With the world in the middle of the pandemic, how on earth are you going to build pipeline?  The feedback I got this week from one company was that in 2020, they closed the business from the pipeline they build in 2019.

Finding leads through conferences and events isn't going to happen

"In-person events have long been canceled due to concerns over the spread of Covid-19. Surveys found that 87% of business event professionals have canceled events because of the pandemic, and 66% postponed events. While many events have moved to a virtual format (seven out of 10 respondents noted this change), it's still a challenge to create networking opportunities with a large virtual event. As the spread of Covid-19 continues, many events in 2021 have been turned into virtual events or canceled altogether."

OK, we will switch to email marketing

There is a great webinar to watch (if you haven't already) and I break down the quotes from that in this blog ..... the CMO of Hubspot admits in the webinar that email marketing does not work and that they are doubling down on content marketing.  Let's not forget that Hubspot SELL email marketing software, so they have a vested interest to bump up the figures.  Hubspot admit that email marketing now has a 98% failure rate.  I don't know about you but I wouldn't want to stand up at the Board and say we were backing a 98% failure rate.

OK, cold calling

Really? Do you really want to be the sales and marketing dinosaur? Does it really get a return anymore? I know I rarely get cold called now and because of Apple iOS 13 all cold calls go straight to voicemail and then I block the numbers. It's as simple as that. 

OK, so what are we going to do?

A recent article by Catherine Coale, from Telstra Purple caught my eye, partly because it's based on data and not some "gurus" opinion.

Before we get started, I'm going to share two of Catherine's conclusions.

These are direct quotes, from her article ....

3. Traditional B2B Marketing is Screwed

Forget product centric messages. Forget gated content on social platforms. Stop broadcasting branded messages in the hope that some of it will stick. Our pilot tells us that hardly anyone is listening anymore.   

4. If you’re doing structured Employee Advocacy today, consider reviewing your scope.

Edicts to share company content without putting your people in the narrative is just another form of broadcast marketing. It is not well received on this platform. Attempting to create a single brand voice is also a mistake.

How do we connect to customers on a human basis and create revenue?

Before we get into this, it's worth quoting Catherine Coale and a comment that she made on a Linkedin post recently which was

"We could talk for a long time about the dynamics of change and big companies / global marketing teams, but perhaps we also need to do more to remind people that LinkedIn profiles are privately owned social media for individual expression."

Let's talk about how you can drive revenue from social.

This is Eric, he's one of the team at DLA Ignite here is a post that he put up.  We have all seen posts like this, we see them everyday, but people treat social tactically.  You post, because you think you have to or somebody tells you you should and walk away, you need to treat social strategically.  Let's talk about this post. 

 Eric's post of his 16 year old son, Austin, on his Birthday got 18,000 views and 165 likes, which is great.

But better still, he got 6 - C-Level meetings from this post, two proposals and one purchase order....  

Let's stop and think about this for a second.  

This post took 10 minutes to create and it got 6 C-Level meetings, 2 proposal and 1 purchase order, how come?

Because, all of Eric's post are strategic.  He knows exactly why he is posting it and knows how to monetise it.  He uses our social selling methodology. 

You cannot get 6 C-Level meetings from 10 minutes work from cold calling, emailing or from advertising.  This is the transformation that has taken place with social.

He doesn't always post "humanised" content, I'm using this as an example.  

But an example of why you need to get your employees and sales team on social, just think of the $ impact to your business.  Especially if you scaled this across your sales team and your employees. 

In a recent article, Nick Dangles, co-founder of Kinetic, was asked for his best advice on social selling and he said

“The best advice I can give about social selling is that it’s not about selling. It’s about creating meaningful and engaging content that will resonate with your audience. Approaching social selling with the intent of providing something of value will give much better results than simply pitching your company on social media,”  

And finally ...

Late last year McKinsey and Co reported that its corporate clients experienced on average 7 years of digital transformation in the first six months of 2020 as they hustled to adjust to the global economic COVID disruption. 

Another way to think of that statistic is that if you didn't start transforming your business in those months you are now 7 years behind your competitors!

Where Do We Go From Here?

Just give me, or one of the DLA Ignite team and hour of your time and we can walk you through what we are doing in the form of case studies, what we are doing for other businesses to transform them to digital.  No hard sell, just practical examples.

DLA Ignite is a global business and we understand that a "cookie cutter" approach to digital does not work, we have to take into account local language and cultural sensitivities.  Which is why we have built teams across the globe, that can support you by country and industry sector. 

For more information contact me here, visit our website, or visit our Linkedin company page and contact one of the DLA Ignite team members.