The current economy may be sluggish, but a recession is no time for B2B companies to engage in a marketing strategy slowdown. At the recent SMX (Search Marketing Expo) Advanced Conference in Seattle, Jon Miller, Co-founder and Vice President of Marketing for Marketo, an on-demand marketing automation solution provider, suggested that tough times call for B2B companies to step up their use of measurable and relationship-based strategies such as search marketing, email marketing, lead nurturing, and online communities.
During a panel discussion on Search Marketing & Surviving A Recession, Miller provided the following seven strategies for B2B marketing during a downturn:
1. Improve lead management strategies. In a recession, risk-adverse buyers take even longer than normal to research potential purchases so lead scoring and lead nurturing become even more critical. Companies that can do a better job of managing leads and developing early-stage prospects into sales ready leads will be in the best position to thrive in a downturn.
2. Focus on your house list. Spend more time marketing to (and building relationships with) the people you already know. Create new content to offer existing prospects, develop lead nurturing campaigns and enhance your marketing lead database with progressive profiling.
3. Build and optimize landing pages. An effective landing page is an effective way to turn a click into a prospect. Driving customers to a relevant landing page and testing pages are two methods which can increase conversions significantly.
4. Develop content now for use in the buying cycle later. When buying slows down, it’s important to focus on those prospects that are ready to buy. Developing new content such as white papers, buyer’s guides and analysis that will appeal to these prospects is one way to attract those who are actually looking to buy.
5. Appeal to the nervous buyer. A recession can mean more risk-adverse buyers, which may lead to a tendency to go with "safe" solutions. Tactically, this means including customer references, reviews, expert opinions, awards, and other validation as part of your marketing.
6. Align sales and marketing. Many of today's prospects start their search online before they even interact with a sales representative. More than ever, it is critical to integrate marketing and sales efforts.
7. Don't be a cost center. Miller suggests that many executives today still think of marketing as a cost center which is due, in part, to marketers’ tendency to frame discussions in terms of costs rather than impact on revenue. Rather than using terms like “marketing spending” and “marketing budget” marketers need to create a new mindset by focusing on “marketing investments” which are based on a strong business case and amortized over the entire useful life of the investment. Marketing accountability also needs to increase, Miller says, with marketers demonstrating the impact of each marketing activity on pipeline and revenue.