribute for cost-saving purposes. Think before you decide to reinvest it in something else.
What about hiring? Not at the moment. This last point leads us to outsource. You might be used to hire freelancers to carry out certain activities such as content writing, graphic design or website optimization. Marketing must keep functioning. Therefore, recycling existing content, maximizing your in-house resources can help you to keep your activities up.
Focus on existing customers – An account-based approach
Understanding your customer has always been crucial. Today, it is a priority in any marketing strategy. Historically, acquiring new clients can be up to 5% more expensive than retaining an existing one. Therefore, the focus has switched to an account-based approach.
How can you better listen and understand your customer? Your customer has changed. They have different needs, challenges and priorities. Furthermore, they spend more time on digital/social platforms than ever before. LinkedIn has become the B2B platform by excellence. Customers share content about their products and services, they express their business concerns, but they also look for information they need on the same platform.
Social Selling has increased its relevance over the last weeks after becoming a real solution to listen to the customer. Marketing leaders acknowledge that applying social selling is tremendously beneficial to achieve good results. Social Selling tactics have helped thousands of professionals to establish their brand in the online space, identify the key business Decision-Makers (BDMs) and to raise the engagement towards that specific account.
Digital Skills
Do your employees have the right digital skills? Since neither face-to-face meetings nor face-to-face meetings are possible at this time, what are the alternatives? The employee can’t shut down their activities. Marketing needs to keep networking and having those individual conversations. Everything must happen virtually and who knows whether we will ever attend a physical event again.
That leads to organizations to elevate their employee’s digital skills to remain competitive and reach their goals. There are three essential skills that your employees must have today: social selling, digital networking and how to present in the digital era.
Social Selling skills will allow your employees to maximize three important strategic business aspects. First, establishing your online professional brand. They need to ensure the establishment of their online professional brand to guarantee the added value when any customer gets interested in their profiles. Second, improving their digital connectivity. The more they are connected with the customer, the higher the visibility of their content will be. Remember that it is very important to multi-thread. Get to know the key BDMs to drive more business opportunities. Last but not least, engaging with your prospects. Social selling will enable broader visibility and higher engagement from the right BDMs.
Digital platforms and tools are activating the possibility to organise virtual events. Webinars, live interviews or live demonstrations can perfectly fulfil the lack of physical events. You can even do the networking and have the right conversations you used to have face-to-face when attending events. Digital events will provide you with countless positive results. Check these articles to learn more about it.
Eventually, your employees must present online. Whether it is a team meeting, a prospect call or a webinar, your workforce needs to be prepared to successfully present in the digital era. Since our coaching team has been presenting and executing online sessions over the last ten years, this infographic would help you to apply some tips about presenting in the digital era.
We believe that the future will be shaped by how people will use digital tools and social platforms. That is why we set the foundation for large organizations to win in the social space. We have helped thousands of marketing and sales professionals to fully leverage the potential of digital strategies.
