Effective growth marketing means, among other things, that you have to be able to adapt your sales and marketing strategies when called for. Sometimes these changes will be necessitated by internal changes within your organization or a shift in your consumer audience. And sometimes these changes will be based on the larger context in which you’re doing business — you know, like a global pandemic.
Times change, but the need to hit your sales goals doesn’t. To continue growing and succeeding, it’s important that you modify your strategies where needed so that you don’t just ride the wave of change but come out ahead of the game. Not only is this essential to growth marketing, it’s also essential to doing business in the constantly evolving digital age.
So, where do you start? Below, we’ve shared some ways to adapt your sales and marketing strategies for effective growth marketing in the current environment, with helpful takeaways for ensuring your team — and your sales quota — stays on track.
Why Growth Marketing Matters Now More Than Ever
Before we talk tips, let’s consider the role of growth marketing in your organization — especially, when the going gets tough.
Growth marketing means taking steps to optimize and improve your processes, protocols, and performance. Many established companies hire designated growth marketing teams, but even small businesses and startups should be channeling resources toward the initiative.
Key to note here is that growth marketing is data-driven. Rather than guessing what changes need to happen, the idea is that you strategically devise and test improvements before cementing them into place. Not every tactic will succeed, but the ones that do will be adopted and put to use to secure future success.
In the present, when face-to-face meetings are nixed and the “normal” way of doing things has undergone a major shakeup, you need to be going to the drawing board with your sales and marketing strategy, putting your data to use to shore up your processes and keep heading in the right direction. Failure to do so could inhibit your growth potential both now and in the future. It could also put you at a serious disadvantage when things start to level out again.
Optimize Your Sales and Marketing Strategy
Your goal: move full steam ahead, even if the rest of the world has seemed to slow down. While there might not be time for lots of back-and-forth testing, consider a growth marketing “lite” approach, with smart changes based on existing data and additional adjustments made as you go.
Here are some places to begin.
1. Survey your customers
The best way to find out what your customers need right now is simply to ask them. A customer survey will be integral to helping you establish what digital changes will most benefit your sales and marketing tactics, as well as what your customers (current and potential) are looking for out of your product or service right now — and out of their experience with your company.
Use the survey to identify digital gaps that need to be filled, such as video-based demo opportunities or explanatory drip campaigns. Just be sure to keep the survey relatively short and simple to increase your chances of getting responses, and to frame your questions specifically around what you’re trying to learn instead of making them overly broad.
2. Open up the lines of communication
Conferences, networking events, and other in-person lead generating opportunities are on the backburner, so you need to offer plenty of alternative ways for interested prospects to get in touch.
Examine your existing data to see what channels people tend to use to reach out to your sales team. Is it social media? Email? Demo requests? All of the above? Whatever digital paths prospects are using to make the connection, make sure that they’re open and available, and that responses are going out fast. If you’re not already, this may be a good time to look into a chatbot widget (such as the ChatBot or Collect.Chat plug-ins for WordPress) or a similar tool that can provide instant or near-instant responses to incoming queries.
3. Give a boost to your content
Your content is one of the most valuable digital tools you have for generating and nurturing leads. It’s also key to growth marketing. If you haven’t already, it’s a fantastic time to audit your content KPIs and strategize for the future. Depending on your PPC performance, it may even be prudent to reroute some resources from paid to organic search, building a sustainable foundation of content that can bolster your efforts both now and in the future.
In addition to thinking ahead, look at your existing content to see what could be updated or tweaked for better results. You’ll be able to stretch the utility of things you’ve already created, all while targeting your information better to the current climate.
4. Rethink the funnel
Behind all sales and marketing strategies is a concept of what the traditional funnel looks like and how it operates. But what happens when the funnel changes?
The changes in processes and best practices spurred on by the pandemic are reflected in the funnel. As such, they need to be reflected in your strategy too. This includes embracing fully contactless modes of engagement, as well as rethinking your messaging to acknowledge how your customers have changed. In all cases, the stages themselves remain the same but your approach needs to be put into context with the world around it.
Go to the drawing board with your team and your data and map out the journey your customers are taking right now as they go from prospect to lead to client. If it looks different than normal (and it probably will), then brainstorm — and implement — optimizations on your end in response. If you don’t, you may inadvertently stand in your own way when it comes to helping your buyers navigate their journey.
At the heart of growth marketing is the idea that things can, and will, change — so you have to, too. Any digital optimizations that you make to your sales and marketing strategies right now should go a long way toward helping you ride out the storm. And when things change again (which they inevitably will), just revisit and revise as needed.
Interested in learning more about how HUSL Digital could be your key to success? Drop us a line and let’s get started today!