B2B MARKETER’S
SURVIVAL GUIDE
Adapting to a
Changed Landscape
12:00 PM PDT | Thursday, May 28, 2020

INTRODUCTIONS
M E E T T H E M A R K E T E R S

Jill Richards
Johannes Hoech
Our Speakers
E x p e r i e n c e
Jill:
o CMO (Security, Data, Mobile)
o Specialize in scaling startups
o 20+ years experience
o UCLA MBA
Johannes:
o CMO/COO (InfoSec, MedTech, FinApps)
o Specialize in “Growth Architecting”
o 30 years experience
o MIT MBA, McKinsey
JillJRichards.com
linkedin.com/in/jillrichards
JillJRichards.com/blog
MarqetU.com
info@MarqetU.com
MarqetU.com/blog

AGENDA
1. Over view
2. New Data
3. Sur vival Tips
4. Resources

How to grow as the
economy restarts? Overview
1. Sectors to grow or slow
2. Budget considerations
3. Understanding and protecting pipeline
4. Optimizing and adapting marketing
5. Aligning with and driving sales

NEW DATA
M A R K E T T E L E M E T R Y

Deals Total
Created & Closed
▷ Overall, deals created and closed are off
their pre-pandemic levels by between
15%-35%
▷ Both rates are still negative but improving
Source: HubSpot | https://www.hubspot.com/covid-data

Deals by Region
Created
LATAM and EMEA have seen the
biggest drop-offs in deals created with
drops of 35% and 45%, respectively
Source: HubSpot | https://www.hubspot.com/covid-data
▷ Which regions can you best
create deals in now?

Deals by Region
Closed
LATAM and EMEA have also seen
the largest drop off in deals closed
(58% and 39%, respectively)
Source: HubSpot | https://www.hubspot.com/covid-data
▷ Where can you best close
deals in pipe?

Deals by Industry
Created
Travel and (surprisingly) entertainment are the industries with the
largest drop in deals created with drops of 60% and 55%, respectively
Consumer Goods saw a spike around the time of stimulus checks
Manufacturing and software are now in positive territory
Source: HubSpot | https://www.hubspot.com/covid-data
▷ Which industry verticals can
you engage now?

Deals by Industry
Closed
Travel and entertainment are also the industries with the largest
drop in deals closed with drops of 55% and 50%, respectively
Consumer Goods, Software are now in positive territory
Source: HubSpot | https://www.hubspot.com/covid-data
▷ Which industry verticals can
you close best in now?

65%
33%
Budget
Trends
CMOs expecting moderate
to signficant budget cuts
What makes sense for you:
cut or invest?
The trend is less important than your unique business.
Funding is a competitive dimension – be proactive
CMOs expecting
signficant budget cuts
Source: Gartner | https://www.gartner.com/en/marketing/research/7-questions-to-optimize-marketing-operations-costs

SURVIVAL TIPS
W H AT ’ S W O R K I N G

FOCUS HERE
Do the Numbers
1 Update Your Forecast
2 Protect Existing Pipe
3 Optimize Spend
Understand what’s driving
revenue, where you stand
compared to plan and what
resources you have to fuel
growth

Get visibility into how
your marketing and sales
funnel have been
impacted
1
GET
VISIBILITY
Update Forecast
D o t h e N u m b e r s Invest in MarTech for funnel visibility
• If you don’t have a CRM or other tools in place, a well
structured Google Analytics instance with conversion events
can get you good basic info
Get your dashboards together to show:
• Top down pipeline showing all revenues by lead source
• Marketing and sales funnel conversion at each stage
• Sales cycle length
• Average deal sizes (ASPs) by product, region, etc.
• Bottoms up pipeline showing revenue by quarter, rep,
customer and product
• Marketing channel performance
Update the forecast in real time
• Meet weekly with sales
• Focus on what you can impact in the next 2 weeks
• Act early to tackle visibility & conversion challenges

Lock in deals already in
the pipe. They are the
most likely to close
quickly and will help
minimize revenue losses.
2
KEEP &
CLOSE
Protect Existing Pipe
D o t h e N u m b e r s Retain current customers
• Be in close contact with customers to anticipate and
reduce churn
• Offer better terms, same rate contract extensions, etc.
to reduce pressure on cash flow and new bookings
• Expand contracts, where possible
Meet weekly with sales
• SWAT team all in-progress deals
• Determine what content, conversations, convincing
needs to happen
Re-evaluate your expected close rate
• Review deals by close date and sector
• Avoid “happy ears”
• Be conservative so you plan for the worst case scenario

Streamline and monitor.
your budget for people
and projects. Track spend
performance so you can
shift funds to the best
performing options.
3
OPTIMIZE
Optimize Spend
D o t h e N u m b e r s
Eliminate extra or marginal spend
• Review subscriptions and reduce seats or scale if
possible
• Evaluate vendor spend, turning off things that
aren’t critical now
Invest in high performing channels
• Assess the ROI of each marketing channel
• Divest in channels with low or marginal yield
• Invest in in channels that are performing
• Postpone channel experiments
Be proactive about your budget
• Get ahead of the conversation so a reduction isn’t
your only option
• Know where you can invest/divest with confidence
• Be ready to be opportunistic with spend to take
out competitors

FOCUS HERE
Adapt Your Approach
4 Adapt Your Marketing
5
Think Promotion vs
Pricing
6 Align & Attack the Market
Adjust marketing to new
realities, partner closely
with sales, and (over)
communicate

Update your marketing
approach and tactics to
reflect new budget and
market realities.
4
ADAPT
Adapt Marketing
A d a p t Yo u r A p p r o a c h Target Market: Keep an eye on your Ideal Customer
Profile (ICP)
• Who can buy now? (Enterprise vs SMB)
• What verticals are most impacted? (Travel vs Security)
• Which geo’s are hardest hit? (NY vs TX)
• Who do we sell to? (Ops vs CX)
Events: Shift to online, experiment with formats
• Think smaller field events (engaging exec audience in virtual
roundtables)
• Turn your annual event into a full day virtual conference
• Make virtual events more personal and fun (Zoom breakout
rooms for smaller groups, gift cards for Uber eats for a
lunch and learn session)

Update your marketing
approach and tactics to
reflect new budget and
market realities.
4
ADAPT
Adapt Marketing cont.
Messaging: Change it up again
• Tell audiences what you’re doing and what to expect
• Shift away from ‘in these unusual times’; push free content
• Add an opt in to direct mail or incentives to get engagement
• Monitor changes in keywords to be able to adapt and stay
relevant
• Update differentiation based on current market realities
(“we’re the only solution that meets the needs of first
responders…”)
Competitive Positioning: Be proactive
• Monitor competitors in media, on social, by visiting their
websites
• Tap sales to learn what prospects are saying and how
competitors may be undercutting your deals
• Share intelligence with execs, your board, product, CX
• Prep sales and exec teams with responses
A d a p t Yo u r A p p r o a c h

Once lowered, it can be
hard to bring your price
back up. Add value
instead of lowering
prices.
5
HOLD
Promote Wisely
Think of this as a promotional period
• Define a promotional period during which your offers
are different but your pricing remains the same
• If you lower prices, audiences will expect you can
deliver at that price in the future (they did it then,
why not now?)
Deliver extra value, Don’t Lower Prices
• Research what would be valuable to customers
during this time that you can deliver with minimal
impact to your margin and that will sustain revenues
• Add value to current pricing rather than lowering
prices (add access to a feature, extra service, or a
discount for buying more)
• Create incentives to come back to you on a more
regular basis
A d a p t Yo u r A p p r o a c h

Gaps in alignment with
sales cost time and sales.
Work as a team to survive
and succeed.
6
ALIGN &
ATTACK
Align with Sales Open channels & inform the reps
• Establish bi-directional communication flows
• Use Slack/messaging to get real-time market info
o Who’s buying and why, who needs nurturing?
o Alerts on competitive attacks and responses
• Make resources easy to access and message
• Leverage sales workflows, not marketing’s
Update & train regularly
• Weekly emails with everything marketing is doing (new
targets, messaging, social posts, campaigns, etc.) to
ensure awareness and alignment
• Weekly/daily standups to train on new messaging, battle
cards, content, competitive responses, etc.
• Keep C-suite and product teams informed to share info on
deals and GTM effectiveness/progress
Attack the market and competitors
• Crisis creates opportunity – defend what you have and be
opportunistic about taking share
A d a p t Yo u r A p p r o a c h

RESOURCES
D ATA , A R T I C L E S

How to grow as the
economy restarts? Review
1. Sectors to grow or slow
2. Budget considerations
3. Understanding and protecting pipeline
4. Optimizing and adapting marketing
5. Aligning with and driving sales

RESOURCES
1
COVID-19 Marketing and Sales
Benchmark Data
HubSpot | https://www.hubspot.com/covid-data
2
Why You Should Resist Dropping
Your Prices
Inc. | https://www.inc.com/video/why-you-should-
resist-dropping-your-prices.html?cid=sf01001
3
7 Questions to Optimize Marketing
Operations Costs
Gartner |
https://www.gartner.com/en/marketing/research/7-
questions-to-optimize-marketing-operations-costs
5
Driving Demand During a Pandemic
BrightTALK |
https://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/17357/399459
4
20 Ways to Confidently Sell on Value
Rather Than Price
The Startup | https://medium.com/swlh/20-ways-to-
confidently-sell-on-value-rather-than-price-bab83cc80dea
the MARQETU blog
MarqetU.com/blog
the 10X blog
JillJRichards.com/blog

THANK YOU
HAPPY MARKETING