I know we’re all a bit down lately, particularly with Easter having just passed, and all of us unable to congregate and celebrate together. While we’re all experiencing coping difficulties personally, we’re also feeling the effects of COVID-19 and social distancing in our businesses.

But instead of focusing too much on the problem, I think it’s a great time to talk about solutions. I recently did just that with growth marketing expert, Ben Lack, Director of Marketing & Business Development at Reciprocity. Ben and I discuss these same tactics at length and how to apply them today to better navigate these uncertain times. Check out our conversation here.

Also, instead of having to hunt down “Easter Eggs” of information on your own, I’ve broken down some of the top demand generation strategies discussed in the video here, to help you execute a plan of action now.

HAPPY HUNTING!

1. Revisit Your Offering

• Investigate your lost deals. Work closely with your sales team to find out why the deals are getting delayed/lost. For example, is it because your product/service is no longer a priority? Is it a budget issue? Is it a lack of time/bandwidth issue?
• Design a solution for each scenario. For example, if your product is not a priority, is there a way for you to reposition your offering to better serve your customers where they’re at today? Shift your position and market that new offer. Significantly, rapid value offers are far more likely to be adopted in this environment.
• Test the new positioning. If it’s a budget issue, then perhaps you can offer trials or adjust payment terms. If it’s a lack of time/bandwidth, can you adjust your product/service for easy deployment?
• Examine your target segments and accounts. While many businesses are struggling right now, and we must be sensitive to that, not all accounts, territories, and regions are equally affected. There may be businesses in some of these less affected industries that can really benefit from your offering right now.

2. Change Up Your Outreach

• Move to digital channels and virtual events. Digital marketing tactics like email marketing, content marketing, and conversion rate optimization are your best friend right now. While we’re all scaling back, make sure you don’t scale back too much! The tools and services that make these campaigns possible are essential right now.
• Find new contact methods. Calling people at the office may not work right now, unless they have call forwarding. Do you have alternative ways to reach your accounts? Email addresses and cell phone numbers, if you’re lucky, are the best way to create better coverage for these accounts.
• Be Human. Don’t forget that these guys are struggling as much as we are. Right now is a time to be generous and position your offer in a way that will help your customers. Keep in mind that they will be even less receptive to ‘hard sales tactics’.

3. Be Strategic

• Be smart with your budget. You need to know what you should cut and what you shouldn’t cut. You also need to reallocate the budget and resources you do have to the right segments and channels. Like we said before, investment in email marketing, content marketing, and conversion rate optimization technologies are important, but so are measurement tools.
• Target and measuring. The key to understanding whether any of this advice will actually work for you, is measuring the performance data. You must understand your by segments, territories, accounts, and buyer personas. You need to categorize your opportunities by location, industry, revenue, new vs. existing marketing pipeline, win/loss rates, conversion times, engagement, coverage, and intent. If you can’t measure these things then you won’t know who to target and how to reallocate your budgets.
• Locate your ‘Golden Egg’ opportunities. This data will tell you which buyer persona to target (i.e. ones that convert better and faster). It will also tell you which prospects you’re more likely to get the attention of, by looking at who already knows and has engaged with your business.
• Plan your egg hunt. Last but not least, you need to be able to create a forecast. No, not a sales based forecast- those will be useless because the landscape has changed so much. The forecast I’m talking about is based on your marketing funnel today, not historic performance.

Wondering where you can find such a tool? At Fortella, this targeting and measuring is exactly what our marketing platform and data application does. Right now, we’re offering a free trial to support you during this time and get you on the right track.

If you’re interested, please contact us.