“Everybody was a little bit turned off by the idea of doing it,” Michelle Morgan, director of client services at Clix Marketing, said of one client’s initial reaction to expanding their top-of-funnel marketing efforts during our PPC for B2B session of Live with Search Engine Land.
“But, talk about ‘turning on a dime,’ now we are doing all of those strategies that we proposed to do earlier this year because we are shifting away from that bottom-of-funnel, super salesy thing,” she said, attributing the strategy change to COVID-19’s impact on businesses and customers.
The pandemic has resulted in unpredictable swings for B2B businesses, with some struggling to stay afloat and others experiencing surges in conversions. Out of respect for their customers, businesses are softening calls to action and being less “salesy.”
“So, we’re kind of getting to do what we and what our contact wanted to do, but maybe not what their sales team wanted to do … building audiences, building a top-of-funnel — we’re doing a lot of that because of the fact that they just don’t think that people are going to buy bottom-of-funnel,” Morgan said, adding that the strategy shift happened rapidly as her client turned their focus towards long-term goals.
Why we care.With so much uncertainty, marketers need to keep a watchful eye on their performance metrics to identify what opportunities are out there. In some sectors, the window of opportunity may be right now. For other sectors, investing in brand awareness or other top-of-funnel strategies may be the most effective way to allocate resources and prepare for success in a post-COVID economy.
