2020 has just started, but its first quarter has already brought much upheaval, including the notorious Coronavirus. However, such reputable sources like Forbes and Independent predicted it in 2018, which means Coronavirus is one reason out of various factors causing crises.
Nevertheless, we are not going to investigate its reasons, but we’d like to focus on crisis management in 2020 and measures every business should undertake in order to survive financial crisis. This will help you to thrive even in a tough situation.
During unstable times most of the prospects postpone their purchase till the better moment comes. Thus, it’s almost impossible to generate sales qualified leads in such circumstances. But it is perfect to work on gaining their trust and increasing brand awareness. Inbound marketing methods is an effective approach for this purpose.
So, if you start implementing inbound strategies now, your company will gain an image of an expert in its field and gain prospects' trust. And all you need just to convert them into clients once the situation changes and they are ready to buy.
During crises, many companies fire some of their employees to cut operational expenses. Meanwhile, the rest of them get overloaded with extra tasks, thinking that the companies just carry about their own profit. Such ideas circulating in their minds not only reduce them effectively, but also push them to search for another opportunity. Besides, let’s be realistic, some tasks should take as much time as they should take and your employees won’t have any other choice, but to squeeze everything.
Sales and marketing automation is a good solution for workflow optimization. It helps to allocate human and time resources. Thus, personnel work on intellectual and creative tasks. Meanwhile, routine and monotones work that doesn’t require intellectual efforts is conducted by algorithms and AI tools. So, the load is reduced and the productivity is increased
In case outbound marketing is still your core lead generation method, even if you are not an event management agency, you may face issues as currently a lot of events are cancelled. On another hand, you can consider it as an opportunity to strengthen a company’s brand and claim yourself as an expert and an influencer in your industry, consequently, establish more connections.
For example, being pioneers in the digital world, Digital marketers and online education platforms are already actively using this format.
Most of the sources suggest focusing on the core services or products of the business as one of the most effective crisis management measures.
Account-based marketing has the same idea of narrowing your efforts, but instead of focusing on the products a company picks the most beneficial accounts and allocates all the business efforts to them.
However, if you’re a B2C company you’d better stick to Persona-focused approach.
As a conclusion, a crisis is not just an obstacle for business development. It is an opportunity to implement the advanced methods in 2020 and take the lead while your competitors are hesitating and losing their positions.