Some of March and most of April has seen majority of the world go into lockdown. For May, there are some cautious signs of a re-opening in what many are describing as a ‘new normal’. How long this ‘new normal’ is going to last is down to scientists, governments and the virus itself.
Certainly, from the perspective of business and political leaders around the world there is a desire to get the economy fired up as soon as it is safe to do so. An unavoidable recession is coming. The sooner we get the wheels of industry and commerce turning again, the more we are able to limit the damage it does.
For some SaaS businesses, especially those with remote working tools, COVID-19 has held a silver lining. For others it’s been less of a rosy story. Across the board, in general there has been a drop in lead generation and the winning of new deals, however website traffic is largely steady, or in many cases rising. This data from HubSpot on its own lead numbers and website traffic is very interesting, although recent updates show there is now a bit of up uptake in leads and deals.
Here are some of the tactics that SaaS companies have made greater use of recently:
There are a number of approaches. However, whatever you do, it has to be shaped by your expectations for what you want to achieve once the ‘new normal’ is past and the good old ‘normal normal’ is re-established, or we get as close to it as possible.
Remember, not all marketing is equal. Turning off or lowering PPC budgets is going to save your business money in the short term and if CPL is increasing or ROI decreasing, especially to a point where there no longer is an ROI, reducing PPC makes sense.
However, marketing like SEO is going to be impacted if you just stop. Worse, if your competitors carry on, expect a drop in rankings and organic traffic and it may be harder to catch up again in the future. Stopping writing content may lose you readers; however, an evergreen piece of content will be useful now and in the future.
In any crisis there are likely to be opportunities. As we look ahead to an uncertain few months consider marketing tactics such as:
In the case that your usual lead-gen channels are still working well, carry on. And consider investing more if you can, especially when competitors may be cutting back. It’s a good opportunity to get ahead.
If your lead-gen channels are not performing, think about:
The ‘new normal’ will revert to the normality of ‘normal normal’ in time. There are going to be some enduring changes; for instance, many businesses are likely to continue making extensive use of their newly discovered practice of remote working!
Bear in mind that if customers needed your product pre COVID-19, they’ll need it post COVID-19. The most important thing here is to stay in the game – you need to ensure you remain in business. Secondly, you need to ensure you can come out and play a strong hand once this ends.
We are lucky! Governments are not shutting down SaaS products, customers and people still need them. We’re not an airline, restaurant chain, hotel group or one of the numerous other businesses that are unable to operate today. Take comfort from that, stay safe and trust that normality will return.
Xander Marketing has helped over 150 B2B SaaS businesses succeed in achieving their business objectives with high quality strategic and tactical marketing expertise.
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