Business-to-Business Marketing in a Recession
Justin.King November 15th, 2008
Very appropriate post today from Marketo. In addition to the below great points, I would add that we need to make sure we are addressing the real needs of our customers, and find ways to engage with our customers in a relevant dialogue. This last week has been a week of conversations around “How do we engage with our customers in a meaningful and relevant way”. These are good first steps and I love that my customers are starting to think that way – here are some other strategies as well. I realized this week, that it is important to have a level setting conversation a couple of times a year with our customers. This conversation should be looking at the original objectives, measuring how we are doing, and brainstorming about new ideas.
It’s been a rough couple of weeks, as many are contemplating survival techniques. We have seen marketing budgets shrink considerably, but luckily businesses continue to move into interactive marketing so our plans remain steady.
Here are a couple great tips from that Marketo post.
What does all this mean? It means that now, more than ever, marketers need to:
- Maximize conversion of their advertising dollars into prospects by optimizing their landing pages.
- Stop wasting leads that aren’t yet sales ready and start using lead nurturing to build relationships so that when they are ready to buy, you’ll be positioned to win. In a recession, new prospects are less likely to be looking to purchase right away — which means they are less likely to want to talk to a sales rep. Lead nurturing is even more critical in a recession to ensure you convert the precious dollars you spend acquiring prospects into revenue.
- Use lead scoring to identify the best leads and help the sales team prioritize where they spend their time
- Prove the impact their marketing activities have on revenue and pipeline
What kind of conversations are you having?
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