B2B Marketing: Your Budget Has Been Axed – How Do You Stand Out Now?

Thought Starters for B2B Marketing During a Crisis

We’re all experiencing the Corona crisis. There is nowhere to run and hide. No safe haven. No unaffected market that we can try to target to sell our products and services. And, it seems, there is nothing new to talk about. Everyone, everywhere is talking about Corona. Me too. It’s all I can think about. What do I do now and when will it end so I can do something else!?! 

As marketers we’re used to dealing with uncertainty and coming up with creative solutions when times are tough. But this time feels different... because it is. So if your CEO has just cut your budget and you aren’t sure where to turn. Here are some thought starters to help you turn those lemons into lemonade. 

But first, a bit of context, I’ve lived through many business crises before. I’ve always been amazed how, at the critical moment when business leaders should show, well…leadership, they bury their heads in financial spreadsheets. Like somehow the answer out of the poop you’re in lies in looking at the forecast you’ll never meet and the pipeline that will never deliver. The answer isn’t there! It is in your creative thinking. Your ability to pull together as a team, your mutual sacrifice so that everyone comes out ok in the end. 

Creative thinking is incredibly hard when everyone is panic stricken about their financial security. If you are driven by fear and small mindedness you go nowhere. This is the time for big, broad thinking, courage, humility, sacrifice and putting others first. This could actually be a great time for marketing to lead the way.

How to differentiate when all B2B marketers are talking about the same things?

The received wisdom is that crises are times for brand building and not for pushing products and promotions. But how do you build a brand when your budget is cut and there is a lot of noise drowning out your brand message? It’s hard to know what to say and how to say it. You don’t want to look like you're profiteering or opportunistic, but you don’t want to keep quiet either. 

Now is the time for meaningful, honest action. Your company may not have products or services that are going to save lives but if you can positively contribute to your industry then it could save jobs. And saving jobs is worth the effort!

Tip 1: Start at home

Take the risk of being totally transparent and publish your plan for how you’re sticking by your employees and zero hours contract workers. It doesn’t need to be perfect but it should honestly show how you are pulling out the stops to survive so that your employees, who have mortgages, families and life ambitions that are impacted by their ability to take home a salary, are at the core of your survival considerations. They are there for you everyday. Show how you are there for them. 

What a positive way to prove your company’s leadership and commitment, as well as ease employees’s minds so they can focus on their work. If you do a good job you may provoke a reaction from your competitors who will look to do the same. Prospects and customers will be reassured. Creativity will flow.

Tip 2. Help your customers survive

Your leadership team has drawn up a survival plan for the company. Now work with your sales team to create one for your customers too.

Look to your customers and understand what you can do to help them get through the crisis. Explain what you’re doing to continue improving your products or services. Ask them to help you rank order what is most important for their survival so you can focus on those things first. 

Over deliver on value add for your customers and prospects – use your services to help their businesses during these hard times. Consider offering something like additional consulting for free to help them fully use your products or limited time free upgrades to take advantage of additional services; perhaps audits or health checks. Ask them what would be most useful. If your customers can survive then when things start improving they will remember who was there for them when times were really tough.

TIP 3. Help the industry survive

Good marketing is also good leadership. What can you contribute so that your industry is stronger post crisis than it was before? Is there anything that you can offer to the industry at cost or with minimal markup? How can you work together (with safe social distancing) to pool resources, stem job losses, create standards and be mutually supportive? 

TIP 4. Help the community survive

Is there anything that you can do locally to contribute? There are great stories of big brands like Zara owner Inditex contributing to the effort by making scrubs for Spain’s hospitals. Is there something that your business can do on a smaller local level to keep employees active, keep the lights on and support your community? A small courier I know is offering safe, hygienic deliveries for local residents from local shops because he feels it’s really important to support local small businesses that are struggling.  

Give It a Go and Let People Know

Try the initiatives that make the most sense for your business and then share what you’re up to. From my point of view genuinely helpful and sincere acts shared in your owned channels and socials are much more interesting, stand out and impactful than perfectly polished, glossy brand statements. 

These thought starters may not stop the devastating impact of Coronavirus, but I hope they will get your creative juices flowing and your minds thinking laterally, because there is nothing worse during a crisis than staring at spreadsheets helplessly looking for hope.

Want to know more, get in touch: katherine@torrencemarketing.com