B2B Marketing and the changing face of cutting-edge creativity
While the coronavirus pandemic has brought sizable challenges to businesses, it has also opened up a myriad of opportunities, especially when it comes to B2B marketing.
The ongoing COVID-19 crisis forced B2B buyers and sellers to go digital in a tremendous manner. What started as a response to the pandemic, has now become the new normal, with massive implications for how buyers and sellers are doing and will do business in the future.
Trends indicate that astute businesses are coming up with new and innovative marketing tactics to remain connected to valued clients and build connections to new and prospective consumers. The pandemic is changing the dynamics of consumer behaviour. Hitherto, sales professionals formulated strategies based on face to face interactions. But in the wake of coronavirus, B2B selling has had to adopt strategies based on the prevalent market situations, considering the new consumer habits.
Here are some of the B2B marketing strategies in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic that may help your business in the current marketing landscape.
Embrace Cold Calling and Revisit Cold Sales Data
The graphic depiction of sales holds massive importance in the successful B2B selling. This starts with revisiting your cold sales data and identifying potential customers for the business. In the age of coronavirus pandemic and more remote work settings, Account Executives (AEs) and Sales Development Representatives (SDRs) are finding that cold calling services from established platforms such as SalesHives, are becoming more effective than ever.
Despite preceding criticism, cold calling continues to endure the test of time, simply because sales professionals need to generate activity to build a pipeline. It serves as an effective approach to stay in touch with the prospects, share relevant information and insights, and simply keep the conversation going.
Since COVID-19 has brought about numerous changes in the B2B selling landscape, the cold calling data needs to be revisited with suggestions for an improved customer experience. Many clients are utilizing tools and technologies to understand the pulse of the market. What discussions are currently ongoing? How do you align your entire go-to-market strategy behind that? How will you fine-tune your messaging as well as the creative tone of voice? Based on available data and insights, how will you deliver the right message and right content at the right time to the clients?
Research indicates that well-planned cold calling services can deliver answers to such questions by providing successful ways to obtain new customers and increasing revenue. SalesHive cold calling services, for instance, are designed to provide targeted professional activities to attract new customers easily and quickly. Their program is developed to allow their callers to focus on one thing only – making dials to book meetings.
Be Empathetic and Switch to ‘Yes’ Mode
It’s vital to understand what your client needs in order to get the deal across the finish line. B2Bs haven’t been sensitive enough to what their prospects, customers, and colleagues there are dealing with, especially in the wake of the pandemic.
For sales leaders, it is vital to have a playbook of possibilities that reps can deploy in the right situations to avoid missing out on the emotional mark and thus struggle to create new connections with critical audiences. Remember, the pandemic isn’t the only thing that is going on currently; 2020 and 2021 have seen protests and social unrest around the globe related to financial and gender inequalities, race, genocides, and other vital social issues.
Wherever you stand socially, culturally, and politically, it is essential to be mindful of the tone of your marketing campaigns. To improve your human touch, you might consider offering a free feature that would normally cost a premium. Think about offering temporary discount offers or deferred payment options to help your prospect get through the pandemic. The goal is to be empathetic and nail human authenticity, particularly during the COVID-19 crisis.
Master the Consumerization of B2B Marketing
Remember, B2B buyers are consumers too, and marketers today are increasingly adopting approaches needed to recognize that. Contemporary buyers are used to experiencing digital fluidity, where they can straightforwardly find anything they are looking for. Until the pandemic, B2B buying experience rarely delivered this form of digital sophistication and left clients frustrated as they sought a seamless, personalized, and convenient experience.
A recent McKinsey research of decision-makers in 11 states, across different sectors indicates that digital marketing and remote work will become an instrumental part of the sales processes during and after the pandemic. This trend towards digitization isn’t new, but what came out of this research is how critical it is for B2B marketers.
Following consumers’ behaviour to shift online, 90 percent of B2B sales interactions have gone remote. Not only have these interactions shifted remote, using web-sale models, phone conversations, video conferencing, and others will see digital interactions become two to three times more critical to B2B clients than traditional sales interactions.
Unlike traditional sales models, virtual selling methods are shown to increase customer engagement, making it easier to receive information, place an order, and arrange quick delivery for improved customer experience. Besides such convenience, digital selling models are speedy and cost-effective in comparison with face-to-face selling.
Focus on both Creativity and Flexibility
Critical elements that are still missing in B2B marketing are creativity and flexibility. B2B marketers are known for staying the course and adopting the ‘in-the-box techniques. But, to gain a competitive edge in any business marketing model, they need to add a touch of both creativity and flexibility to create opportunities that can engage prospective customers.
This is particularly true amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The increasingly diffused audiences, unpredictable changes, negotiation of endless deals, as well as new demands for campaigns that land experiences will definitely mean great challenges for marketing teams and their creativity.
Campaigns need to be pre-baked with creativity and flexibility built-in to ensure that broad and diffused audiences are engaged. This demands creating something out of the ordinary to increase brand value, focusing on customizing content, as well as a willingness to refine any part of these if need be.
