Tough Markets Require Inches

1. Evaluate every marketing channel - what generates the deals you are closing today? Optimize your campaigns for middle funnel traffic—sort and filter for people trying to figure out a problem you solve.
2. Give them content they can take away and share - No one makes a buying decision alone. A consumer (B2C) has to convince a spouse or partner. An executive (B2B) has to convince the committee or board. Give them something they can forward or send that makes their internal pitch easy.
3. Watch contact rates - sales operations need to own this metric. Conduct a customer journey audit and eliminate friction found in lead-to-contact. Check your phone numbers for carrier blocking. Start leveraging text messages and email for higher initial contact rates.
4. Learn and build out sales and marketing automation - use technology to scale your prospecting and outreach. Cover more of the market with less effort. Learn to use your CRM or get drip email campaign software, and set up sales cadences using automated emails and text messages. Start simple. Introduce the complexity of segmentation and personalization later. Trigger relevant sales cadences when you move prospects into a new status. I use Pipedrive + MailShake.
5. Campaign against your database - segment, if you can, but don’t delay starting campaigns against your past client and aged lead database. Focus on market updates and education, not getting a deal.
6. Become a trusted analyst - tell people what is happening and where the opportunities are in this market. Take out the fear and build your customer’s confidence with transparency and education.