When times get tough, every company has to watch its spending. The ones that come through are the ones that make the right cuts. But what are the right cuts?
Looking only at the numbers, a CEO and CFO see one function that only spends money: marketing. Then they look at who brings money in, which is sales, and at who in sales isn’t performing. Say Robert is behind Mary and Gemma. There may be plenty of reasons for that, but when hard decisions have to be made, Robert may be in trouble.
Two tempting cuts
- Cut marketing. The savings are fast and the money stays in the bank. Who needs search ads, LinkedIn promotion, the freelance content writer or that video?
- Cut sales. Robert costs more than he brings in. The rest of the team will pick up the slack, if they know what’s good for them. Great atmosphere from here on.
In my view, you lose either way.
Why leads go nowhere
Look at the websites of many B2B companies and you see the same pattern. The site assumes salespeople are hunters. A buyer who wants to know more fills in a form, and then hopes someone in sales picks it up within two weeks.
Why don’t salespeople jump on these leads? Because most of them are poor. The visitor was curious about one detail, or needed a piece of information that wasn’t on the website. Sales has no time for tyre kickers, and the buyers who were serious give up.
What to do when you have to save fast
Cut a little from marketing, not a lot. If 10,000 visitors a month leave your site within seconds, you are attracting the wrong people. Then get your house in order:
- Find the value. Run a workshop with sales and marketing to agree on the real value customers get from your service.
- Map the buying process. Understand how your customers buy and what content helps them move from one phase to the next.
- Put the technology in place. Make sure you can capture leads and nurture them: newsletters, webinars (even old recordings behind a sign-up), chat and a CRM. Make sure the data flows between them.
- Give sales playbooks. Reps need to know how to approach prospects successfully, even cold ones. The goal of every contact is not always to sell. Sometimes it is to show the buyer a different future and earn permission to send more relevant information. That is where nurturing takes over.
Quick wins for marketing
- Talk to sales and customer service. You will get more content ideas than you can use.
- Look at your website through the customer’s eyes. If every page ends with “contact sales for more information”, agree with sales how the buyer can get the answer right there instead. Buyers hate waiting, and sales hates poor leads.
Quick wins for sales
- Make sure someone actually reads the inbox where the leads arrive.
- Decide how to handle smaller customers. They bring revenue, but may need standard packages, a short qualifying questionnaire or a fully online sale.
- Go through your existing customers and ask: do you know anyone who could benefit from what we do?
Tough times don’t call for less sales and marketing. They call for smarter sales and marketing.