Olivia Atkinson
It's likely that your 2020 marketing plan has changed drastically in response to the disruption caused earlier on in the year. You most probably had events or trade shows booked in, even if you were just visiting, which have all quickly been shifted to online events.
Data should be the main driver for your strategy approach anyway, but now more than ever you need to dig down and find out which tactics are working best for you.
Each company will have different metrics, some may find that email marketing is really working for them, others may find producing guides and sharing them on social is keeping their customers engaged and interested.
However, there are some typical tactics which shouldn’t be adapted out of pure desperation and others that you should seriously consider for improving your presence online.
Which Tactics To Avoid Right Now
As the world has been forced to embrace digital and rely solely on what the internet has to offer, some companies have realised the power of a strong digital presence, and others are so desperate for trade they’re not being tactical with their approach.
Below are a few tactics that we don’t condone as standard, but at this particular time aren’t likely to work.
Cold Calling
Although not a recommended tactic anyway, especially now cold calling people isn’t the right approach to take. To start with, not everyone is back in the office yet, so it’s likely you won’t get through to who you need.
Secondly, as we’re all facing new challenges and trying to create a new strategy moving forward out of this pandemic, people won’t want to be sold to. Specifiers and architects have had more time than ever to do their research properly and will most likely know the companies they want to work with.
Touching base and reaching out to people you know are interested is a much smarter way of working that allows you to offer help and advice at the right time when they’re actively engaging with you.
Mass Emailing Bought Lists
Bought lists are not advised or recommended regardless, they can highly affect your email accountabilities if you continue to email dodgy contacts. GDPR is stricter than ever and if you don’t play by the rules, you can be penalised on your email creation platform.
It’s understandable that people are desperate for leads and want to be able to project their value across, but it needs to be to the right people. Having a quality, clean database is the most powerful tool you can have in marketing. Being able to reach out to people that you know are interested and are extremely likely to engage and convert.
Emailing random people, you don’t know isn’t likely to generate results and will cost you money. Building up a genuine list of contacts is a much better use of your time and money and will grow in value as time goes on.
Which Tactics To Adopt Right Now
It can be overwhelming when you dive into digital marketing and what the possibilities with, for example, automation are. However, right here right now, below are some things you can implement today and will help your business work smarter.
Implement A Free CRM System - HubSpot
HubSpot is such a powerful tool, even its free version can help in better understanding how your contact engages with you, seeing what works. 66% of HubSpot’s customers are on the free version, proving how invaluable it can be to your marketing and sales activities.
Even knowing when one of your contacts is on the website, which page they’re looking at gives you power in reaching out to them at the right time with an insight into what they need help with.
To view the full capabilities and how you can better target your customers read: How To Use Free CRM Software To Bounce Back Smarter.
Updating And Improving The Website
It’s likely that this crisis has pointed out a few improvements on your website, whether that’s the design, the functionality, the fact you’re not ranking highly on Google and nobody can find you or that it’s in desperate need of content.
Your website is your 24/7 sales machine, it can’t be furloughed, doesn’t take sick days, it never switches off, so it should be a lead generating machine that’s constantly working hard for you.
It’s an important part of your business, pandemic or not, however, the importance of companies’ online presence has been heightened due to the crisis.
There is uncertainty if everyone will even return to the office, it’s likely that working from home part-time or even full time will become an option for many people as companies have to make hard decisions to stay afloat.
Having your website in a prime position, that visitors like to use, find insightful, get value from, and is easily found when they’re looking for a solution is crucial as more people turn to the internet when researching.
Segmented Email Marketing
It’s likely that you provide to more than one type of business, if not more than one type of persona. Meaning you could segment your contacts into groups when emailing, so the message is clear and relevant.
If you send the same email to 2000 people when you know there are distinctive differences between the people then you’ll quickly lose contacts by sending them content that’s not relevant to them.
Even if you only have 20 people in one group, you’re more likely to engage with them if the tone of the email and the content is directly relevant to them.
Having a more personalised approach doesn’t cost anything, only your time at organising your contacts and tweaking the message of your email to suit.
For example, you may have found that some companies have returned to work and others haven’t, by segmenting them and not emailing those that aren’t there to receive it, you also improve your open rate and don’t risk getting so many hard bounces or undelivered emails.
Communicate Clearly
Social media can be such a powerful tool when it’s used effectively. Now is the time to use it and be consistent with your messaging to ensure it’s clear what’s going on. Not everyone can make changes to their website easily or quickly so being able to post on social media for free is a no brainer.
If people can’t find things such as open times or if you’re currently trading on the website, they’ll then look to social for answers.
Although selling your product or solution is important, it's better to approach it differently, especially on social media. The content on social media should be engaging, some behind the scenes, installation videos, product demos, blogs, guides, drawings and more.
Social media lets you show people how you work and what you’re about easily. To find out more on bouncing back with social media, click here.
Conclusion
Looking at all the digital marketing tactics that are out there can be scary, but it’s good to start somewhere. Now is the perfect time to embrace this digital shift that the industry has had and to prepare for the future.
Those reluctant to get one board will likely lose market share to those that are embracing digital which has a guaranteed audience, internet users.
It’s easy to slip into old ways and practice traditional methods such as cold calling to feel like you’re doing something, but those tactics are old news. Even before the pandemic, those methods weren’t recommended as a lot of people don’t like to be sold too.
Think about your own experiences, when you receive a random call about house insurance or extending your dishwasher warranty for a price, you’ve got your back up straight away. You haven’t heard from this company before, it’s completely out the blue, you don’t trust them, and they’ve interrupted you.
However, if I’d received a few emails about it prior to a call and they’d called me when I was reading said email or visiting the website, I might have been more likely to talk or even interested to buy as I’d have been educated on why it’s so important to extend my dishwasher warranty.
Remember the people you’re reaching out to are human, so personalise their emails, and have everything they could need on the website with no barrier that causes friction.
If you can take anything away from this blog, as a bare minimum get the free HubSpot account, it’s such a powerful tool and can give you such an insight into when your contacts are engaged, helping fast track conversations. I personally think it’s too good to be free!
This is just one of the blogs in our bouncing back series, see below to discover more:
- Bouncing Back With Content Marketing
- Bouncing Back: How To Build your Tech Stack
- Bouncing Back: How To Reach Your Audience
- How To Use Free CRM Software To Bounce Back Smarter
- How To Bounce Back Using Social Media
About Insynth
Insynth Marketing is a leading UK construction marketing agency based in Shifnal in the West Midlands.
They use the latest inbound marketing techniques such as construction inbound marketing, to support building product companies to grow their business by proactively driving sales lead generation activity.
As the only HubSpot certified agency to major on construction marketing, we bring together construction marketing strategy, digital strategy, website design, SEO, content marketing, email marketing, sales automation, marketing automation and HubSpot CRM implementation to produce successful campaigns and great results for our clients.