19 B2B Tips for COVID-19

We are going to share 19 B2B tips for digital marketing to help support businesses through this strange time.

Working from home

1. Keep Customer Relationships at the heart of everything
   Customers are the engine of your business and represent the values and mission of your brand. During these times of uncertainty, it's more important than ever to show you are committed to your clients by showing that those values are accurate and aligned with the new circumstances.

2. Team Catch-ups
   Schedule regular catch-ups with your team. It may seem obvious, but without going into a physical office you aren't going to be talking to your team as much. Keep morale up, schedule catch-ups with meeting software like Zoom or Skype.

3. Adopt a human approach
   In the current work-from-home climate, everyone has been put online - including B2B prospects! Thinking from a human perspective about the personal drivers of the buyer is what will set your business apart.

Looking to put your customers first? Here are some helpful resources on where to begin.

Content

4. Practice Responsible Marketing
   Tone-deaf campaigns are a big no-no. Whether it is a cultural change, a recession or a global pandemic like COVID-19, your brand should be agile enough to adapt its messaging and empathise with customers and prospects.

5. Pause and assess content
   Your planned material for an event, an exhibition or a seminar doesn't have to go to waste. Take this content online in the form of a Webinar and engage your audience, captivate them with your story, educate them on your industry sector and highlight the benefits of your business offering.

6. Perform content audits
   Start by auditing what's currently running or about to be launched to identify what the best action would be. If you are lucky enough to have plenty of resources, we recommend you use this template to spot leaks and assets that need to be adjusted or redone.

7. Evaluate your imagery
   This goes hand-in-hand with the last tip. Visual communication is your message at a glance, and it's very powerful. Be sensible with the images you put out there; for instance, while we are on lockdown, crowds of people outside or people touching are unrealistic and need to be avoided.

8. Invest in a linguist for multilingual content
   Avoid automatic translations at all cost! Translating your content exactly, word-by-word will result in it losing authenticity and the ability to relate to your audience. Using a translation bot such as Google Translate, or any other plugin gives poor results and often wrong content.

Looking for advice on how to be empathetic to the current situation? Here are some helpful resources on where to begin.

Social Media

9. Keep your social profile up
   Social Media can sometimes be neglected in the B2B industry, which is going to be increasingly harmful at this time. Having an online face allows a company to be more relatable and human, ultimately building trust. Joining relevant LinkedIn groups and actively participating goes a long way to establishing credibility.

10. Check your schedule
    If you use automation and have a schedule of content planned, it's crucially important to take another look and make sure these posts are still relevant and empathetic to the current situation.

11. Embrace video
    Video drives engagement on Social. If you haven't experimented with video content yet, now is the time. Production value doesn't have to be high; concentrate on the message and delivery, and you'll see some great results.

PPC

12. Relevant & Consistent PPC
    Making sure your ads are highly relevant to a user's search intent is the key to successful PPC. You have a limited space to engage and entice a user to click-through, so be clear on your messaging and offer a solution to their problem.

13. Review your Ad Copy
    If you are continuing to run ads, it's essential to take a look at your message and ensure it reflects the current environment. Inappropriate messaging, or copy that isn't empathetic to the current situation could negatively impact CTR (Click through rate).

14. Assess your Landing Pages
    Following on from the previous point, it goes without saying that you should review your landing pages and ensure your messaging is consistent but also relevant to the situation. Maybe consider pulling back on sales-led messaging.

SEO

15. Double down on content
    For most of us, we have a little more time to examine our own content. Take a look at your best-performing pages and see how they can be improved. Remember, aim for your content to be 10x better than its nearest competitor.

16. Wear the White Hat
    When it comes to SEO, some companies, (Black Hats), will happily break the rules to get to the top in the short-term only for you to get caught with a Google Penalty that gets you kicked out of search results due to their methods. Then there are companies, (White Hats), who work hard to stay within the rules and give you great SEO results through regular quality work. Always wear a white hat, and you'll do fine!

Inbound Marketing

17. Invest time in your CRM
    With so many of us now working from home, tracking and centralising interactions from, and with, your business has become a priority. Tools that facilitate those communications and remove friction will be a huge advantage for any business these days.

18. Lots of Landing Pages
    Inbound marketing campaigns will include ads for all stages of the buyer process – and each of these will require a different landing page. The initial awareness stage may have multiple ads with different messages, and this will work best with a tailored landing page for each. A question we are asked often is, "Isn't that a lot of landing pages?" Yes. And for good reason; it's what works best!

19. Create a Strategic Narrative
    If you're finding it difficult to get your message heard then maybe you should look at your brand story. Storytelling and Narrative Design is on the lips of every Product Marketing Manager these days. A few brave companies have seen great success in creating a story around their brand, a sense of purpose, breaking out from the norm to develop and own new categories for their product offering.

Interested in the benefits of a strategic narrative? Here are some helpful resources on where to begin.