How businesses execute lead generation in a post-pandemic environment
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been unprecedentedly disruptive. The pandemic triggered a sharp evolution in the conventional global business atmosphere. A lot has changed from severe disturbances in supply chains to increased remote working to social distancing since the full-blown outbreak of the pandemic. Many businesses have suffered relative droughts in their lead generation as customer demands pattern violently and suddenly changed.
Nonetheless, some companies are managing to keep operations running relatively smoothly by making concerted changes to their typical lead generation process. In this case study, we will study real-life examples of how businesses today are successfully adapting their lead generation to the impact of the virus.
Businesses are repurposing their content marketing campaigns
Businesses are repurposing their content to suit the prevailing coronavirus atmosphere. Many of these businesses are investing more in pandemic-themed content that is enormously valuable for the current situation.
Through strategic keyword optimization, these businesses derive maximal returns for this investment leveraging organic traffic sourced from search engines. Admittedly, a massive bulk of queries being typed into search engines today has the pandemic as their underlying theme. This explains why content built around COVID-19, proving to be an excellently rewarding channel for businesses to get their message before a ready audience, generating high-value leads.
Indeed, some of these businesses were forced to shut down their real-life seminars and classes. Hence they are redirecting the disrupted content pipeline into valuable resources that are shared online.
Companies are increasingly focusing on creating content like videos, demos, newsletters, and articles aimed at solutions revolving around the pandemic. This will appreciably help them pull in traffic, which will be transferred into leads.
NordVPN is an excellent example of a company successfully refocusing its content strategy to cater to the pandemic. NordVPN's content strategy is being repurposed to cater for the increased cybersecurity risks that come with remote working. This content is structured in such a way to sell NordVPN's services, which is purported to give the internet user significant protection from malware and phishing attacks.
This content strategy – leveraging a wealth of links and targeted keyword – performs well on search engines, getting more search engine visibility.
Businesses are flexibly reinventing themselves to be more relevant in the pandemic
Many businesses have opted to evolve from their traditional model to survive the pressing realities of the pandemic. Such strategic pivots are crucial in maintaining their economic relevance, healthily pulling in leads.
This is unsurprising. With customer demand patterns dramatically changing – thanks to the pandemic – products whose usefulness has been suppressed by the pandemic are sure to experience an enormous slash in lead generation. This makes the dynamic adaptation of their business process more critical. The winning brands are doing this fairly well.
For example, businesses in the tourism industry or fashion brands that focus on office apparel are sure to suffer sharp dwindles in lead generation. This is only natural, considering people are barely traveling again, and in the other case, more people are working from home today. This makes a pivot crucial to restore robust lead generation.
The NBA is one of the leading businesses pivoting dynamically to the dictates of the pandemic to pull in sales. NBA has halted their typical line of merchandise, refocusing on products extremely relevant to the pandemic like NBA-branded face masks, thanks to NBA's partnership with Fanatics.
This has been an enviable success. The NBA is able to maintain its relevance, sustaining lead accruals (in the sale of their branded merchandise) by pivoting to face masks. So far, these face masks have been consequently personalized for 30 NBA teams and 12 WNBA teams, bearing the respective logos of these teams.
Businesses are reallocating their budgets to target consumer behind screens
The pandemic has triggered an increased work-from-home or stay-at-home culture. Given this, more people are spending more time behind their TV screens or on their computer and smartphone screens.
This explains why more businesses are successfully ramping lead generation by redirecting more investments in targeting TV and digital platforms. By consolidating marketing budgets, especially on TV ad spend, these companies have been able to generate leads spectacularly.
According to Henderson, chief executive of ad agency AML Group, "People are watching a lot of tellies and it turns out people are buying a lot more newspapers, especially broadsheets than they were a couple of weeks ago".
This increase in consumers spending time behind screens is further corroborated by Michael Scantlebury, founder at London ad agency Impero, "Brands are shifting towards screens, which makes sense. Phones will be on no matter what, TV viewership is already higher than normal as people are indoors more".
More businesses are hosting webinars
Physical marketing events are practically a no-no with the pandemic raging on. Large gatherings are even forbidden by the authorities making it harder to generate the traction and leads businesses conventionally accrue from marketing events.
Big brands like Facebook and Google went on to cancel their prominent summits because of the pandemic. With the reduced possibility of holding physical marketing events comes a reduced opportunity to generate leads. However, companies are making up for that loss in lead generation by resorting to online sales presentations.
Indeed, we have seen increased hosting of virtual events by companies, targeted at prospective customers to pull in more leads. Webinars have been massively adopted in this regard to generate valuable leads for businesses.
Webinars appreciably simulate the real-life experience of marketing events, albeit within a more controlled environment. Companies are targeting these prospective customers either at the decision stage or way back at the consideration or awareness stage. Statistics from GoToWebinar confirm that 73% of B2B marketers see webinars as the most effective means of generating premium leads.
Cannes is an excellent example of a company maximizing webinars for lead generation in the face of COVID-19. When the pandemic necessitated the cancellation of its 2020 Lions International Festival of Creativity, Cannes resorted to the Lions Live virtual event.
This event was a success focusing largely on amplifying networking opportunities for its attendees while allowing them to enjoy digital classes with industry leaders. The lead generation for Cannes was enormous.
In the case study, we have critically examined how thriving businesses today amplify their lead generation with the COVID-19 pandemic still ongoing. Eula Blue is a strategic growth company that helps businesses pull in bulk of leads even in the coronavirus crisis. By focusing heavily on numbers, business processes, and data, we know how to dynamically reshape your business to flexibly thrive in the pandemic. The testimonies of companies we have revitalized in the crisis are overwhelming. Feel free to book a session with us today; let us flood you with the customers you desire.