The COVID-19 pandemic has affected countless human lives worldwide. It has dawned an unprecedented challenge to public health, global economics, and the business world. The social and economic disruption prompted by the pandemic has been disastrous for various large as well as small-scale businesses.

The B2B industry was one of the hardest-hit sectors by the Covid-19. The pandemic has crippled international trade, shipping, and tourism, causing B2B companies to lose billions of dollars in revenue across dozens of countries in the world. As a result, many businesses are struggling to keep their operations running while ensuring that they remain safe from this deadly disease. This blog post aims to implore scenarios like these where the pandemic has impacted business owners, especially the digital marketing ones, around the globe.

Inflation during a pandemic wasn’t a silver lining for B2B digital industries

The Covid-19 crisis was the key driver of a radical shift in buying patterns and product demands. This created a sudden spike in commodity prices and ushered in a period of inflation. A lot of services and products were witnessing a surge in their prices as the demand was rising and the supply chain was shrinking due to constant lockdowns.

The B2B digital industry was also experiencing similar trends. A sudden disruption in the business process coupled with the need to rapidly shift towards remote technologies had hampered the effective working of numerous companies in the B2B industry.

As a result, inflation and its repercussions were an imminent call to action for various CFOs (Chief financial officers) in the B2B industry. To understand the gravity of this situation, CFOs had to first get clarity on how the pandemic had affected their market dynamics, leadership incentives, and financial performance. Clearing this would allow them to take quick actions on mitigating the effects of price spikes.

Sales took a nosedive during the covid crisis

One thing that almost every B2B business experienced during the pandemic was a steep dip in sales. This dip was a result of fear and lack of consumer confidence. The B2B industry was struggling in recording sales that would at least help them stay afloat. In California alone, business sales experienced an average 17% drop during the second quarter of the 2020 crisis.

As a result, many companies had to restructure their workforce due to decreased demand. However, during these dire times, several B2B digital industries implemented an understanding approach by designing initiatives that would help their employees get through this pandemic. For example, some marketing agencies offered financial support in the form of leaves with zero deduction in salary for its COVID-positive staff. Also, several agencies incorporated the ‘no layoffs policy’ and offered ‘advanced salaries’ to team members that needed it the most. Initiatives like these help test the true characteristics of good companies.

Getting supplies on time became a tough task for the B2B industry

With constant lockdowns and travel restrictions, the global supply chain process was barely able to keep up with rising demand. It was difficult to establish a mode of easy, cheap, and fast transportation when most of the world’s containers were stuck inexpensive holding patterns.

The shipping costs of various products had skyrocketed during the covid-19 pandemic. This has fueled several B2B companies to begin research on identifying and creating a solution for the challenges that wouldn’t prolong these record costs.

Transformations the pandemic has brought to lead generation and sales companies

Sales leaders everywhere needed to prioritize strategies that intended to take care of their people and customers. While doing so, they also needed to consider their customer’s new buying habits and changing consumer behavior.

The Covid epidemic was able to transform the B2B industry to such an extent that it became no longer fundamentally the same as it was before the crisis.

Here are the two fundamental aspects that the pandemic has completely changed for the B2B digital industry:

• Higher emphasis on digital industry-

According to recent observations, B2B companies are beginning to see more investment in digital interactions than conventional interactions. As a matter of fact, digital interactions have become two to three times more important than traditional sales interactions for the customers of the B2B digital industry.

With such a momentous consumer shift towards digital platforms, the emphasis on digital interaction has to be the topmost priority for B2B industries today.

• Increased in the adoption of remote technologies –

As a byproduct of the pandemic, nearly 90% of sales have switched to either videoconferencing or telemarketing sales models. Even though there are still a few skeptics pertaining to online sales, a majority of the sales team from the B2B industry agree with online-remote sales models being equally or more effective than conventional sales models.

The epidemic has also forced several B2B companies to downsize their team. As a result, companies are getting accustomed to working with small teams that are flexible in doing various roles. Instead of hiring a specialized person for a dedicated role, businesses are preferring to outsource these roles to companies that specialize in that particular job. This trend has also driven the adoption of specialized B2B appointment generation services as more companies in the B2B industry venture the option of outsourcing.

However, the situation wasn’t that grim for all the companies.

The bright side for the B2B industry during the pandemic

Not every B2B industry saw its sales take a nosedive. On the contrary, there were a few whose sales went up. Companies that were dealing in security systems and customer service calls experienced an upward revenue growth due to a sudden rise in demand. Additionally, B2B e-commerce websites witnessed a 30% rise in traffic and sales, out of which, the majority of them came from the life science and pharma industry.

As the pandemic continues to bring online shopping into the limelight, several B2B companies are experiencing the urge to shift their marketing strategies more towards online sales than traditional sales. In fact, a number of companies are already tweaking their strategies to encourage online sales by assigning a significant portion of their yearly budget to digital marketing.