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There has been a lot of talk around business growth strategies in the so called ‘new normal’. Some people talk about simply surviving whereas others are more convinced than ever that this is the time to take advantage of the changes and finally grip up their business. Often looking to take it in more radical directions.
Here are five things to think about bringing to table when it comes to making the most, or maybe even offsetting that sense of desperation trading in this current pandemic generates.
Move from Outside Selling to Inside Selling
Traditional Outside selling, where your face to face sales teams work out in the field, building relationships and physical presence in your customers businesses is proving to be harder and harder.
Not only are costs under careful consideration given the current uncertainties we all face, meaning things like mobile technology, fuel, vehicles etc that accompany the outside seller are under increasing pressure, but there are unforeseen pressures brought into play by social distancing rules, making face to face meetings and the normal interactions of the outside sales person potentially dangerous.
Inside selling on the other hand, consists of working ‘remotely’ nowadays, often from home to prospect, nurture and convert leads. This method of selling was always prevalent in the B2B world, the SaaS and technology and big ticket sales world, but everyone is now looking at how to bring sales ‘inside’ and not only save on those costs, but also keep their teams safe and secure.
And that’s not to underestimate the benefit of the appeal this type of flexible working can have in terms of hiring and retaining the top talent in your sector.
If you are looking at bringing sales ‘inside’ take a look at HubSpot’s free sales tools in our article here.
Move from Offline to Online Marketing
When people changed the way they worked, played and interacted with each other, largely retreating to the safety of their own homes, and having been instructed to ‘lock down’ many of the mainstays of traditional marketing took a huge hit. Again, TV was further disrupted by on demand and other video services, but so too where the likes of newspapers, outdoor poster sites, radio stations and so on.
Media that depended on the way we did things, like the drive to and from work, or the school run, or the shopping trip and on so lost audience in droves meaning the advertising was also massively hit.
A ton of these companies have now navigated to the joys of the fully consolidated, totally accountable and extremely flexible and adaptable world of the online marketer. Its it likely a lot of these people will not go back, once they discover the benefits that online marketing can bring.
But it’s not all plain sailing. Just because you are online and spending money, doesn’t mean it’s going to be successful!
Check out our Guide to the 4 Pillars of Inbound marketing for some great insight into the themes of online marketing.
Move from Customer Service to Self Service
The volume of customer initiated chat interactions has risen by 45% in the world of the pandemic. Its quickly become essential to have the ability to manage customer interactions this way.
Se are no longer talking about just using social media as a customer service tool, but our own websites, apps and even products need to become ‘smart’ enough to solve the customers basic issues and answer increasingly complex customer questions.
Self-service results in happier customers and happier customer service teams as they are freed up from handling the minutia and can focus on the big important tasks like building up your customer satisfaction scores and creating advocates for your business.
See how HubSpot’s free service tools can help you on your way to self-service heaven!
Move from the funnel to the flywheel
On the subject of customer services, the best businesses now recognise the massive issues in being ‘funnel focussed’. That is focussing mainly on bringing new business into the funnel, and potentially not having enough focus on the other side. That is customer success and well-being. To the point where your business is actively creating advocates to further your sales messaging more organically, and in a more reliable form.
Far better is to consider the customer journey in the round.
As more companies see that customer service is a highly effective business growth strategy more will adopt it as a front and centre ‘acquisition’ approach too.
HubSpot call this abandoning the funnel in favour of the flywheel. The basic premise being that focussing on keeping customer success activity going and applying equal efforts to the acquisition, engagement and delight side of your business is clearly the more valuable long-term strategy.
Move to slimming down your tech-stack
One of the fundamentals of data protection is an idea called data minimisation. In simple terms this means keeping as little data on your customers as possible to get away with, and still do a great job for them.
The reason behind this is that when your CRM or other record keeping processes get full of data, especially legacy data, there is an increasingly likely chance that mistakes will begin to creep in. Duplications, errors and other things we’d prefer to avoid are introduced and ported from one update to the next,
It’s a similar idea to when it comes to your tech-stack. The older it is, the more likely that your data is problematic. Bit also you might did you now have so many band aids, customisations and other fixes it bears little resemblance to the sleek and powerful system it was when it was switched on!
It’s time to think about abandoning those risky old server-based systems that are also open to attack, in favour of upgrading to a shiny super-fast and super safe cloud system like HubSpot.
Modern, lean and agile systems like HubSpot are also perfect from the perspective that much of their functionality is available ‘out of the box’ as it were. Meaning its ready to go with the need for update and upgrades and add on’s right from the start.
The Great Acceleration
Ten years ago, we had a great depression. Hopefully over the next ten years we wull see the great acceleration and watch many, many businesses small and large, benefit from the way things can, and increasingly are, done in the modern post pandemic world.
If you would like to find out how Sales and Marketing Technology like HubSpot can benefit your business, get in touch for a free consultation.
