With the sudden cancellation of industry events and in-person meetings due to COVID-19, many B2B companies are now making every effort to figure out how they can stay close to customers and prospects. At the same time, customers are facing professional and personal challenges: employee safety, business resilience, working from home, perhaps taking care of children while trying to remain productive.
This situation raises two fundamental questions for B2B marketers: when and how is it appropriate to engage customers and prospects in the short term, and what will the future of B2B marketing look like after the crisis?
First, don’t shoot yourself in the foot
Every action you take right now as a marketer can and will reflect on your brand, positively or negatively. To protect brand reputation, marketers should partner with their PR colleagues to align on the type of customer engagement. Are you adding value that can help a customer solve a current challenge, or are you simply pushing a somewhat inappropriate sales message? Understanding how receptive customers will be to certain messages and the timing of disclosure is critical to avoid appearing deaf or insensitive to the current reality.
For example, B2B companies that rely on marketing automation systems to deliver communications to customers and prospects should evaluate automated email and advertising campaigns to see if they are appropriate. For certain customers who are particularly affected during this period, companies may even consider pausing these automated communications.
Looking beyond the short term
Even if a “return to normal” is achieved, the disruptions created by COVID-19 will have lasting effects on how marketers work and behave in the long term, which must be anticipated and addressed in advance. For many of our clients, rethinking their strategies for conferences and events will be at the top of the list.
For some time now, companies have been looking at conference and event spending in relation to ROI. Not only are there inherent measurement difficulties with these activities, but there has also been an increasing focus on the influence of digital experiences and thought leadership on consumers.
We are advising our B2B clients to evaluate their efforts in three areas:
1. Virtual events
As companies grapple with the impact of COVID-19, marketers are keenly aware that not all aspects of business can be put on hold. Companies looking to pivot their communications and marketing approach due to canceled events should consider the following:
Understand objectives and KPIs:
Not all events are created equal. Some events are pure networking opportunities, while others are key drivers of sales. Scrutinize the goals and KPIs for specific events and consider the scale of your typical presence and investment to help determine what type of digital activation is needed to drive maximum impact.
Identify creative opportunities “beyond the booth”
Digital marketing offers unique opportunities for cross-promotion in partnership with customers, vertical media, and influencers. In certain industries, sales media has robust offerings to create content and target high-value decision-makers before, during, and after events. Geo-targeting attendees at physical events is another effective way to deliver relevant communications to narrow sets of people and maximize ROI on digital spend.
Think about post-event extensions
Events come and go, but the topics they focus on remain relevant over time. Webinars and other content developed for virtual events can have a second life as assets or even “interaction centers” to foster engagement with high-value targets long after an event has ended.
Keep up with the technological landscape: Today, there is no shortage of platforms for running virtual events, webinars, and other interactive experiences. Even standard business communication tools can be used creatively to broadcast live, record virtual meetings, and share content with participants. Unlike physical meetings, these tools can also provide performance data and insights into content interactions, individual engagement, and calls to action that can be used to personalize post-event nurturing and communications.
2. Ongoing customer engagement
Beyond specific events and newsworthy announcements, we recognize that B2B companies will quickly need other ways to fill the void and maintain ongoing interaction with their customers and prospects. We believe that highly relevant and timely communications—as opposed to a “shoot and pray” tactic—are more important than ever, as customers focus on their most obvious needs for the foreseeable future and filter out the rest.
Create more personalized content
B2B brands should strive to go beyond static personas and reflect the customer’s current “pain points” through strategic segmentation, personalized messaging, and compelling editorial that addresses the customer’s pain points.
Choose audiences with greater precision
B2B targeting strategies and tools such as Account-Based Marketing (ABM) and Predictive Intent Data already allow companies to reach highly funneled audiences, including specific sets of companies and even individual decision-makers across the consumer committee, when they demonstrate potential purchasing behaviors.
Adopt the right martech that fuels creative editorial content
Instead of a mass editorial approach, adopt publishing technologies that enable granular personalization and customized content experiences for niche audiences.
Leverage the role of sales enablement
Marketing has a role to play not only in gen demand, but also in providing sales teams with vital information, such as consumer intent signals, which topics and content assets are succeeding, and even competitor statistics that can help the sales department be better prepared to engage with potential customers.
3. Thought leadership
In the long term, B2B marketers should think about ways to not only adjust but also improve their customer engagement strategies once this period is over. As many customer organizations may need to navigate a period of post-crisis stabilization, we believe that companies that can provide valuable insights into their customers’ challenges will have their full attention.
Find customer insights in the trenches
Engage frontline sales teams and customer relationship managers to discover the topics of greatest concern to customers and current perspectives during this period of disruption.
Focus on elevating thought leaders rather than pure sales promotion
The Edelman study and LinkedIn’s B2B Thought Leadership Study show that thought leadership has an impact on every stage of the buying process. Promoting executive viewpoints, subject matter experts, and solutions to problems, rather than just products and corporate messaging, can generate higher levels of engagement and mid-to-low funnel activity.
Use big-picture thinking to condition the market
Many companies focus on chasing leads with a “last-click” mentality. Fewer companies invest and strive to gain credibility in the minds of customers and create an environment that stimulates lasting demand. Especially now, timely insights that add value are more likely to resonate with senior decision-makers who are thinking about the highest priority needs of their own business.
Conclusions
We are still beginning to recognize and respond to the effects of this pandemic on business activity. The duration and severity of COVID-19 will be very important in determining the right (and wrong) types of future B2B marketing. Collaboration and information sharing are essential. We will continue to share what we learn as the situation evolves and shed light on the best strategies available.
Joe Kingsbury is Managing Director, US, Business Marketing. Ben Laws is Executive Vice President and Market Leader, West.
EDC is Edelman’s Affiliate Partner in Portugal. See the original Edelman news story here.
