Don’t hold back on digital marketing
It can be instinctual to pull back on marketing spend when times are tough, but that’s the opposite of what you should do, according to Samantha Anderson, co-founder and president of Origin 63.
Anderson ran a successful events marketing business with her husband, but when the events industry ground to a halt, the business lost the entirety of its revenue by April 2020, she says. Within weeks, the Andersons had dissolved the business they had spent more than six years building; this included letting go of an office space and 15 employees.
And although they closed one business, what remained was their strong client contacts. So, after talking to clients about their needs, they put plans into place to launch Origin 63, a B2B sales and marketing technology solution provider.
Three months in, Anderson says they have three full-time employees and are hitting $450,000 in revenue in 2020 — getting to where they were previously after four years in business.
Marketing, even with the uncertainty in the world, has been the company’s saving grace, says Anderson. To leverage the new digital reality, the brand has created virtual events with strategic partners that focused on providing value to prospects, such as free round-tables or workshops.
“It is tough, especially in this environment, to spend money on ‘extras,’ but now is exactly the time to dedicate a bit more budget to marketing. We continued to invest into our marketing automation and CRM platform so that we could run highly personalized email marketing campaigns to past prospects, customers and partners. This enabled us to jump start our business out the gate with sales opportunities,” she says.
Since April, she says Origin 63 has achieved a consistent 10% increase in revenue month over month, and since then, the brand’s monthly recurring revenue has increased a total of 87%.