Ever since the appearance of COVID-19, it has been causing serious damage to the global economy. Organizations are forced to close their offices to prevent the spread of the virus. Faced with enormous economic losses, different organizations such as the ECB have announced historic measures like the purchase of debt for a value of 750,000 million euros to revive the economy.
The marketing department is one of the most important areas to increase turnover and an essential gear within your company to make it work and move into the right direction. However, at this moment, it is positioned as one of the most affected sections by this unforeseen situation and leaders are facing many difficulties in regard to offering solid solutions in record time.
At Atrivity, we are aware of the importance regarding providing valuable information. For this reason, we have carried out a thorough diagnosis of the situation to detect the 5 main damages that a marketing department may suffer internally and how to effectively solve them.ç
#1 The Wrong Communication Approach
In this extraordinary situation we are forced to communicate with our colleagues and clients remotely, which means that great communication skills that are normally provided by face-to-face meetings are now lost. In key moments for the marketing department, such as the launch of a new product, a lack of physical contact can hinder the proper preparation of sales teams and weaken the relationship that has cost significant time and money to build up with customers.
⭐ Solution
If the company's goal is to improve communication, we recommend it to use digital tools such as Slack or Zoom. Thanks to these applications, companies can remotely communicate with their teams by sending out personalized messages to channels or individual employees and make video calls that provide them with the optimal way to approach their employees. Hence, companies are able to avoid a lack of understanding or possible misunderstandings in complicated tasks.
#2 Macro Data Analysis
The amount of macro data that can be obtained through various digital tools is infinite and also one of the reasons that error can easily occur by analyzing it. In the case of disclosing important information to your teams, it is necessary to be able to extract information that helps you to make optimal decisions. It will be useless to decide the direction of your product training without an analysis of knowledge gaps. Aligning your tasks with proper research will enable the company to differentiate itself in the market.
⭐Solution
With applications like Atrivity, companies can train sales teams properly and obtain relevant data from all the information classified by teams, players, most failed questions and most failed issues. After that, they can define smart strategies to make the most out of employee downtime and train them in those processes that they have most difficulties with. This way, companies can take advantage of this "pit stop" and train employees for their return to the office after the virus has completely eradicated!
#3 Lacking An Adequate Online Presence
Making your business known and creating brand awareness should be the main marketing priorities. Right now, the time has come to promote your online channels and reach your target audience. For example, one way is to take advantage of social media by creating valuable content and promoting it on LinkedIn. Furthermore, the company may have to start writing blog posts to generate traffic to its website. Other actions that will help you to create "noise" are organizing free webinars or virtual meetings with your clients. But ... How do you make these really effective?
⭐Solution
At Atrivity, we are aware that developing a digital strategy in record time is an incredibly difficult job. It poses challenges such as: ¨how do I ensure that they are paying attention to me?¨ and ¨are they understanding what is stated properly?¨ For all this, we recommend you to watch our Webinar "Successfully digitize your strategies, so that the coronavirus crisis does not affect your business". In this Webinar, our expert and CEO Jaume Juan explains step by step and with practical examples how to successfully digitize all your business strategies.
#4 Misalignment With The Sales Team
A very common problem in medium to large companies that have a marketing and sales department is misalignment of both teams. It is the responsibility of marketing (in the best case through inbound marketing) to provide qualified leads and subsequent sales work to convert them into customers. This may seem simple on paper, but the connection between departments can be affected by the coronavirus and, consequently, lose great sales opportunities.
⭐Solution
It is the work of the marketing department to provide sales teams with tools to succeed at the point of sale. One of them is Atrivity, an app that allows you to present basic knowledge of the product or service and unique characteristics and competitive differentiators in customer-oriented training materials based on micro content. Also, it allows you to test vendors on the application, function, and features of the product or service, in order to identify knowledge gaps and training opportunities.
#5 The Lack Of Time To Do Activities
Currently, due to the policies adopted with reference to the COVID-19 crisis, most marketers are working from home. At first, this might seem like an advantage, since it saves you time in terms of going to the office and allows you to spend more time with your family. Nothing is further from the truth, because many of us have to take care of our children (especially if they are still young) and multitask around the house, so that the time allocated to work productivity is greatly reduced.
Source: Fandom
⭐Solution
In the digital marketing area, task automation programs, such as Salesforce, Hubspot or Zapier, are key pieces to save time At Atrivity, we have adopted other measures, such as flexible working hours to facilitate the organization on a daily basis and obtaining incredible results in terms of productivity and happiness for all workers. We can assure that distance has brought us closer than ever!
What Conclusions Can Be Drawn From This?
Throughout this article we have explored some of the main marketing problems that companies internally have experienced during the current crisis. Many of these problems are caused by a lack of financial resources, but are due to a lack of planning and access to digital tools and knowledge. However, remember that it is never too late to provide your team with everything necessary to manage online channels, succeed in data analytics and train sales staff in key concepts.
