Business Lessons from the Pandemic

Pyxl and inbound marketing software company, HubSpot, hosted a fun and educational virtual happy hour discussing how small to mid-sized businesses can stay afloat during the pandemic.

Check out the first part of the virtual happy hour for a fun and insightful lesson on Italian wine from Founder and CEO of Pyxl, Brian Winter.

Watch the webinar recording now.

Lessons from the pandemic

COVID-19 is on everyone’s mind and impacting all businesses in some way. In this webinar, HubSpot provides insight into what the flywheel is, how the pandemic might be slowing the flywheel down, and what businesses can do to adapt to the “new normal” as a result of the pandemic.

What is inbound marketing?

How we live has drastically changed over the years. The way people learn about products and communicate has become digitized. It’s no longer just tradeshows and ads, but the way we communicate has evolved to include social media, google search ads, and more internet-based marketing. 

The inbound methodology is updating the marketing playbook to reflect the way people consume information today. Instead of spending time and money to be in front of people who may not care about your product or service, create content so when people are interested, they’re finding you!

• Blog articles
• Social media messages
• Search engine optimization
• Digital branding

What is the 2020 version of inbound marketing?

Turn strangers into customers using the flywheel mentality. The flywheel is the momentum you gain when you align your entire organization around growth.

Attract strangers by creating valuable content, engage prospects by presenting your solutions to their problems, and delight customers into promoters by providing an excellent customer experience.

How does the flywheel work?

How do we turn strangers into prospects, and prospects into customers, and customers into promoters? Using inbound methodology, each organization comprised of marketing, sales and customer service does their part to grow the flywheel and keep the wheel turning faster and faster. Happy customers drive referrals and repeat sales.

However, sometimes the flywheel can turn backwards and cause friction that slows down business growth.

How is the pandemic creating friction in the flywheel and what can small to mid-sized businesses do about it?

HubSpot has been pulling COVID-19 marketing and sales benchmark data from HubSpot users to see what trends have emerged.

Sales data from HubSpot users since COVID:

• Number of sales emails sent increased
• Email response rates for sales decreased
• Number of sales calls decreased
• Number of deals decreased
• Number of deals decreased

What can sales do to remove friction from the flywheel and continue business growth?

It’s important to automate and digitize interactions that we used to do in person.

• Pre-recorded demos
• Update documents and playbook to reflect changes due to COVID
• Appointment and scheduling tools
• Use video prospecting to stand out
• Enable online transactions and ESignatures
• Use chatbots to generate leads when the user is active

Marketing data from HubSpot users since COVID:

• Number of marketing emails sent increased
• Open rates increased
• Web traffic increased
• Ad spend decreased

What can marketing do to remove friction from the flywheel?

People are online more than ever! Invest in the future and provide a great customer experience by providing resources and answering questions while customers and prospects are engaged.

• Invest in digital transformation. Update the website design, provide an easy user experience, create tools and resources
• Invest in conversational marketing
• Increase ad spend while it’s cheap and while people are online
• Enable self service using a knowledge base or appointment scheduling software

Keep the flywheel moving

The digital marketing experience is the new normal for how people communicate today. Leverage your digital marketing to inform and inspire consumers where they are–online!

Watch the full video recording to learn more.

Updated: Apr 13, 2022