As the COVID-19 pandemic became a global business challenge, it forced many B2B businesses and software providers to use digital marketing channels to reinforce trust and salvage relationships with customers. In the initial months of the crisis, B2B businesses paused overly promotional ad campaigns, tailored crisis-related content for social media and used email marketing to communicate new policies. They also increased their spending on social media marketing and digital advertising: 49% for social media, 46% for email marketing and 43% for digital advertising (full content available to Gartner clients only).
However, almost a year into the pandemic, software buyer journeys have also evolved to cope with frequently changing market conditions, internal policies, strategic priorities and work environments. For a SaaS company, it is critical to keep pace with those changes to continue getting sales and marketing advantage. It is also important to understand the new essential SaaS marketing strategies that are now commonplace thanks to the evolving business climate.