Refreshing your B2B marketing strategy: July is the new January
Every year the economy experiences a downturn in productivity and planning during December followed by a period of bright rejuvenation and resurgence in the New Year, characterised by re-energised marketing campaigns, new business strategies and increased budget flexibility.
This is evidenced in the Google Trends data that shows the search volume of the phrase, ‘marketing strategy’. This demonstrates how managers have a slowdown of workload in the run up to Christmas, then afterwards, commit their business to a marketing strategy refresh.
We attribute the refresh equally to the feeling of ‘new beginnings’ found in January, to the extra time managers can spend reflecting on their business and planning a re-envigored marketing campaign for the New Year.
The New ‘January’
Although we are now seeing this trend outside of the usual, December-January routine. The lockdown restrictions have combined to recreate the downtime and reflective period found at the end of the year.
Using the knowledge of what comes after the downturn in December, we can predict the next stage of the current business environment, the ‘January’ style resurgence. As seen in the Search Metrics data above, this demonstrates exactly what we predict happening after the lockdown restrictions are lifted.
Search trends are beginning to support this prediction. They allow us to gain insight into exactly what consumers are searching for, giving us a much clearer vision for the future. We have found that the number of keywords relating to the reopening of hotels, parks, museums have all increased recently. Showing that the public are eagerly awaiting the reopening of these venues.
Your Route Out of Hibernation
Each business is different and has different goals to achieve following lockdown. The marketing strategy should reflect this and be a custom tool to help your business fulfil its potential. In such a difficult business environment, with the economy expected to take an 11.5% dip in 2020. Businesses can’t afford to stutter when demand is likely to reach its highest peak since 2019.
Therefore, we recommend a rigorously planned marketing strategy using insight from search data, that will take advantage of the needs and wants as seen from the search frequency. To do so, managers must fully comprehend what these are through intensive market research.
One example has already been seen with the hotel and tourism industry, Google Trends have shown that consumers are actively searching phrases like, ‘when are hotels opening’ and ‘what date can we book hotels’, as seen below. Allowing managers in this industry to actively predict when demand will increase and helping them plan accordingly, opening up at the earliest opportunity, raising prices for the most searched weeks, committing to a targeted marketing campaign to raise the profile of the business within the potential target market.
Understanding the Market
The ‘January’ style resurgence will likely take hold during July 2020, when lockdown restrictions are virtually lifted. Shops are allowed to re-open followed by restaurants and entertainment venues with a reduced offering.
The successful businesses will be able to those who dedicate time and effort into planning and researching their target markets needs and wants by using the powerful SEO tools available to them.
If done well, managers have the opportunity to ensure their marketing strategy is even stronger than before lockdown, by using the time to plan and understand their customer base and by gaining a genuine understanding about what makes engaging content to drive their marketing strategy forward. Additionally, the advance warning from Google Trends can give managers a way to be proactive and make predictive, intelligent marketing decisions.
Get in touch with our team today to discuss how we can help you plan your bespoke, intelligent, marketing strategy for the new business landscape.