During COVID times the question that has become critically important for businesses is – how to keep your marketing consistent and attract leads? COVID-19 has impacted global and Indian economy in an alarming manner. Brand marketing has been affected. Today, there are signs of the lockdown opening up, but uncertainty still prevails.
Many businesses are trying to work on how to adapt their marketing strategies. They are also worried about sales. How can they meet lead generation targets? Can traditional face-to-face networking work or how can they make businesses meaningful and profitable?
As the pandemic pursues, it may be hard to drive revenue. But, innovation is happening and businesses are trying to generate leads – to tide over the storm.
Digital experience is critical
Having a strong web presence is critical at this point of time when the work culture has switched to the ‘digital’. Now, businesses are putting more energy into crafting creative content and building a better digital experience. With digital channels, it gets easier to track and measure, compared to “traditional” forms of marketing. Marketers have access to many different data points, and this allows them to see the full picture of campaign performance and immediately identify improvement areas.
Some of the effective tips for lead management are:
• Increase email activity: Email is emerging as the most effective marketing tool to increase revenue, communicate with the TG; and at the same time, it enables you to share your latest news, products and services with your TG. And during the COVID-19 pandemic, email marketing is proving to be effective. Emails can be leveraged to drive lead generation and revenue. Essentially, the plus points are – email marketing metrics such as open rate, repeat open rate, link clicks, CTR, etc, are measurable and manageable for your email activity. Significantly, research shows that businesses need to optimize their email marketing channel during crisis as acquiring a new customer is five times more expensive than retaining an existing customer!
• Host virtual events: Since COVID-19 has brought in ‘social distancing’ and travel restrictions, holding events has come to a halt. Businesses are organizing other ways to gather qualified leads. Virtual events have entered the scene and is getting bigger. Don’t worry over postponed or canceled events. It’s time now to add virtual events, and make all your programs available digitally. Online events is best to attract, engage, and convert your prospects in a simpler and more effective (regardless of the sector you belong to and the size of your business). Some popular virtual event solutions that you can benefit from are: Virtual Conferences & Summits, Trade Shows & Expos, Career Fairs and so on.
• Arrange webinars: According to marketers, a webinar is the best way to generate high-quality leads. Speaking at a webinar is an opportunity to simply convert into a digital format. Mainly, crucial factors will be working in your favor: demand for the information you are presenting and the existing marketing strategy. A webinar has the potential of gathering a larger audience compared to any physical event. You can also engage your audience with an interactive Q&A session at the end of the webinar – to understand their business weaknesses and offer them solutions customized to their business challenges.
• Start a podcast: You can listen to a podcast, while you are following WFH or on way to work or while even brisk walking. Podcasting is becoming popular. It is proving to be a great way to share multimedia content that your audience can hear automatically or when the time suits them. Many companies are also using podcasts to generate leads for their business because they can build a large audience.
Apart from the above activities, you can also opt for Quizes, Games, one-to-one talk series and so on.
Avtar Madan
Himanshu
Shree Lahiri
