The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many changes. Companies in nearly every industry have adopted remote tools to allow employees working from home and digital transformations have taken place in a matter of months. To help navigate your digital transformation, here’s a list of marketing lessons for a post COVID world.
1. Outside Selling ➜ Inside Selling
The pandemic has turned outside sales teams into inside sales teams. And while some companies may view this change as temporary, most will witness first-hand the benefits that come with inside selling and commit long-term to the model. To successfully adapt to an inside sales model, companies should seek out sales software such as top-ranked CRMs that are user-friendly and easy to adopt.
2. Offline Marketing ➜ Online Marketing
Website traffic has increased by over 20% during COVID with online sales conversions up approximately 8%. And when a marketing strategy is focused online, it enables marketers to manage their budgets and strategies by metrics. Everything from website traffic and email open rates to social media engagement can be measured accurately, giving marketers deeper insight into the campaigns that are working the best.
3. Traditional Customer Service ➜ Self-Service
During the pandemic, the volume of customer-initiated online chat interactions increased by 45% and self-service has become a must have. Companies should also consider building a collection of resources that offer guidance on common queries – and also creating product training videos for customers. Quest’s version of this, The Quest Academy, saw website traffic more than double last year.
4. Sales funnel ➜ Customer care flywheel
According to market research, consumers cite ‘customer care’ as the single greatest influence on client loyalty towards a company. As more companies see customer experience as the key to growth, many will place less emphasis on the sales funnel in favour of the customer care flywheel. While the sales funnel focuses on acquiring customers, the flywheel is built to delight them over the course of their entire life cycle with a company.
The marketing lessons for a post COVID world are made up of inside selling, online marketing, and self-service for customers, underpinned by a customer care flywheel mindset. Companies that embrace these marketing strategies are the ones most likely to navigate these times with success.
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Source: Quest & Hubspot (abridged)
