Nearly every face-to-face marketing event in the world has been cancelled to help contain the spread of COVID-19. In response, organisations are scrambling to find alternate and effective ways to engage with customers and prospects.
Aside from the core need to maintain contact with customers and find new leads from a diminishing pool of customers, there is another practical problem facing many marketing organisations inside larger firms.
This is the need to invest budgets before quarterly, half or annual budget cycles close out and unspent funds are clawed back by finance or procurement. The downstream effect is that budgets for the next period are likely to be reduced by the same level of underspend.
Marketing directors are working up new programs as fast as they can and the question we’re increasingly getting is, ‘What activities can we switch on quickly now, but still be strategic and effective?’
Clearly, simply throwing money at disconnected, random tactics won’t serve anyone well.
Digital marketing is where the money is going
There’s a meme doing the rounds on social media. It’s a checklist-style survey question that asks, ‘Who’s leading your digital transformation?’ The possible answers are CEO or CFO or COVID-19.
It pretty much captures the broader business revolution happening day by day, including in marketing departments around the world. If you can’t see your customers and prospects face-to-face then digital engagement is the primary option.
Most organisations have digital programs in market already, but now the envelope is expanding, and a lot more thought is being given to the medium- and long-term approach.
If this describes your current situation, then here’s our view on what to consider as you pivot into a mostly digital marketing world:
1. The normal marketing rules still apply
A unique value proposition, a clear picture of the buyer’s journey, targeted buyer personas, geographic focus and all the other macro considerations remain as constants. Build your plans around objectives, strategies and tactics.
2. Build integrated campaigns
Flow your audiences back to your owned assets (your website or campaign landing pages). Find those audiences through paid (online advertising) and earned assets (online word of mouth, organic search, and media endorsement (PR)).
Activate the digital channels that reach your audiences best and offer top, middle and bottom-of-funnel content, and link everything together. Don’t be afraid to deep dive into Google analytics to find every last campaign insight.
3. Lead with valuable content
We often describe digital marketing as a trading platform. If you want something from your target audience (a lead form filled in maybe), then you have to offer something of value in return.
Content that educates, challenges, explores, explains and shows how to solve problems in practical, accessible and new ways is valuable if your audience targeting is right. This can include authoritative e-books, insightful best-practice guides, invaluable tip sheets, fascinating customer case studies, educational podcasts and compelling online events (just for starters).
4. Go the distance
For the first time, we’re seeing a large cohort of companies wanting full-year, managed digital marketing campaigns and not just quick, tactical activities.
The undisputed fact is that many digital programs work better if they’re given time to mature.
Google’s search algorithms don’t pop companies to the top of their search results overnight. It’s a process of building trust and demonstrating value over time, and this applies to both search engine optimisation and search engine marketing.
Google Ads that appear at the top of search results get there through a combination of factors, not just bid price.
LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram all factor in engagement, relevancy, quality and other elements to determine where and how often advertising is shown to your target audience, and longevity is part of that.
5. Explore the full array of digital options
We’re about to see an explosion of nascent digital channels hit the big time. Podcasts, chatbots, webinars, managed multi-stream virtual events on platforms like ZOOM, augmented reality and virtual reality walk-throughs, demonstrations, events and meetings will all come to the fore as new apps and services pop up overnight.
Now is the time to explore these. Many people are becoming bored at home sitting in front of a screen. What can you do to create an experience that speaks to your brand, delivers great information and engages with your prospects in an unforgettable way?
6. Sweat your marketing automation platform
It’s common knowledge that making marketing automation systems work well is not easy. Now is the time to dig into that technology and master it (or we can help you). Set up your email nurture streams, build lead scoring, create your branching, logical and sequential campaigns, set up campaign tracking and activate your profiling surveys so they deliver actionable intelligence your sales teams can work with.
Where to next
Hopefully this short list provides a few ideas to frame your own digital marketing response.
Digital marketing is the obvious bet when it comes to reallocating events-based marketing funds and we’re likely to see a lot more organisations creating scalable, repeatable and disciplined, multi-month digital programs that build engagement with target audiences over time.
If you’d like to know how we can help, get in touch.
