The Covid-19 pandemic is crushing B2B sales as well as supply chains with equal force. With travel restrictions and a widespread economic shutdown to contain the spread of the virus, it is an unprecedented crisis for B2B sellers across the country.
But this is also the time to be proactive and find innovative solutions to reach out to your customers; you can turn the threat into an opportunity.
Readapt Your Offerings to How Coronavirus Impacts Your Clients
It is time to understand the new and unique pain points of your B2B customers and tailor your marketing approach to match their needs. Reconfigure your products and services in a way that helps customers address their current, never-seen-before challenges.
For instance, if you are selling video conferencing software or equipment, you could set up online support to consult and assist your customers with how they can use it now to achieve a more effective work-from-home output of their workforce. You could even sell new, co-location cloud solutions bundled with your existing products or services.
If you are in the logistics trade, you could reach out to your customers with digital solutions to help them navigate the new complexities affecting their supply chains. If you are involved with B2B travel, tour or hotel services, you could offer clients to host their industry meetings or trade shows on a virtual platform that you can provide.
Go Virtual with Your B2B Sales Presentations
It is time to repackage your B2B sales pitch and prospecting into a full-fledged web-based presentation in place of on-site meetings. Consider adding new things to your sales process that you have never thought of before, such as:
- Use Skype, FaceTime, Google Hangouts, or another web-based solution to offer a virtual tour of your factory floor to clients.
- Use Facebook Live or a mobile conferencing app to present a detailed product demo including members of your tech team who collaborate remotely from their homes.
- In place of an on-site meeting with a prospective client, send them a compelling YouTube video of your latest offerings and how they work, and then set up a web conference with your client where both parties can watch the video together.
Nurture Leads Rather than Worry about Immediate Conversions
B2B sales involve a meticulous journey of nurturing a lead before the sale is closed. In normal circumstances, it is hard to invest an adequate amount of time to nurture every promising lead and prospect. Look at the coronavirus situation as an opportunity to devote more time to lead nurturing and lead management with a view to winning long-term business.
Keep communicating with your leads, let them know that you are there to meet any contingent requirements they may have, and build a strong pipeline of prospects. In addition, utilize this time to re-assess your sales processes, operations, and platforms and refine your strategy for lead conversion when the opportune time comes.
Prioritize Your Existing Customers
The cost of acquiring a new B2B customer is about 10 times higher than what it takes to retain an existing one. In a fiercely competitive B2B marketplace, out of sight very often means out of mind. To continually engage with your existing client base in the current Covid-19 situation, use marketing automation.
This does not mean you create one standardized business letter or email and send it to all your existing clients. Send them personalized, targeted, contextualized messages at regular intervals to reassure them that you are active and committed to supporting them at all times.
Get more social with existing clients who have an active social media presence. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google My Business, and Instagram are the places where you can creatively engage with many of your clients in an informal, relaxed social environment.
The more visible you are in front of your existing clients when the times are tough, the more predisposed they will be to working with you when the fog clears and the sun shines on your industry once again.
Gear Up for Pent-Up Demand
Business and economic recovery are going to happen as suddenly and unexpectedly as the downturn has happened. So, do not cut back too far on your production and sales capacities and do not let go of your prized employees just because the current coronavirus conditions are unbearably painful. If you capitulate to the circumstances, you may not be positioned to take off once the economy rebounds post-crisis.
While this does not mean that you should do anything that increases the health risks for you or your employees in the prevailing situation, it’s vital to remain positive and adapt and evolve in order to bounce back stronger when the time is right.
David Balzen
CEO
