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There is always a lot on the marketers’ plate. From meeting deadlines, to execution of strategies, to measuring the results – sales and marketing teams are always looking at new ways to get their tasks done more efficiently and effectively. In this blog post, we will talk about mobile apps that are reshaping B2B sales and marketing and helping teams to stay productive.
 

Contacts and Address Book Management

CircleBack

If you’re looking for a solution to keep your address book up-to-date and free from duplicate entries, CircleBack is the app for you. This contact management software app acts as a professional address book organizer.

• • The app can be easily connected with Office 365, Outlook.com, Hotmail, MSN.
  • All your contacts will be maintained in one place.
  • Email signatures can be captured to find new contacts on the app.
  • No data is ever lost as a backup of all contacts is taken before details of the leads are synced with the address book.
  • Whenever a contact in your address book updates their contact information such as phone, title, company etc., you get notified that an update is available.

Check out CircleBack for iOS here and Android here

CleanUp Duplicates

This is a popular contact manager for iOS devices that helps to quickly remove duplicate contacts. In fact, it can check approximately 5,000 contacts in 45 seconds. It gives error-free results on different sources like Gmail and iCloud. The user is able to stay in control even though this app auto runs. For instance, before the scanning the contacts’ information starts the user can configure the merge level to a complete or a partial matching. The app checks for duplicates based on the chosen configuration post which all double entries can be removed from your address book. Data never gets lost as the app creates a backup of your address book before duplicates are checked for. Even though the premium version of the app comes at a cost, you can analyze your address book and get a full preview of duplicates for free before you decide on an upgrade.

Check out Cleanup Duplicate Contacts for iOS
 

Meetings and Events Lead Capture

When it comes to B2B marketing strategies, studies have shown that 91% of businesses place a lot of emphasis on live events. There are some mobile apps that will help you to gain a better ROI when you are hosting / participating in an event online or offline.

Calendly

Calendly is the app that will help you with all your scheduling meetings and tasks. This saves times for the reps and also speeds up sales. When you have a meeting or call or a virtual conference lined up, this app will help you to schedule appointments with your prospects. All you need to do is to set your availability preference and share the link with the leads. They will then pick the time that suits them the best which gets added onto the rep’s calendar.

• • The app integrates with CRM apps, like Salesforce, once the appointments are fixed, you can update the same on the CRM.
  • It integrates with Outlook, Office 365, iCloud and Google calendars. Hence, all calendars get checked which prevents any dual-bookings.

Check out Calendly for iOS here and Android here

ScanBizCards

If you want to maximize your ROI from the shows and events that you host and participate in then you must download the ScanBizCards app on your smartphone. It is one of the best business card scanner apps on the market today, It helps to easily and quickly capture the contact information from physical business cards and conference badges with the help of Optical Character Recognition. This data is directly exported to a CRM. This app is an extremely versatile lead capture and contact management software,

• • It can also scan conference badges.
  • Leading CRMs and email marketing systems can be easily integrated with the app. For example, Salesforce, Hubspot.
  • It has a Human Transcription feature for bulk scans and exports or to save hard to read cards wherein you can get business cards transcribed manually. For this there are some free transcription credits and more can be purchased in-app.

Currently, with events being cancelled due to COVID-19 and with limited opportunities for sales and marketing teams to go out and network, ScanBizCards is a great way to consolidate l;eads from business cards and have them centralized on the CRM or email marketing system.

Additionally, the app can capture contact information from all email exchanges, creating new sources of leads from your inbox.

Check out ScanBizCards for iOS here and Android here

Bizzabo

With features that will help you to design websites for events, Bizzabo is one of the most popular event management platforms. This app will also enable you to:

• • Send promotional emails
  • Get back in touch with those who don’t finish the registration process
  • Give incentives to those who provide referrals

After an event, marketers can also use the app to get insights about which campaign performed well and which were the most effective channels that helped with registration.

Check out Bizzabo for iOS here and Android here
 

Web and App Analytics

It is through website analytics that marketers can understand customer behaviour better. For example, it helps one to understand how customers interact with the content on the website. Insights obtained from such data helps organizations to create action plans that will help to get the best returns from the web content. Some of the apps that best help with web analytics are below.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics, one of the best digital analytics software, will help you to frame better marketing strategies for your business. It is Google’s free web analytics service. It helps marketers to:

• • Find out more about those who visit your website and why they leave. This will allow you to analyze in-depth detail about the visitors on your website
  • Measure your advertising ROI
  • Data reports can be accessed quickly and reports can be customised
  • Know what customers are searching for after they have entered the website

Check out Google Analytics for iOS here and Android here

Appfigures Mobile

Appfigures Mobile, the mobile app for Appfigures lets you track your apps’ analytics, do ASO and run competitor analysis. Appfigures offers extensive intelligence on your apps’ performance and lets you monitor, optimize, and grow downloads of your apps. With
Appfigures, you can:

• • Track sales revenue numbers, usage metrics, market performance, and user feedback (reviews and rating) from every market around the world
  • Get a detailed breakdown of your apps’ revenue sources such as net app downloads, sales, in-app-purchases, subscriptions, returns and ads with revenue reports and payout tables
  • Get revenue figures, usage stats, and user feedback reports emailed to you and your team daily or weekly with easily set up custom reports
  • Appfigured also offers integration and open API for developers

Check out Appfigures Mobile for iOS here and Android here
 

Social Media

Research has shown that social media is used by 95% of B2B marketers as a part of their digital marketing strategy. These are the ones that marketers prefer the most.

Buffer

Buffer helps you to create customised schedules for your social media platforms, thus helping you to share posts when you want to. You can also schedule your retweets on Twitter! You can also:

• • Use Social Media Calendar to plan your content from months ahead.
  • Use Buffer Analyze to find out what content is working for you
  • Create reports that will help you to analyse your performance and engagement on various social media sites
  • Save the hashtags that you use on Instagram
  • Get answers to questions that are usually asked about your social media strategy

Check out Buffer for iOS here and Android here

Hootsuite

Hootsuite, the popular social media management platform, is used as a dashboard and integrates with sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube. On just one platform you will be able to curate content, schedule your posts, and manage members of your team. The app also has some inbuilt analytics with which you can measure your performance.

Check out Hootsuite for iOS here and Android here

Sprout Social

Sprout Social is a social media management app which helps to track social media campaigns, referral traffic, and conversions.

• It helps to measure the levels of customer engagement and aides lead generation.
• By using the app’s social listening features marketers are able to measure brand awareness, find out which are the most effective keywords, and also identify influencers who have a large number of followers.
• The app’s feature of competitor analysis helps organizations to benchmark their own performance as against the competitors.
• It helps marketers to find out about trends which helps to devise branding strategies.
• Content can be planned and delivered as a team with the help of cross-network social publishing.

Check out Sprout Social for iOS here and Android here

LinkedIn

This is a professional social media channel that is used extensively by B2B organizations to generate leads and connect with industry leaders. This site also helps one to know about the emerging trends in the market, find influencers, write on various topics, and comment on articles written by others. It thus helps to build a network which helps in creating a greater brand awareness.

Check out LInkedIn for iOS here and Android here
 

CRM & Email Marketing Automation

Although CRM platforms aren’t strictly sales tools, they are used by marketers to perform important marketing tasks like customer segmentation, campaign management, and others. The most popular CRM platforms are these.

HubSpot

Gartner’s 2018 study showed that customers voted for HubSpot as the best CRM lead management software. The app offers a full stack of software for marketing, sales, and customer service, together with a completely free CRM as well. HubSpot helps marketers to:

• • Build targeted lists
  • Automate email campaigns
  • See and analyse the metrics easily
  • Manage content with the help of the content management software
  • Reach out to customers easily with the Customer service software

Check out HubSpot for iOS here and Android here

Salesforce

The Salesforce app’s automated lead management and scoring capabilities is used by marketers to see important marketing metrics at a glance. For instance:

• • Analysing what is the pipeline that has been created for each account
  • Finding out the leads that have been generated by a particular campaign
  • Which are the most popular marketing channels
  • How much of the allocated budget is still unspent

Check out Salesforce for iOS here and Android here
 

Team Management and Collaboration

By using apps that help with team collaboration, reviews, sharing of projects, and others will become quicker, thus improving p[roductivity. The most popular team management apps are these.

Slack

Slack is one of the best messaging apps that is used by organizations today. It has different tools that makes communication easy, it can be integrated with other software, and notifications can also be customised.

• • When you create a channel, then all in the channel see the same message. This helps with file sharing and brainstorming about an idea.
  • You can easily switch from chat to a voice or a video call.

Check out Slack for iOS here and Android here

Google Drive

Google drive, a file storage device, is where you can safely store and share files in the cloud. When you upload content on the Drive, it gets stored in secure data centers. The app can be used from any smartphone, tablet, or computer. This app allows you to invite others who can view or edit your files and folders.

Check out Google Drive for iOS here and Android here
 

Getting More Done with the Right Tools

Mobile apps, with their interactive interface and ease of access, offer a customized and on the go experience – and that’s what sales and marketing people need the most. Hence, users are now spending more and more time on various mobile apps. As a brand, you can use mobile apps to grow your audience, communicate better with them, understand the needs of prospects, and grow your sales funnel. All this will ultimately result in better marketing decisions and improved sales performance.

Leads are a business’ backbone and so sales and marketing teams consistently try to find new prospects to develop and grow the sales and revenue. Technology plays an important role in prospecting. Lead generation, be it online or offline, uses technology in various ways today. For instance, this can be online in the form of running contests, sending of emails, hosting of webinars, carrying out research, in content distribution; or offline through the exchange of business cards at shows and events or during face-to-face meetings. There are software tools for each of these scenarios to help you optimize your lead generation process.

2020, due to the pandemic, has been an unpredictable year. Yet, the world has not stopped and businesses have begun to take baby steps towards revival. So, if you are looking for lead capture software which will help you in lead capture and management, here are the 9 best lead capture software tools you should explore in 2020 and beyond.
 

1. CircleBack

CircleBack is the only contact management app that you will need to keep your address book up-to-date, and also keep it free from duplicate entries. This professional address book thus helps to stay organized. Here are some key features:

• • Mailbox systems like Office 365, Outlook, Hotmail, MSN can easily be connected with this contact management app.
  • It helps to maintain all your contacts in one place.
  • The app can capture contacts from email signatures.
  • Before the contacts on the address book are synced, it allows you to take a backup of all contacts. Hence no data is lost.
  • Any edits that are made are reflected on the contacts.

Check out CircleBack for iOS here and Android here
 

2. ScanBizCards

ScanBizCards is one of the best business card scanner apps on the market today that helps to maximize your ROI from the shows and events that you host and participate in. It easily and quickly captures contact information from physical business cards and conference badges usg the phone’s camera with the help of Optical Character Recognition. Data can be exported to a centralized CRM or onto a CSV file. A versatile lead capture and contact management software, ScanBizCards is the perfect companion to your CRM.

• • It can also be used as a conference badge scanner.
  • Leading CRMs and email marketing systems like Salesforce, Hubspot and more come integrated with the app.
  • It has an email signature capture feature and contact information can be captured from your email exchanges and exported to various CRM systems.
  • It has a feature of getting business cards transcribed manually. Users get some free transcription credits and more can be purchased in-app.

Check out ScanBizCards for iOS here and Android here
 

3. CleanUp Duplicates

This popular contact manager for iOS devices helps to remove duplicate contacts efficiently and quickly. In fact, it can check approximately 5,000 contacts in 45 seconds! It runs, error-free, on different sources like Gmail and iCloud. Even though it auto runs, the user ia able to be in control. For instance, the merge level can be configured to a complete or a partial matching before the scanning the contacts’ information begins. The app checks for duplicates based on the selection made post which all double entries can be removed from your address book. Since it creates a backup of your address book before cleaning, you will not lose any information either. The premium version of the app comes at a cost. However, you can analyze your address book and get a full preview of duplicates for free before you upgrade.

Check out Cleanup Duplicate Contacts for iOS
 

4. OnSpot Social

OnSpot Social is the app for you if you want to collect data from your prospects. This user-friendly contact manager can be downloaded on your tablet or smartphone. The collected data can be used offline or synced with AWeber, Constant Contact, MailChimp, and iContact. You can purchase the app for a one-off event or get an annual subscription of it. This app will also help you to:

• • Create games and run contests
  • Create digital signages and product videos which, in turn, will Increase your ad conversion rates
  • Improve your email list and your social following

Check out OnSpot Social here
 

5. QuickTap Survey

With large and user-friendly templates it is the perfect app to use at trade shows and during events.

• • This app helps to create mobile forms that are used to conduct research.
  • Your own survey can be designed using this app.
  • The data can be gathered at a kiosk or in-person.
  • The generated leads can be exported to CRMs like Salesforce and the information can be used offline as well.

The app has a three-tier pricing system with the monthly advanced tariff being $49 for a single device.

Check out the app for iOS and Android
 

6. Lusha

This app will help your sales reps to find the B2B contact information efficiently and fast. It has various tools that can be learnt and managed easily. Founded in 2016, this app gathers data from business partners, from data that is present on social media sites, and even from the search results that Google gives.

• • This app supports sites like LinkedIn and CRMs like Salesforce.
  • When you visit the profile page, the app scans it. This allows you to see the most recent information of the contact.
  • New information gets synced to the CRM that your business has.
  • Your email data can get easily verified.

This app has a free trial version and a pricing structure wherein the starting amount is $39.00 monthly.

Check out Lusha here
 

7. Sales Rabbit

Information about all contacts can be kept in an organized fashion with the help of this lead tracking app which runs both on tablets as well as on smartphones. When a certain information is needed by sales reps, they can filter it based on current location, the appointment schedule for a given day or time, details of prospects, and even their interest levels.

• • Leads can be ranked based on their interest levels in your product offering.
  • Prospects can be called, or sent a text, or an email directly from the app.
  • Reps can be assigned specific areas and their progress in that region can also be tracked with the help of this territory mapping software.
  • The app has features like the form builder and contract creator which help sales reps to collect electronic signatures, thus reducing the time that paperwork usually takes. This, hence, improves sales performance.

The app has various pricing options and a fee of $49 per year for the Team version of the app is the least one.

Check out the app for iOS and Android
 

8. Survtapp

Survtapp is the app that you should use if you are planning to carry out surveys, market research, or plan to collect customer feedback. The app helps to create customized questionnaires quickly and also helps with data collection and analysis. The required information can be collected by using your phones, tablets, or even on touchscreen kiosks. This app, however, is not compatible with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software due to which you will have to input all the collected information from the app to your database manually. The app can be used on payment of an annual cost together with additional charges for all extra services that you opt for.

Check out Survtapp here: https://www.survtapp.com/
 

9. Leadr

You can use Leadr on your own device to gather and then scan all the contact information from your leads. The iOS app also allows you to add notes to each contact.

• • You can create an unlimited number of events and each can have its own capture fields as well as email bounceback. You can add as many survey questions to the capture fields as you wish to.
  • With the help of this app you can capture data offline as well.
  • Events and campaigns can be analysed by using the Dashboard to find out which performed the best.

However, the app does not integrate with any CRM programs. Also with a cost of approximately £29.99 for 100 leads, it is definitely an expensive alternative app to some of the features and integrations that ScanBizCards offers for a much lower price with a lot more capabilities.

Check out Leadr here
 

Summary

Conversions of leads results in growth and revenue. Leads can be generated from varied channels like emails, social media platforms, and events. There are many different lead generation software platforms and mobile apps that cater to specific channels. The above nine are popular lead capture software that serve the most commonly sought purposes for sales and marketing teams. If you want to be more productive at generating and tracking new leads, you must try them out!

Sales reps spend a lot of time on their smartphones—to coordinate with clients for meetings, to set reminders for upcoming meetings, and to make important calls. However, there is a lot more that can be done with the smartphone with the right apps on it. In fact, they are loaded with various features that make them a powerful sales tool. If you want to know how, then read on.
 

Efficient Schedule Handling

GPS Will Help With Your Itinerary

You might have set up a meeting with your prospective client but you might not be aware of the exact whereabouts of the office or meeting spot—more so if you are new to the region. Instead of calling the client once too many times, all you have to do is to use the GPS and the Google Maps app will lead you to your destination. In fact, you will also be able to know which route is relatively free of traffic and what alternatives you have. This will aid you in reaching on time and making a good first impression with the prospect.

Keep Track of Your Schedule

Sales reps typically don’t set up just one meeting in the span of an entire working day. More often than not, reps are juggling with numerous appointments. This has become truer during the pandemic time when all meetings are happening virtually over emails, calls, and video conferences. Keeping a track of all of them, seeing that none overlap, and remembering them all can be quite a task. Here is where the smartphone comes handy. It helps you to set up reminders, tell you which is the client you are going to be calling, and even the stage of the sales funnel you are with the client, thus helping you with your sales pitches.
 

Efficient Handling of Contacts and Leads

Upload and Extract Contact Information

If you have business cards lying around, all you need to do is to download a business card app on your smartphone, like ScanBizCards, and click a picture of the physical card. The app then scans the information and saves on your address book or uploads it to a centralized database system. This will help you because when you have all contact details in one place, it is easier to make calls or send emails to the leads; not to forget that you can even analyze the status of each and how best you can close deals with them.

This app will also help you to capture contacts from your emails and export to popular CRMS such as Salesforce. It is one of the best productivity apps on the market today.

Get Rid of Duplicate Contacts

Sales people have thousands of contacts on their address book. One of the most difficult and time consuming tasks that people never find time to check off is cleaning their phone;s address book. But there’s an app to help you with it. The CleanUp Duplicates app is one of the best productivity apps for the iPhone and iPad. It runs on multiple sources like Gmail and iCloud, helps to remove duplicate contacts easily and quickly without any errors. This app can check around 5,000 contacts getting checked in 45 seconds!

• • The app allows you to choose the merge level – you can choose a complete matching or various types of partial matching.
  • After this step, the app checks for duplicates post which you can remove all double entries from your address book.
  • CleanUp Duplicates creates a backup of your address book before cleaning. Hence, you will never lose any information.

The premium version of the app comes at a cost. However, you can analyze your address book and get a full preview of duplicates for free before you upgrade.

Keep Contact Information Organized

CircleBack, a professional address book manager for iOS and Android phones is the only contact management app you’ll need to keep your address book both up-to-date and free from duplicate entries, thus keeping all contact information organized. It also helps to capture contacts from email signatures.

• • It can be easily connected with various networks like Office 365, Outlook.com, Hotmail, MSN, and social media sites like Facebook, and Twitter as well.
  • It takes a backup of all contacts before syncing the address book and hence, no data is lost while using this app.
  • Any change made within CircleBack gets directly reflected on the contacts wherever they are present.

Know About the Client

Last Minute Research

It is not enough to just fix an appointment with a lead. Be it a face to face meeting or a video call, knowing a little extra about the prospect is always useful as it creates good first impressions and establishes a personal connection with the client. So, if you have some time in hand before the appointment, you can use your smartphone to research your client.

• • You can look up more about the client on Google.
  • Read more about the client’s business on various blogs and news articles.
  • Access social media apps like Facebook or professional networking apps like LinkedIn to know more about the prospect.

Take Down Meeting Notes

• • When you are talking to your client, it is always helpful to take down notes. If you do it on sheets of paper or on notepads, there is always the possibility that it will stay there and be forgotten about or get lost. Also, often, typing out all notes becomes quite a time consuming and cumbersome task. Rather, if you take down the notes on your smartphone, you can quickly add it to the database soon after the meeting is over. You use various note taking apps like Apple Notes, Google Keep or Evernote.
  • This is true for interviews as well. If you are in a question-answer session with your prospect, instead of writing with pen and paper, a voice recording will be far more useful as then no point will get missed out when you are transcribing it post the session.

Work on the Go

Quick File Sharing

The best productivity apps are those that help with quick file sharing. For instance, use Dropbox to share important files and presentations while you are at the meeting. File sharing apps get the job done faster than email or chats. With your smartphone, you can also make changes to an existing presentation even minutes before your meeting starts.

Brand Building on Social Media

Social media marketing has, nowadays, become a very important mode to communicate with the audience and to generate leads from them. Hence, if you have some spare minutes before your meeting starts, you can use your smartphone to post updates on social media or reply to comments on your posts. Keeping in touch will always help you to create opportunities for sale.
 

Stay in Touch

Virtual Meetings

During the current time when the world is still just about opening up and not too many face-to-face meetings are happening, most interactions still remain virtual. While you can use any mobile phone to make phone calls to stay in touch with your team and your clients. it is only a smartphone that will help you to hold video conversations with the help of apps like Google Duo, Google Talk, Skype, and others.

Quick Response Time

Most clients expect a quick TAT on their queries. So, even if they are spread across geographies – each in a different time zone – you need to be there for them round the clock. This is where a smartphone acts as a powerful sales tool because you can respond to their messages and calls, no matter where you are or what time of the day it is. This leads to an increase in the levels of customer satisfaction and thus builds on brand equity as well.

Get Answers to Tough Questions

It often happens that during a meeting you get asked a question you don;t have an answer to, or it involves making a decision on the spot but you can’t take a call on it without a higher up’s permission. During times like these, your smartphone can help you make a quick video call or Slack the decision maker. This will go a long way in closing your deals then and there rather than keeping them hanging, which can lead to you losing the prospect.
 

Summing up

Mobile devices have revolutionized the way sales is being done today – it is no longer about sitting in front of stationary desktops, everything is going ‘mobile’ now.. Sales is all about interpersonal relationships – the better the customer service, the more the rate of conversions. The smartphone, with all its features, helps a sales rep to take care of this, thus acting as a powerful sales tool.

First impressions are important and thus, when it comes to lead generation strategies, how you plan the first client meeting is always a very important step in the sales lifecycle. A salesperson must always be fully prepared to sell their company’s brand and the product or service accurately to a prospective client. While there is a great thrill in doing this, there is a lot of preparedness that goes into it as well.

Here is a guide that will help you when you are meeting clients – be that face to face, over a call or virtually.

1. Know Your Prospect

Before you meet a prospect for the first time, you must have all the information that you’ll need to strike the right chord with the company – whether that’s a face to face, in-person meeting or a call. Hence, before your meeting, you must learn about:

• • Your company’s offerings or features, and your competitors’.
  • The USPs of your product/service offering.
  • The prospect and their business – for this, go through the company’s website, read recent press releases, do some research on the prospect on LinkedIn. Knowing this will help you to get an understanding of which product/service might interest the lead the most, strike a chord with them and have a meaningful first dialogue.
  • The current market trends in your space.
  • The usual list of queries or questions that are most often asked by prospects – these are usually about pricing, how they will benefit by using your product/service, case studies, how your brand is better than the others, and more. Knowing the answers to such questions clearly demonstrates that you have anticipated all their needs and they will warm up to you faster.

Remember that if you can back up what you say with statistics and data, it will add more weightage to your pitch and you will come across as a knowledgeable and confident person, but more importantly, it’ll show that you have done your research on the prospect and want to solve their challenges. A prospect will thus want to believe in what you say and you increase your chances of speeding up the sales and making a deal closure!
 

2. Pay Attention to How You Present Yourself

Lead generation strategies are not only about how you get the lead, but also about how you follow through with the lead. Hence, during a first-time client meeting, you must remember that you are a part of the brand. So, when you walk in through that door or get on the online meeting bridge, you should always present a professional image of yourself to the client – it makes the client feel that if they close a deal with you and your company, it will be with someone who is capable and responsible. Pay attention to:

• • Your attire – formals work the best followed by company branded clothes with your company’s logo on it (and this work really well for certain industries)
  • Your overall grooming
  • Speak confidently and slowly – hurried speech is difficult to understand and also conveys nervousness
  • Keep your tone polite but focused and professional
  • If you are going to be presenting, then make sure that you know the presentation well and come across as an approachable person – only then will the prospect feel comfortable in asking you questions and begin to warm up to you
  • Keep your energy high – when you show how excited you are about making this deal and how easily your product/service can fix the leads’ issues, they are likely to believe you as well

Added to this, remember that the prospect will have only a limited amount of time for you. Also, a person’s level of concentration begins to drop and that can lead to distraction if the meeting goes on for long periods. Hence, keep your focus right and discuss only the most important pointers.

Most of this holds true even in the current time when many meetings are being done virtually.
 

3. Value the Client

Give a Gift or Something They Will Value

Yes, when you meet a prospect for the first time, you will talk about your brand and your product. However, handing over a gift or something as simple as a file folder to accompany a brochure of your company or a small souvenir does create a good first impression. For instance, a writing pad or a pen with your company’s logo leaves an impression and creates brand recall. A welcome package will not only act as a ‘recap of the meeting’ for the client but it will also show that your company believes in transparency and values clients.

However, in recent times of the pandemic, this will see a shift. Instead of giving a physical item or gift, sending your prospects emails with offers or discount coupons or gift vouchers can be a great idea.

Compliment them

You don’t have to go overboard with the compliments and come across as false, but saying nice things to clients will make them feel good about themselves and they will, in turn, welcome you. For this you can:

• • Speak to them about a positive experience that you have had with the clients’ company in the past – it could be something that you have experienced in your personal life as well
  • Ask the clients for advice on a certain topic – this would make the prospects feel valued and they would open up more easily
  • Pay them compliments about how wonderful it was to read testimonials wherein others in the industry and in the team thought highly of them
  • Even if the meeting does not go exactly as planned, don’t close up – rather, compliment them with how much of a learning experience if was for you and leave it open for future opportunities

That said, don’t try to turn them into your friend – this is business after all. Yes, trust is important and compliments work, but overdoing it could make you appear as someone who is trying too hard to sell the product/service!

Listen to them

Meetings are not only about you talking but, in fact, more about listening to the prospective clients talk. This will help you to:

• • Know more about the clients, what drives them, and what their needs are
  • Know about the position of the clients in the market and what marketing strategies they are planning to adopt to grow their business
  • Know about their problems and the issues that they are facing

When they are speaking, always take down notes and ask them more leading questions so as to dig deeper into the challenges they’re facing. The more you are able to understand their needs, the better will be the rapport that you develop with them, and the more you will know about them. Once you have all the information in hand you will be able to:

• • Assess the clients better
  • Help them to choose the right product offering
  • Illustrate how your company has solved problems similar to theirs in the past

4. Follow-up After the Meeting

Your work is not done after the meeting is over – in fact it is just the beginning.

If you’re meeting the prospective person, it’s a common practice to exchange business cards. If it’s a virtual meeting, you’ll want to save their full contact information such as their cell phone, email, company address etc.

The important thing is to save your prospect’s contact info right after the meeting so you can follow up with them. If you use a contact manager like ScanBizCards, you will be able to capture the contact information immediately:

1. 1. By scanning their business card using your phone
   2. By saving contact info from their signatures using the app’s email signature capture

When it comes to effective B2B lead generation, this is the easiest way to save contact information on your CRM or email marketing system for follow ups.

Send a follow-up email with a recap of the discussion and also the way forward. You can also send the client a calendar invite for when the next meeting/call is going to happen. If you have created their contact and stored all the info on your CRM or a centralized database system using ScanBizCards, then all your contact information would be in one place. Adding tags to the names specifying details of the call, where they are in the sales funnel, and more would help you when the time for follow-up comes.

If you don’t get a reply in a week or two, follow-up with an email, or a call. When you speak, do remember to be genuine and polite and try to take the conversation as close to a conversion as possible and offer options for them to help them make a decision.
 

5. Follow Protocols of the New Normal

Covid-19 has forced the world to think differently. Hence, even though lockdown is now over, when it comes to B2B lead generation, face to face meetings are still limited, most being conducted in the virtual world. So, if you are planning on meeting your prospects, you need to take precautions – both for your own safety as well as for that of your clients’. Some safety measures that you should bear in mind are:

• • Ideally go alone for the meeting and have a one-to-one meeting instead of with a group
  • Make sure that the both of you are wearing masks and maintaining the required distance. With this in mind, try and hold the meeting in a large conference room
  • Do not just drop in – do make an appointment to check if the client is willing to meet you in person
  • Do carry a sanitiser with you
  • While greeting your client, avoid shaking hands
  • Some experts have advised against the use of air-conditioning. Hence, hold the meetings in spaces that are well ventilated and with the air conditioning off
  • If you find that your client does not want a face to face meeting, then do not force him for one. Instead be accommodating and understanding and schedule a virtual conference instead

When sales reps go for meetings, they are filled with excitement and with the urge to close new deals. While this energy is good, it must be remembered that adequate preparedness, following certain rules, and maintaining a certain level of decorum is also equally important. Only then will prospects begin to trust them which will ultimately lead to conversions. Closures don’t happen in a day – patience and follow-ups are needed. If sales people remember this and continue with their efforts, there won’t be any stopping them from closing more deals.

We’re half way through 2020 and COVID-19 has certainly had a major impact on the way we do business. Not just business, we’ve experienced a dramatic shift in the way we live. Some of the changes will likely become normal and have a lasting impact as the world opens up in the post-lockdown era. Businesses have adapted to work from home and remote teams. Organizations have embraced digital in a big way and virtual interactions are now the new normal. Technology is playing a critical role in enabling this shift, helping you in keeping your teams engaged, stay productive and deliver uncompromising customer experiences.

To continue to grow your business, you need to be able to keep track of your clients, interact with customers and colleagues via virtual meetings and video calls, track performance and more – all mostly online. Shifting your operations almost entirely online can be challenging. Luckily, there are some great software tools and business productivity apps for all of your important business activities that will help you to accomplish your tasks efficiently.

In this article, we’ve listed the best productivity apps for marketers in the post-COVID-19 world.

1. Zoom

Zoom’s popularity has skyrocketed in the past few months. With people around the world working from home, Zoom has pretty much become the default mode of communication for remote teams.

Zoom is easy to install, easy to use and offers high-quality audio and video conferencing. You can invite up to 100 people to join you on video, connect with anyone on Android smartphones, iPad or iPhone. It also supports other devices including Windows, Mac, Zoom Rooms, H.323/SIP room systems, and telephones. If you’re a marketer, this is a must have app now.

Available for free on Apple App Store and Google Play Store

2. Google Analytics

In the post-Covid-19 world, having an online presence has become more important than ever before. Your businesses must have a website that draws traffic. It is thus imperative for you to know about the inner structure of your website so that you can analyze whether it is performing effectively or not. To be able to do this, you need to know the details of people visiting your website as well as be able to analyze what pages they are visiting on the site, how they’re completing your website’s Goals and so on.

Google Analytics is one of the most popular web analytics apps because of its sturdiness and depth, efficiency and ease of use. It provides free tools that marketers can use to analyze website traffic to make smarter decisions.

See Google Analytics for iOS and Android

3. ScanBizCards

With over 2 million worldwide users, ScanBizCards is one of the most sought-after business card scanners today. It uses OCR technology to snap photos of business cards and lets you save contact information directly from physical business cards or conference badges on your phone’s address book or on a CRM (Salesforce, SugarCRM and many others).

With fewer physical meetings and events in 2020, ScanBizCards can be a great tool to revive leads from your business cards that are often forgotten and left untouched. It also offers a very useful feature called Email Signature Capture which allows you to capture contacts from your email exchanges simply by connecting your email account (Outlook, Gmail or Office 365). As businesses open up post lockdown, this will be a super useful tool to save business cards digitally with little physical contact.

ScanBizCards is a great contact manager and a lead capture tool packed into one easy to use app. With this app, you can:

• • Export business cards leads directly to Salesforce, Hubspot, Outlook and many other popular CRMs and email marketing systems
  • Create personalized folders for each saved contact
  • Send introductory emails to all the contacts on the list
  • Use its in-app service – Human transcription – to get your cards manually transcribed. This is super useful when you’re scanning multiple cards at an event or have a huge backlog.

See ScanBizCards for iOS and Android

4. Slack

In the virtual world, emails are no longer the only mode of communication – virtual chat rooms have also become popular, and Slack is one of the most popular virtual chat rooms – used by over 4 million business professionals daily.

Remote work has further led to the growth of Slack, making it even more popular. The app has:

• • Chat rooms that can be classified on the basis of topics
  • Private groups
  • Direct messaging
  • Easy integration with other third-party services like Google Drive and Dropbox

In the post lockdown world when businesses are just about opening up and a large part of interactions are still being done remotely and virtually, having a tool that can help with easy communication definitely keeps teams more productive.

See Slack for iOS and Android

5. Evernote

Evernote is an app designed for note taking, organizing, task management, and archiving. The app allows users to create notes, which can be text, drawings, photographs, or saved web content. Evernote is a free app for your smartphone and computer that stores everything you could possibly imagine losing track of, like a boarding pass, receipt, article you want to read, to do list, or even a simple typed note.

The beauty of Evernote is that it syncs automatically across all your devices, and across all your operating systems. Never lose another post-it note, scrap piece of paper, or notebook that has important information on it. You’ll also streamline your desk from a jumble of notes and folders into a single digital storehouse. Evernore has some very useful features such as:

• • The ability to share notes and whole notebooks with classmates, coworkers, family, etc.
  • The ability to take and attach pictures to a note right from within the app.
  • The ability to take and attach voice memos and audio to a note right from within the app.
  • The ability to attach files (spreadsheets, images, docs) to any note.
  • The ability to scan text in a photo using Optical Character Recognition technology.
  • The ability to set reminders for yourself for various tasks, goals, and projects from within the app.
  • The ability to create checkboxes that serve as virtual to-dos.
  • The ability to sync automatically between all devices, meaning you can access your notes even when offline. (This feature is somewhat limited in the free version.)
  • Best of all – it’s FREE! There’s a premium version that offers a few bonus features, but the freebie offers all of the above.

Evernote is quite a popular app among marketers due to its one of its kind notes taking features which is hard to find among other apps. It’s worth having it on your phone as you return to work or continue to work remotely!

See Evernote for iOS and Android

6. CircleBack

If you’re looking for reliable contact management software, CircleBack is one of the best. CircleBack is an automated address book manager which helps you to sync your contacts. It uses intelligent automated software to find new business contacts from your Google, Microsoft and exchange inboxes and removes duplicate contacts. Apart from being a contact manager, the app also has a business card scanner feature that lets you scan your business cards and add instantly to your address book or to your CRM.

See CircleBack for iOS and Android

7. Expensify

Expensify helps you to generate one-click reports and makes it easy to review them. This is quite a handy tool for everyone because you can get auto reimbursement reports with approval and duplicate detection. You can easily review your sales expenses and view them just by tapping a button. If you’ve been working remotely, purchasing office tools or equipment and keeping track of office expenses, this is the perfect app to have.

See Expensify for iOS and Android

These 7 apps can help you to manage your daily marketing and sales tasks, reach out to your potential customers faster and more accurately, and stay more productive. Make the most of them as you prepare to return to work to crush your goals in 2020!

COVID-19 did not spare any business, whether big or small. It must have had an impact on your business and may have turned some of your plans upside down. It could be that in the past few months of lockdown, you have lost some clients and business operations have slowed down. But now with lockdowns opening in most states in the US and around the world, and with the world taking baby steps towards normalcy, growth will be of paramount importance for businesses.

If you’re in the B2B space, B2B lead generation will now be more critical than ever before for the rest of 2020 and beyond. So it is time to start building your funnel and growing your pipeline. The challenge, however, is tactics that worked so far may not produce the same results.

The question on everyone’s mind is that with face to face meetings and B2B events still not happening at large scale, and with budgets quite tight, how can businesses generate new leads?

These hurdles can be overcome with a slight shift in your approach and by adopting the right tactics. Here are some simple, yet effective lead generation strategies that will help you to generate new leads for your B2B business as the world begins to open up post the pandemic.

Focus on the Most Important Contacts

Assess your current database of prospects – those you contacted prior to the lockdown and those you did not. Now isn’t the time to reach out to each and every one of your targeted accounts and prospects. Rather, you should spend some time on lead scoring and evaluate the prospects and leads based on how important they are. You can score in terms of how likely they are to make a buying decision right now, how long it is likely to take for them to make a buying decision, the potential deal size or the LTV (lifetime value) of the account, where the leads are in the sales funnel, and other factors such as buying intent based on the new dynamics, organizational changes, technographic shifts and so on.

Using these data points, find out the most important accounts and leads and focus on them. You’ll stand higher chances of conversion. In the current situation, trying to pitch your product/service without giving consideration to the industry or sector can be expensive and time consuming, and it might still not even give you the desired result. On the other hand, certain industries are likely to have an increased need for your product/service and so you musy shift your focus toward them.

Set Realistic Goals

Don’t set goals you cannot achieve. You may not be able to generate new leads and make conversions in the same way in current times. The world is only just getting back to its feet. So, set realistic goals for your sales team. For instance:

• • Set short term KPIs and start with a routine to follow them
  • Assess the current market potential
  • Set a target for yourself / your teams, such as
    • • Connect ratio or the number of people you will have a meaningful conversation with on a daily or on a weekly basis
      • Follow up ratio or the percentage of your initial meetings that will have an immediate follow-up schedule
      • Closing ratio of your initial meetings that actually turn into customers
  • Have a well-crafted and personalised email or email cadence ready that you can shoot off soon after the call is over
  • Track your progress so that you know what the next steps for you should be

Review All Your Existing Leads

Save All Your Business Cards Leads

There are leads you have likely not touched. For example, leads from business cards that are lying forgotten about in your drawer. If you don’t have a centralized database, now is the time for you to create one. Use a business card scanner app like ScanBizCards to scan all physical business cards. This app will then upload the contact information to a centralized CRM. Once you have the details in one place it will be easier for you to reach out to your leads. And since you’ll now have your business card leads in your CRM or some digital form, you can add notes on how the discussion went as this will help you with follow-ups.

Find Leads In Your Emails

Over 124 billion business emails get exchanged daily with the average office-goer handling over 100 emails per day. Emails are thus a treasure trove of potential leads. All you need to do is to download an app like ScanBizCards on your smartphone and connect your business email account to use its Email Signature Capture feature. This feature will then help you to capture new contacts from your emails automatically.

Update Your Message

In the past few months, customers’ wants and needs have certainly changed and they’re in fact still evolving as the world opens up. So, if you stick to the same message that you had prior to the lockdown, it might not garner the attention you need to position your brand. Update your message or create a new message that addresses the current situation. For example, now is the time when your brand needs to convey to the market that you:

• • Help to solve a problem
  • Help to accelerate the growth of business
  • Aid in minimizing their business risk

If you are able to articulate your new message on various social media channels, on your website, and in all other forms of advertising that you have chosen, you improve the chance of prospects reaching out to you to know more about your offering.

Revamp Your Website / Your Offering

Website

When buyers are looking for a particular product or service online, the first thing they do is search the web. If your prospects are led to your website, they would want to know more about you. Hence, ensure you use the correct tactics so that your search engine ranking is high. Putting up the right content, client testimonials, blogs, and other information such as CTAs, forms and tracking tools on your website is key to keep your visitors hooked.

Here are some tips:

• • Have an exit-intent popup to capture the visitors’s info before they leave your website. This could be in the form of discounts or exciting offers.
  • Play around with words and make your CTA a compelling one rather than use oft-used words like “subscribe”.
  • Use colour codes that contrast well so that the visual appeal is high.
  • Use web push notifications to retarget the leads and encourage them to come back to your website. This is a powerful tool as it can be used both on smartphones and on desktop computers as well.

Product or Offering

It could be that you are not generating enough leads because what you are offering is not relevant at the moment. So, not only your message, but your offering, too, probably needs a change to meet the evolving customer demands which has seen a change during the pandemic. A complete change isn’t always possible though. In such cases you should give freebies or offer upgrades or new features which will tempt the prospects to buy your product/service. While deciding what would work best for you, do keep in mind:

• • Your budget
  • The message that your brand conveys
  • That what you are offering should be unique and not easily available elsewhere in the market

Use Social Media Channels More Intensively

People are spending a lot of time online nowadays. So, you need to be more active and visible on the various social media platforms to bolster your B2B lead generation efforts. Without professional networking, it will be a challenge to grow your leads. And in current times, networking will still predominantly occur online.

• • Write about your new offerings and offers on Facebook. Set the right CTA.
  • Use hashtags to tweet about trending topics.
  • Post articles, comment on other posts, and connect with leaders on LinkedIn.
  • Post pictures on Instagram about how you are keeping your office sanitised, how you are providing round the clock service despite so many still working from home.
  • Join industry groups where you can blog on topics that are of interest to the members.
  • Participate in group discussions in various forums.
  • Live stream videos of the leaders of your company.
  • You can use user-generated content where you use photos that your clients share with you to promote your product. Encourage existing customers to share such photos and articles on various social media sites.
  • Host contests and giveaways on social media channels.

Added to this, you can also host webinars, These are an effective way to reach out to a large audience. Make sure, though, that when you do, you:

• • Choose interesting and relevant topics
  • Don’t host it for an extended period of time as the audience will begin to lose interest
  • Have important people and influencers in the panel
  • Not focus on simply selling your product but have a meaningful discussion instead
  • Not all might be able to attend the session. Hence, once the session is over, you must upload it on your website and even share it on social media.

Remember that it is not just the product/service that you need to brand. The need of the hour is also to brand yourself as a sales leader, technology or business leader. When the audience begins to know you as a leader in the industry, they will want to try your offering as well.

Don’t Rub Leads the Wrong Way

Prospects are not really in the mood to fill out long and complicated forms or answer innumerable questions. So, when you have online inquiries or begin speaking to a lead, avoid turning the conversion process into one that rubs people the wrong way. Keep it simple and straightforward. Customers are currently looking for effective products that will help them, ones that are not beyond their budget, and those that can be bought easily and quickly.

Start Moving

If you are going to sit passively waiting for prospects to reach out to you, then think again because that is not going to happen. Instead, be brave, get your plan in place, and use these lead generation strategies to reach out to new prospects and get back to growing your business – slowly and steadily.

One of the most common challenges with business cards leads is that you’ll either need to manually key in contact data from cards into a CRM or Excel sheet (which is prone to errors and delays), or you’ll need expensive physical card readers and scanners to save contacts into a digital format. A faster, more convenient, and cost-effective way to create contacts from business cards is to use a contact management software. If you use an iPhone, you can find many different contact manager apps on the App Store to save, export, and manage your contacts.

If you want to create contacts from business cards on your iPhone or iPad and save the contacts in Excel / CSV format, here’s an easy way to do it.

Creating Contacts from Business Cards on Your iPhone and Exporting to an Excel (CSV) File

1. 1. Go to the Apple App Store and look for an app that lets you scan business cards. This will allow you to create contacts on your phone’s address book that you can then export to any CRM systems through various file formats. You can do a broad search using the search term ‘business card scanner” or ‘business card reader’.
   2. There are many different contact management software apps available on the App Store. Pick an app that’s popular and reliable. A good way to verify that is to check the number of reviews and average ratings of the app. Also, if you can find a free to download app, there’s no reason to purchase one. ScanBizCards Lite is one of the top-ranking apps in this category. And it’s free.

ScanBizCards allows you to scan business cards by snapping photos (both sides), and export scanned contacts from your iPhone in bulk or individually to Excel / CSV files quite easily. This is how you can do it.

How to Create and Export Contacts

Once you’ve installed the ScanBizCards app, here’s what you’ll need to do to create your contacts from business cards so you can later export to Excel (CSV):

Scanning Your Business Cards

1. 1. 1. Open the ScanBizCards app and tap on the Scan icon
      2. The app will launch the camera to scan your business card
      3. You can scan both the front and the back of the card
         
      4. You can edit fields if you see any errors or wish to make changes. Once you’ve verified that all the fields are accurately scanned, save your contact.

Exporting Your Contacts to an Excel (CSV) File

Now that you have your business cards scanned and contacts saved on your iPhone’s address book, you can export your contacts to Excel. Here’s what you’ll need to do:

1. 1. Open the ScanBizCards app and select Total Contacts (this is available on the home screen of the app)
   2. Select the folder that you want to export. This is the folder that has all the scanned cards contact information – i.e., All Cards
   3. Tap on the (…) Dots which is the actions button and then select the option Export To…
   4. Choose where you want to export, for instance, Excel and other CRMs available for direct export (in this case, since you’re specifically looking to export contacts into an Excel / CSV file, select Excel)
   5. If you don’t want to export all your contacts, you can deselect the ones that you don’t want to export
   6. Once you are sure that all the contacts that you want to export have been selected, tap on the ‘Done selecting – export to Excel’ button that is present at the bottom of the screen
   7. The contacts will be exported as an Excel file and sent to you via email

Studies show that more than 80% of business card leads are lost or discarded, which results in lost sales opportunities. When you have the right tools such as a contact manager, coupled with a CRM system available, there’s no reason why you should lose track of any business card leads and lose out on potential revenue opportunities!

You can get the free ScanBizCards app for iOS here:

httpps://www.scanbizards.com/getlite/

COVID-19 is yet to be fully eradicated, but the world is slowly getting back on its feet. If both planners and venues work together, events will start to take shape once again. For the B2B event industry, there will be a new set of protocols that will be followed now – one that focuses on safety and the health of the attendees. What are these new norms?

How soon will they return? If you are a part of the B2B industry then read on.
 

Venues Need to Take Protective Measures

Venues are an important aspect of an event. As the event planning industry resumes operations and B2B events start once again, venues will have to implement social distancing norms and take every precaution possible so that those hosting and attending are safe and their health is not compromised in the least bit.

• • Venues will need to have the facility of thermal scanning if any attendee is showing any symptom(s) of being unwell. Not following this could mean jeopardizing the health of others.
  • Venues will need to have a proper sanitization policy so that the possibility of the virus spreading is eliminated.
  • Having protective gear ready that can be supplied in case there are attendees who come without one will become important.
  • The room and the seating configuration will have to be paid heed to. For instance, tables can be set 6-feet apart with sufficient space in the aisles and carpets can be marked so that people are aware of how far apart they should stand.
  • Venues should also put a cap on the scale of gathering or size of the event.
  • Ensuring that all attendees and employees are aware of the safety protocols will also be important.
  • As long as social distancing needs to be followed, buffets and post-event parties would probably not happen. Rather, seated dining is likely to become popular. Hence, venues need to come up with options such that those hosting can be offered cost-effective F&B solutions. For example, pre-packed food or boxed meals would be a less expensive option. One should also avoid keeping food and drinks on display and there needs to be a restriction on the number of people in the kitchen and also train the staff who are serving.
  • It will be safer to host events outdoors where there is sufficient airflow. As warmer months are approaching, this can be taken advantage of by venues who have such open space.

People Need to be Willing

When you plan to host an event, it is one thing to choose the right venue and an entirely different thing to sell the event and get people to attend it. The pandemic has made people wary and nervous. And the event industry will be largely impacted with this effect. Hence, even if an event is held, there will be many who will still think twice before attending it. For instance, prospects might not be too willing to mingle with big crowds, travel long distances for a meet, or stay at hotels for an event. Hence, companies need to start small with local events that don’t last for a long time and with a limited number of invitees. You can reach out to a larger audience by using social media channels to talk about the event and to showcase the highlights of it.
 

Virtual Events Will Still be Around

It will be a while before large events start. For instance, Facebook has announced that it would not be hosting an event on a large scale till next year’s summer. This said, however, events will begin, but slowly and that too initially only at the domestic level. When they begin, not all leads might be willing to attend as anxiety is still there in the minds of people. So, it is best for you to begin with events that are small. For instance:

• • Internal meeting with your team who have been working from home these past months
  • Small workshops or seminars that you can host for people in the vicinity

A study on the B2B event industry trends carried out by Global Meetings Industry Day found that most event-professionals feel that events will return by September 2020. However, this will be a hybrid of digital and live. Hence the virtual alternatives of a real face-to-face event will still be around. Thus, if you have been thinking of hosting an event, it would be good to explore the virtual options as well-

• • Host webinars.
  • Be active on social media.
  • Keep your web content updated.
  • If you have a mobile-based app then use push notification to engage with your clients.
  • Make optimal use of search engine marketing by, for example, using better keywords and geo-setting your ads.
  • Network more on professional sites like LinkedIn.
  • If you have been using a business card scanner app like ScanBizCards, you would already have a ready database of prospects. Use this list to generate new leads by reaching out to them more frequently. ScanBizCards also helps to scan your emails to generate new leads.
  • Brainstorm with your team to find out how you can use the AR and VR more effectively.

Events Will Be Challenging

Lockdown is over, however, the spread of the virus is still a threat. Hence, while you might want to start planning events, you must also remember that it will still be a challenge.

• Other than the fact people are still anxious, tracing the movement of those who are sick with the help of an app is not totally foolproof. Hence, until this technology changes, events will only very slowly take shape.
• Recently Morgan Stanley released a timeline by when people in the US are expected to return to work. While it looks like this will happen in August, it also talks of the second wave of contagion around November 2021. This, however, could be largely negated if a vaccine becomes available around March 2021. Hence, at the moment, it is somewhat still speculation about when the event planning industry will be working full steam and events will resume at scale.

 
The past few months have been bleak not only for the event industry but also B2B marketers who depend largely on events and trade shows. The pandemic has taken a toll on humans and on businesses. With lockdowns opening, organizations are taking baby steps towards normalcy. In-person events might not happen in full swing for the next couple of years – not till there is a vaccine, herd immunity, or simple treatment is available – but they are starting.

There are states that are not taking ‘no’ for an answer. For instance, Governors of states including Missouri and Arkansas have decided to allow large events to take place – of course, with the right safety measure. So, while planning an event, keep it small-scale initially and make safety your topmost priority. You have made it this far, you will just keep doing better from hereon – have that faith.

Times are not quite yet like business as usual and those in the B2B space are still grappling with social distancing norms, limited staff at the office, layoffs, cancellation of events and shows and lost revenues to cover. But post lockdown, and with the economy slowly opening up, businesses are slowly getting back to their pre-COVID-19 days. It might take a little while, but normalcy will return. For now, for businesses in the B2B space, there needs to be a clear path forward on how they can solidify their marketing and stay engaged with prospects until meetings, networking and events resume like the old days.

Here are a few ideas.

1. Reassess Your Offering

In the past few months, customers’ buying habits have changed and evolved. Hence, now that lockdowns are opening up throughout the world, marketers need to assess the current status quo and learn how they can quickly adapt to the new needs. As marketers, remember that you are the ones who can influence buyers based on how you brand and promote your company’s product or service. For instance:

• • You can offer a free trial of your product or service, extend the trial period, offer to upgrade them to a premium service free of cost, help with better delivery of your product, and so on.
  • Smaller businesses might have to revamp the way they operate by focusing on the digital space to reach out to the clients through relevant ways such as videos and live streaming discussions.
  • The content that you create and share on your website and on social media will also help the buyers to know more about your current offering. Hence, make your content newsworthy and informative while staying sensitive.

With the opening up of the economy, you need to reassess your offering as well. Ask yourself if what you were offering before the pandemic will work now or if you need to make changes. During the lockdown, for instance, there were companies that changed their offering altogether as well – it is not impossible!

• • In New Zealand, Good George Brewery began to use some of its facilities to start manufacturing hand sanitizers.
  • Gull Service Stations, the fuel company, donated high-quality ethanol to help out when there was a shortage of hand sanitizers.
  • Larger companies, too, have been adapting to the changing needs. For instance, Ford has partnered with 3M and GE Healthcare to produce face shields and other protective gears.

2. Show You Care

Care for the Customer

Even if lockdown is over, the prospects are still anxious and are only beginning to take baby steps towards normalcy. Hence, while you brainstorm over how you can make up for the lost time and grow your brand, you also need to come across as a name that is concerned about the customer’s welfare and is there to address their concerns and help them out. So, this is the time when you need to design a brand building campaign that tells the buyers that you are there to support them, educate them, and show them empathy.

• • When you reach out to the prospects, you still cannot be overly salesly and think only of profits.
  • Read what they are asking about on social media and listen to them when they reach out to you with queries. This will help you to solve their challenges better.
  • If you have partnered with any government organizations or other agencies wherein you are helping the community in any way, do talk about it so that prospects know about it.

When you are strategizing on how best you can connect with the audience, know that there is no one right way. For instance, while a live streaming might be beneficial for an important product announcement, you might need to do a one-on-one free consultancy for clients who are facing issues with a product feature. Being agile is the need of the hour. So, your strategies need to be flexible and evolve based on the customer’s needs.

Care for the Employee

There is still likely to be a large part of your workforce who is still working from home. They are bound to go through periods of vulnerability when they feel confused and anxious. As the leader, you need to keep them motivated and you can do this in various ways.

• • Communicate with them more often – have calls to decide on the next steps, to strategize, to hear about their issues and find solutions to them, and also to talk to them casually to boost their morale.
  • Always inform them of the changes in company policies that are happening.
  • Now is the time to be more visible. Hence, you can ask the leaders of your organization to share their expertise and knowledge with the sales team through live video calls on platforms like Zoom and Skype.
  • Assure them that they can rely on you and help them and their families in whatever way that you can.

As for those returning to work, you need to assure them that you have made all efforts to sanitise the workspace and taken steps to maintain social distancing.
 

3. Engage Virtually with Your Prospects

Just because events and shows are yet to begin, it does not mean that you have no other way left to connect and engage with your prospects. There are, in fact, multiple ways that you can recreate events virtually.

• • Webinars are the most common form of online engagement.
  • You can organize a 360° virtual tour of your facility.
  • You can host a virtual summit for a live Q&A session or a speaker event.
  • You can host virtual workshops to demonstrate to the clients about your new product or service offering.

4. Generate Leads from Existing Databases and Internally Available Sources

With the end of the lockdown your sales team will slowly get back in the field and meetings will begin once again. However, this will be a little slow in the beginning as people are still figuring out the safe way of working. However, during this period, it doesn’t mean that you can’t find new prospects. Your existing databases and emails is where you need to look to generate new leads!

• • If you have been using ScanBizCards, you would already have a ready database of contacts in your CRM. Go through this list to find out contacts who have not been followed up with in recent times or might have been missed out on.
  • The ScanBizCards app also has a built-in feature known as Email Signature Capture that helps to auto-capture contacts from your emails. By using this app you will be able to find out new contacts from your email exchanges as well.

5. Improve Your Online Presence

Be More Visible on Social Media

Internet usage increased during the lockdown. While some of it was due to greater viewing of movies on channels like Netflix, a greater part of it was because social media became the most popular way that people were staying connected with one another. Even post lockdown, not all will venture out as the virus is still out there. Normalcy will come, but slowly. Hence, so as to stay connected with your prospects, you should use the various social media channels to communicate more with your prospects.

Overhaul Your Website

Needs and wants of the buyer have changed in the past few months. Thus, what they used to search for earlier on the internet has also altered. Keeping this in mind, you need to change the way that your website looks and feels. For instance:

• • Review your content and blog posts and see if they are still talking of the lockdown – change it! With lockdown over, now is the time to have content that is more positive as customers want their lives back on track soon.
  • Do a keyword research to find out what prospects are searching for and use that to revamp your website.

Look Forward!

The pandemic has had an impact on personal health, on the economy, and on businesses. You need to acknowledge this fact and re-evolve yourself because the way you operate your business is in your hands. Post lockdown, initially it might seem a little daunting to find the correct marketing mix that will get in the profits for you, but don’t panic. Currently you might be operating on a shoestring budget and hence being a little cautious on the next steps, but it is time to rejoice because lockdown days are over. The world is getting back to their feet once again and the time has come to start sketching out the future strategy for your business.
 

We update the ScanBizCards app as often as possible to make it faster and more reliable for you.

Here is the main enhancement you’ll find with the latest update of our ScanBizCards Lite and Premium apps for iOS, version 9.6.1:

– Fixed an issue that was causing app to crash upon launch in some cases

– Minor bug fixes

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Have a question? Tap ‘Help’ under settings on your ScanBizCards app or visit support.scanbizcards.com

Download or update the ScanBizCards Lite or Premium app here: