How to Run a Business With $0 Budget? Is It Possible?

COVID-19 has reduced and in fact, more and more individuals are recovering and remaining safe at their homes in order to stay safe.

But we have come a long way, the pandemic didn’t just affect the health of multiple individuals it also put a strain on upcoming and present brands in the market.

With the drop in the economy from across the globe, everything has been started slowly for businesses like yours to pick up their pace.

But how is this possible, when a single sale or marketing tactic hasn’t brought in much revenue?

Right now if estimated, new brands rising up have less to no budget to flourish their brand on a larger scale and the brands that are present have faded away due to lesser or fewer actions in the sales and marketing departments.

So does that mean your brand can never pick up the pace?

We believe that you can, which is exactly why we have curated the top guide that will have insights that can help you to run your business with the minimalistic budget range.

What to expect in this article?

1 . How has COVID-19 changed the way businesses will operate in the years to come?

2. What options is COVID-19 providing in the business world?

3. How should your selling strategy be framed in the current scenario?

4. How your marketing and sales tactics should be post COVID-19?

Let’s get started.

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How has COVID-19 changed the way businesses will operate in the years to come?

Businesses had gone digital but not everyone was still in the online phase.

Today you will still find brands who are still using the physical platforms to engage and sell to their prospects. 

When COVID-19 stepped in, the world of business turned over. For those brands who operated online, there wasn’t much loss to be encountered but for those who depend highly on the physical platforms, it was a question of worry.

COVID-19 isn’t going to go away soon, and with the curfews, lockdowns, and minimal efforts of stepping out, your business needs to get on a solution that can help them conduct the same workflow like it used to be.

Interesting Read : Small Business Tactics For Adapting To COVID-19: Lessons We Learnt As A SaaS Startup, And How Our Customers Are Faring

One thing that is clear, with COVID-19 staying for long, it would be a wise decision to transform your lead generation activities online. There is a medium of live chat that will help engage with your prospects better and help you close deals when done right.

While we think that COVID-19 is here to put everyone at risk, you might be surprised to witness how slowly it is converting businesses more towards the digital stage.

It even provides a good number of opportunities to get started which you can see in our next category. 

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What options is COVID-19 providing in the business world?

1. Making conversations more empathetic

When was the last time you spoke in a more human manner with your prospects? Selling was always about the same scripts and the focus on achieving targets which is why closing sales deals took longer than expected. However COVID-19 is changing that. With everything happening online, this crisis is converting the way you speak to buyers.

You have just one medium to sell to your prospect which is the online medium and it is important that you make the medium more like a human engagement. This is exactly what COVID-9 is transforming in your business, increasing the volumes of human interactions for better business growth. 

2. Selling value to prospects

COVID-19 has eliminated the need for what your business is all about, it is letting you transform why your business should even be invested upon. You see the change, instead of you selling your brand, the focus here is on how can your brand value prospects better. This is a better way of selling because previously what is being sold is how great a brand is and how amazing the solution is, now that is not the case.

There are thousands of brands online and you need to be the best which can only happen when you sell your product on the basis of exposing the value it offers. Conduct research, get feedback, understand what your prospects are, and enhance your product accordingly. This will help you sell much better than you are doing currently. 

3. Connecting new ways of face to face conversations

While everything is going digital in COVID-19 why should you stay behind to show more human communication? Applications such as Zoom and Google Hangouts have made it easier to connect with prospects via face to face. You can capture prospects and conduct more such meetings which can help to close deals quicker. This is a unique concept which you cannot miss.

While others might be focusing on engaging with leads via chat, you can do the same thing except to take it one step higher, you can conduct a live face to face meeting where your prospect will be able to see you and interact just like how they would in a physical form. 

4. Investing more in digitalization

The business world is going digital which means that your next sales or marketing strategy needs to be aligned according to that. For instance, you need to start investing in tools that can help you capture leads online or make it easier for you to send email campaigns with a click of a button and more. This takes place when you engage with the tools technology has provided.

These tools can make your life easier in the digital world, for instance with a callback software you can connect with your leads quickly and there are tools that can help you connect instantly, for instance,  Limecall. It can help you conduct conversations with your prospects in less than 28 seconds or schedule the calls according to your prospects. This will help in capturing leads quicker. 

Interesting Read : The COVID-19 Crisis Is Transforming the Way We Communicate with Buyers. Here’s How.

Ensure that you are investing in digitized tools because that is what will make your business activities more efficient. 

COVID-19 is transforming your business for the best, what you would do occasionally has now become a dependency because that is the best way to sell to your prospects.

So how can you sell during such a crisis?

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How should your selling strategy be framed in the current scenario?

The above four R’s will help you sell better during this COVID-19 crisis.

1. Respond

The most important factor here is to respond to your prospects. Since they are in the lockdown, there will be more chances of them viewing your website and engaging with you. Don’t miss such opportunities and immediately engage with them. Continue to monitor prospects actions and work accordingly.

2. Reflect

You can’t start operating during a COVID-19 crisis without a plan. You need to start building a plan that can help you tackle this problem for the next few months. Work on your solutions, enhance your features, plan how you will exhibit your solution in front of your prospects. Also, modify and tweak your pricing or any other changes accordingly so that your prospects understand an investment in your brand is worth their time and money. 

3. Reimagine

Your next plan is to fit everything accordingly so that planning the long term takes place easily. Immediately fit in all that you have planned so that you are aware of what your next actions are. For instance, if you wish to see a rise in your conversion rates by 50% you need to work on how you can do that such as investment in certain tools or changing the strategies and more. This will help you lay down your foundation better to continue with your business. 

4. Rebound

Now whatever you have planned which contains everything such as aligning your strategies for introducing a new feature or anything else will come into action. You now will have an answer or rather a solution to manage your business during such a situation. Whatever optimization is needed to conduct it because that is what will help you in your business to grow better. Work accordingly and make the changes as stated. 

Let’s learn deeper how you can enhance or improve your sales and marketing strategies that will work better during such a situation.

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How your marketing and sales tactics should be post COVID-19?

1. Marketing in 2020 and the years to come

The number one step you need to conduct with your marketing tactics is to ensure that you conducted it digitally.

Digital marketing can give you the push you require to get started with your marketing tactics.

What is digital marketing?

Digital marketing refers to using the online platform to sell a brand’s products and services.

Interesting Read : Top 30+ Helpful Free Software List for everybody functioning during the COVID-19 crisis

Today how are you aware that a product exists?

Is it the ad that you saw while scrolling Facebook?

Or the ad that you saw while viewing stories on Instagram?

In seconds your brand can go viral with just one post on Instagram or within a shorter time you can capture more lead attention with your latest social media posts and more. 

With such an impact, following the digital marketing strategies is a wiser decision here. We have covered the best ones for you:

1. Have a good website

Your website will define your brand. Your website is the source for your prospects to decide whether they want to invest in your brand or not. You need to understand that your website is what will help your prospects understand your brand, retain their attention, and contact you to learn more about it.

For a successful digital marketing tactic to be conducted for your business, you need to first ensure the following is done on your website:

• A good use of high-quality images
• Updated testimonials of your existing prospects need to be shared
• Good use of content needs to be used so that it’s easier to understand what your product is about
• Value and benefit of the product needs to be exhibited
• Write blogs and share case studies in a separate section
• Share valuable information so that your prospects find it useful
• Put call to actions so that your prospects can reach out to you
• Put easy ways for your prospects to contact you quicker

2. Use SEO and good content

SEO and good content go in hand to hand the reason being with good content you can impress your prospects to learn more and with SEO you can help them find this good article. SEO optimizes your content with the use of keywords and backlinks which will make it easier for your article to be found when your prospects are searching for it.

Good content is also important and that can only happen when you share valuable information that matters for your prospects. You could do research, add relevant keywords, images, backlinks, and more, and make it great. 

To sell better with SEO and content:

• Get your stats right
• Use only high-level keywords
• Use good backlinks
• Add high-quality images
• Keep your content short and simple to understand
• The content should go with the flow and not feel disconnected when the prospect is reading your article

3. Make use of social media to the maximum

Social media can help you sell better. You can use Instagram stories to share more about your product, conduct ads so that you can sell better and create your brand awareness and you could also use social media posts to exhibit your product frequently. Social media will be your source to increase your prospect engagement, retain their attention, and tap their attention to learn about your product.

This is how your ultimate brand will grow with digital marketing. To sell better on social media:

• Create a schedule 
• Post frequently
• Use high-quality images
• Partner with similar peers 
• Share your posts and ask your peers to do the same
• Sell benefits and value more
• Keep your information easy and simple to understand

4. Integrate your digital marketing efforts

Another factor you need to consider is integrating your digital marketing efforts. For instance, you could tell on social media about your product and add a link which can guide your prospects to view your website. You can do this for many other activities such as if your prospects read your blogs you can share your social media links for them to understand you better.

All of this can contribute to exhibiting your multiple digital marketing efforts better.

There are brands that have conducted similar practices in their digital marketing techniques, let’s give you a quick sneak peek from them:

1. Saastr

Saastr replaced the idea of not having a live event to a fully remote live event. They held a remote summit on April 22 where multiple great minds of Saas were present. Saastr didn’t let any COVID- 19 issues to eliminate the need to connect with like minds.

2. Samsara

Samsara made use of content to grasp its prospects. They wrote relevant and valuable content to help their prospects. Like for COVID-19, they wrote content related to fleet management to help their prospects understand better. 

3. Dropbox

As you are aware that dropbox helps you store multiple information. It is a software that helps you save documents and more. What they did was they kept updating their product so that it always remains in the mind of their prospects about their new features. They updated their software in such a way that the prospects can do so much work while being remote. 

For instance, you could save zoom meetings video in Dropbox and share it with individuals who have missed out on it and more.

2. Sales

Sales is crucial which is why you won’t just get or find free tools that can help you conduct your sales.

For you to conduct efficient sales actions, you need to understand what your prospects want right now? 

What are they looking for in a brand post COVID-19?

And for this to happen, you need data which is why we want you to start focusing on ‘Sales intelligence’ that can guarantee you better sales actions during this crisis moment.

Vainu in its blog  explains, ‘’Sales intelligence refers to a wide range of technologies that help salespeople find, monitor and understand data that provides insights into prospects’ and existing clients’ daily business.‘’

In simpler terms, what sales intelligence does is it helps you use a set of tools that will help in understanding the prospect data you have in hand so that catering your potential prospects becomes easier.

Let’s understand this with an example:

Sales Rep A has tapped Prospect A from the website. Sales Rep A understands that Prospect A wants its solution and has landed on their website. It starts to create a sales pitch and repeats the same over call to Prospect A. Prospect A doesn’t seem to understand what Sales Rep A is trying to sell or why they even need the solution and hence walks away disinterested.

This is the common scenario which most sales reps make. Without understanding, they start to sell to their prospects. This happens because the main focus here is to just sell and not to cater to the needs. This mistake needs to be avoided because in 2020 the sales process demands more reasons for value than pretty sales pitches.

Now, what would happen if the same example was conducted but with sales intelligence’s existence?

Let’s visualize that scenario.

Sales Rep A finds Prospect A and taps them from the website. It gathers data of that prospect such as its name, business, email address, contact information, their activities, where they land on your website, and more. Soon Sales rep A gets on a call with Prospect A and instead of starting off with the routine sales pitch, the focus is shifted on what Prospect A’s needs are, what is it looking for?

With that information, Sales Rep A continues to place the product it is selling as a solution to cure all the issues Prospect A is facing.

Now, don’t you think this is a better choice?

You have data that is more than just the email address and phone numbers of your prospects, it has their likes, dislikes, recommendations, actions, and more which can help you understand how you can treat them better.

You know how important data is for sales intelligence, but have you wondered how that data is retrieved in the first place?

There are a set of unique tools that technology brings to us that can help you gather these powerful and useful data for sales intelligence so that your sales activities always slay better than your competitors. We have covered the top ones for you.

1. Adapt.io

Adapt.io lets you get contacts from across 100M+ contacts. This contact list can help you identify which are your potential prospects and you can filter them from the crowd and assists them better. Apart from contacts it also provides company data which makes it a better choice for B2B businesses. 

Best features of Adapt.io

• Conducts automated follow-ups resulting in 10x more conversions
• Provides free tools for scraping vital information about leads
• Zero bounces are experienced
• Can export prospect’s information to any CRM 

Pros:

• All contacts shared are accurate
• Also offers a chrome extension for sales ascension

Cons:

• Domain for contacts is at times missing

G2 Ratings:

4.5/5

2. Clearbit

Clearbit is referred to as the marketing data engine for a very good reason. It helps you understand your prospects so well that your next action will always be personalized and you will know what needs to be done next. To give you an example of it, with the help of Clearbit identifying your future prospects becomes easy.

Best features of Clearbit:

• Provides fresh real-time data
• Receive data directly into the tools you use
• It provides every minute detail of prospects so that understanding them and engaging with them becomes easier. To name a few are role, location and more
• Guides and informs on new prospect arrival, online visitors and how campaigns can be personalized better

Pros:

• An application well suited to function with the modern businesses of today
• Every minute information of prospects are shared

Cons:

• This application may not suit the small type of businesses

Trustradius Ratings:

8.3/10

3. Insideview

Insideview can help make an impact on your revenue. All the data provided is accurate. It has a special integration where without any hassle it integrates easily with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Apart from providing company data and prospect data it also shares valuable information on social media feeds of the brand.

Best features of Insideview:

• Helps you discover new markets to improve your sales performance
• Manages CRM data without any manual effort
• Organizes data collected so that the results can be retrieved better

Pros:

• Offers data cleaning services
• Provides data consulting services

Cons:

• The LinkedIn connection with this application is a hassle task to use

Trustradius Ratings:

8.4/10

4. Leadfeeder

Leadfeeder is another sales intelligence tool that helps you track who has visited your website, how they found you, and what they are interested in. Leadfeeder is accurate because it ensures that ISPs, bots, and any other sources which won’t give you the right leads are eliminated.

Best features:

• Provides the option of eliminating any unwanted companies you don’t want to associate with
• The data team at leadfeeder is always improving the way it conducts its data activities
• Integrates with the tools that most multiple modern businesses used today
• Receive only quality prioritized leads list

Pros:

• Ensures that the content your share for your prospects are optimized as well
• Leads are prioritized based on their actions on your website giving you the chance to tap them immediately

Cons:

• Creating filters with this application is difficult

Capterra Ratings:

4.3/5

5. Owler

Owler lets you always stay on top of your competitors. It tracks companies that are of importance to you. Its main focus is to send news alerts to all the executives, marketers, and salespersons as well.

Best features of Owler:

• Access information from over 13 million public and private businesses
• Identify companies that can help boost your business
• Choose filters to extract the exact information
• Filter the latest news to take the necessary actions for your business
• Keep track of the companies you want to associate with

Pros:

• Offers customizable real-time alerts of companies you want to keep a track of
• Let’s you keep tabs on your competitors as well so you are always doing better than them

Cons:

• The information provided by Owler is very limited

Trustradius Ratings:

7.1/10

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The Bottom Line…

COVID-19 has its negatives which we are all speaking of today but what happens when you try to identify the positives in such a situation?

You receive a solution that can enhance your business better. You now have everything you need to get your business on track, the above information can be used as your cheat sheet to help you get started. 

So tell us, what did you think of this article? How has COVID-19 affected your business? How do you plan on getting started with the information exhibited above? 

Reach out to us with your answers/opinions through your tweets.