B2B in the Age of COVID-19
It’s been months since the COVID-19 pandemic, and in many places of the world, America especially, there doesn’t seem to be any signs of slowing down.
One of the biggest impacts of the virus is how we do business. We know some of the changes; many restaurants are takeout and carryout only, more people are working from home, and masks must be worn at all times.
What about the business to business (B2B) side of things? Let’s discuss.
On B2B Marketing and Sales
COVID-19 is going to take the system as we know it and turn it upside-down. However, one positive consequence of this is innovation.
One example of innovating is changing how you connect to your customers. Businesses need to audit how they conduct themselves.
Many customers will be looking to how you conduct yourself. Do you offer sanitizer? Do all your employees wear masks? What are you doing to keep everything as hygienic as possible? Do you have services that are COVID-19 friendly, like delivery? Is your customer service adapted to being more remote and can keep up with the bandwidth?
It’s also about fast reaction time. You need to adjust for any shutdown or any change that comes along due to COVID-19.
Marketing
Marketing is a beast, and many businesses always need to innovate according to how the market changes. Without COVID-19, how we were marketing was changing, with the Internet and security concerns being one of the causes. It just caused innovation to accelerate.
The roles of both sales and marketing have been changing for a while. COVID-19 is just the latest iteration. In every stage, one needs to learn how to market, even after the sale is made. Keeping customer retention in the age of COVID-19 is more important than ever.
Never Expect Things to Go Back to Normal
People and businesses are wondering when everything will go back to normal. This is not an ideal way of looking at the future. When you’re practicing B2B or any form of business, you need to realize that life changes. How we conducted business 20 years ago is no longer the same. Plenty of businesses saw something in the horizon, like online shopping, and thought it would go away. It didn’t.
COVID-19 will go away, but how we conduct business may stay the same. Some people may find that they prefer the new world of business. Others will want to in order to prevent a future outbreak.
Audit your business and see how you do B2B. Then, see how you can change it. You may realize that there’s a lot you can do.
