It's been a remarkable time, hasn't it? If you look at it, it's pretty fair to say that everything has changed. What that means for so many of us is a change in a different marketplace. So in just a matter of weeks coronavirus, has turned the world on its head.
Many of us are now working from home. We're using software a lot more than ever before, using communication software more than we ever have before, products like zoom, and slack are dominating our workday now. And we're getting used to working without people. After many years of being in offices, it's pretty strange.
For many businesses, it's been a huge shock. And in some cases, they've had to shut their doors. It's a different marketplace we find ourselves in today. So what do you do now?
As HubSpot partners, we have a wide gamut of customers ranging from small businesses, small-medium business enterprises, and large businesses as well in many different market segments. After 25 years of being in the market, and being in marketing, ill give you some ideas of how you can potentially take advantage of what I think is the next big computer revolution.
We have some insights, which I hope will help. Now is the time to improve your tech understanding. We've had the great golden age of the cloud and all the software that's come from the cloud in the last 10 years or so. A lot of businesses have escaped, that understanding how powerful software is. They've used a few features here and there, and they've purchased cloud software and got it working. But in many cases, certainly, we see as business consultants, there are a huge number of features that are not being used in the software programs.
It is the time to get stuck into the feature set of your software. This goes hand in hand with training your team members on all of the features of your software. Take the time to actually to invest in sales training, invest in marketing training, invest in the time to get your team inspired to do the many different tutorials that are out there for lots of different software tools.
For example, the HubSpot Academy has a huge number of courses available to your business that you can tap into for free. These are not expensive investments, they just take a bit of time. It's a great chance with a lot of people not commuting to and from work to use those hours for extra training.
Refocusing your message comes about simply by looking at your website right now, look at the content. Is this content right for the current day and age? It is most likely that the message your website is pushing out is wrong for the current time.
First of all, we're now dealing with a market that requires a lot more empathy. We're also dealing with a situation where what was the norm of a couple of weeks ago for many businesses is no longer.
And as a result of that, you do need to be changing your message and re-crafting what your offer is.
People want to buy from you still in many situations, but they're going to want to buy smaller, smaller delivery of services, not as much money spent committed over a long time.
Can you turn your goods and service offers into smaller chunks, smaller bite sizes, less risk? Businesses have to de-risk their message, you've got to be more sensitive to the timeline now.
What should you be saying with your new handcrafted message? What should I be saying in my marketing messages now to my market?
You have to get this message right and more so than ever before, you can't just slap up some idea and hope it's going to work. And that means you need to be thinking, what is it that my customers need to know from me?
What is it that I can help my prospects with? This is a time of great challenge in many businesses. It's a time of challenge for future leads as well.
This means fewer dollars in the economy. So people are going to be taking more time and being more careful with the way they spend their money. Trust is going to be critical.
Help them trust you more so than ever before. The website journey they go on, the content journey they go and the information that they get from your business has to continually solidify the trust.
How can you help your prospect and this is different than what it was just a couple of weeks ago when there was so much demand for many businesses. They didn't need to go to extraordinary lengths to keep their customers or to find new customers.
Now, it's vastly different. So you need to be thinking about what questions they are asking that you have the answers for. Are you putting those answers in your website and content in a way which is easy for the prospect to navigate and understand?
At some point in time, the pandemic will be downgraded and will go away. So the question is, will you be ready?
When that point in time comes, when the shops reopen, and the people are released from their homes, then they're going to be out there shopping up a storm, the economy of the world will bounce back then.
The Businesses that have spent the time improving, and adding value to the digital assets, improving their website and their internet experiences for their customers and their prospects. They will be the ones that are well placed going forward.
So make sure your website is extraordinary. Take the time to analyze what does it like to be a prospect on your website? What does it look like to click on your website? What goes next? Put yourself the shoes of the prospect and take the time to look at your digital assets through their eyes.
So now's the time to handcraft those social media messages. Let's not forget your social media channels,. Treat them as your public relations channels of the world. Get involved with LinkedIn and streaming as a platform, use it more and more every single day. Make your Twitter work, get Facebook working for your posting and keep the traffic going back to the website, use blogs as a starting point of your content.
What can you do that's going to offer better value for your customers? How do you extend your goods and services to compete better? Not just now when you're fighting for survival, but in the future. What can you do to be more competitive in the marketplace?
Use the software tools that you've got to their fullest extent. Every single feature must be in their arsenal now, you need to improve their communication so they fully understand all the ways they can communicate.
Sales training is critical. your sales team need to be able to convert the leads that marketing present to you can have the best marketing and advertising in the world. In the world going forward we will have fewer leads coming to us fewer opportunities coming to us, which means conversion rates must go up for the businesses to survive.
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