With outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, all businesses have had to rethink their day-to-day operations, including marketing strategies.

With a freeze on business travel and work from home policies, businesses are pivoting heavily towards digital marketing.

Publicly-traded marketing automation provider Hubspot, has noted the increase.

From their blog:

Marketing and sales teams sent a significantly higher volume of emails in March. However, only engagement with marketing emails increased, suggesting that opportunity exists to improve outreach and connect with the right buyers at the right time.

Sales outreach has increased, but responses are declining.
Sales teams were significantly more active in March, but buyers were less engaged with sales content. The lower response rate to outreach was ultimately reflected in lower deal volume.

On a per-week basis, companies sent 23% more sales emails** the week of March 16 compared to prior weekly averages in Q1.
Response rate to those emails began falling the first week of March, with a total decrease of 27% in March compared to February.

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Using their own data, Hubspot provides these recommendations on marketing during COVID-19:

• Deals closed rise significantly as May comes to an end.
• Marketing and sales teams are both reaching out to their customers more, with varying levels of success.
• Marketing outreach, open rates, and database growth have increased since the start of the crisis.
• Focus on education, not promotion.
• Incorporate chat into your strategy.
• Refresh your sales pipeline.

Free resources from Hubpot: Rework your sales projections with this guide to sales forecasting and sales forecast template

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