Like many B2B marketers, I’ve spent the last three weeks adapting to the COVID-19 quarantine. Working from home, and coming to terms with the fact that my carefully constructed 2020 marketing plans (and personal goals this year) are out the window.

But now that we marketers have written our perfunctory “COVID-19 Response” email newsletter, and sent it out to our industry subscribers…what do we do next?

If you happen to be in the building materials industry like me, or any of the other “essential” industries – like food production, healthcare, utilities, transportation, or news media – you are lucky enough to continue working through this quarantine (albeit remotely).

But that blessing might also seem like a curse in these uncertain marketing conditions.

For instance, industry Trade Shows were probably 40% of your marketing budget, and a top source for new leads. Now that all major exhibitions are canceled, what do you do with nearly half your unspent marketing budget?

Your beloved Outside Salesperson – whose sparkling personality, shiny shoes and firm handshake were major drivers of our business – will now have to sit things out at home.

Maybe your C-suite is kicking themselves (and rightly so) for not investing in that CRM, ERP, website re-design, eCommerce store, or EDI/VMI system when times were good (“we were just so busy at the time…”). Now you’ll have to wait until the next bull market comes around.

Meanwhile, as we struggle to adapt to this sudden recession, Amazon, Walmart and large distributors like Grainger are poised to fill the gap. Amazon recently put out the call to hire 100,000 warehouse and delivery workers amid the Coronavirus shutdowns.

Your colleagues are probably throwing around a lot of ideas right now. As the B2B marketer, your job is to be the “clearing house” for these ideas: sales promotions, hot deals, clever sales activation, more email marketing, and live video feeds on Instagram and YouTube.

My advice: thank each and every colleague who contributed. Put their ideas in a spreadsheet, and really consider those ideas (this ain’t the time to be territorial or argumentative). At this early stage, however, most of the random ideas you hear will be “tactics”.

Any of those tactics could work. They just need a “Crisis Strategy” to bind them together.

I challenge you, dear marketer, to discover your company’s Crisis Strategy. It will take every ounce of your marketing brain power; you’ll have to sell it to colleagues and make compromises…but it must be done. You can’t afford to market as if it’s business as usual. Nor can you afford to go radio silent.

Last weekend, I read a lot of articles on marketing during the Coronavirus, as well as marketing during a recession. Many of the authors contradicted each other on “tactics”. For instance, some argued to “offer deals where possible”, while others argue “no amount of hot deals can stimulate a market that is currently terrified.” However, almost every article agreed on a few big picture “strategies”, including:

“Now is the time to get really close to your customers.”

It seems bloody obvious, right? I know. As marketers, we’ve seen this mantra come up in articles, how-to books, and seminars. “It’s all about the customer. Customer-centric. Customer-first.”

But in actual practice, we tend to be much more excited by BIG campaigns that generate thousands of responses from a single post, email, or ad placement. We’re less interested in talking to one customer about their kids, their hobbies, their hopes, their fears…without some kind of hidden agenda behind our call.

And sadly, that’s the attitude of most businesses people!

So, to really stand out during the COVID-19 epidemic, I believe companies that truly get close to customers (and don’t merely “say it” in an empty ad campaign) will be taking a bold step that most businesses in their category are not taking.

Yes, it may seem highly inefficient to call each customer one-by-one. To strike up a conversation…and not expect any business transaction.

To be their shoulder to cry on…or a punching bag for someone who’s had no outlet for their frustration.

But I think 1-to-1 contact could be the most powerful tool for keeping good customers tied to your hip…and invite stray customers back into the good graces of your brand.

Best of all, you only need a phone, an email server, and a contact list to do it!

Whether you adopt my “customer care” strategy…or find your own course of action…you must “commit” to it and see it through. In a recent episode of NAED’s DistributED podcast, guest Dirk Beveridge highlighted that most businesses are seeking the “confidence” of a clear ROI. However, we can only hope to achieve that confidence after we’ve shown the “courage” and “commitment” to take the first step.

In short, you have to be courageous first before you can gain confidence.

In his opinion piece “What 9/11 Can Teach Us About Marketing in the Time of Coronavirus”, Bradley Johnson makes the comparison between the post 9/11 attacks and our current epidemic.

Just 10 days after 9/11, at a time when all other advertisers went radio silent, General Motors released its controversial “Keep America Rolling” commercials. Critics roasted GM for its blatant sales promotion (no interest for two years), calling it “insensitive” and “immoral”. But in GMs defense, they were heeding President Bush’s call for patriotic Americans to “keep shopping” in order to keep the US economy strong (“don’t let the terrorists win”). Most importantly, GM acted boldly and swiftly before they had the “confidence” to know if their commercials would be a success.

“I hope we will see marketers…willing to take bold risks to keep this economy rolling.”

Bradley Johnson, “What 9/11 Can Teach Us About Marketing in the Time of Coronavirus”, courtesy of AdAge.com

So, get up close and personal with your customers. Act boldly, even if you don’t have the confidence yet. If you read this blog post looking for COVID-19 marketing “tactics” or “hacks”, then I’m sorry-not-sorry. However, if you’re looking for other great resources for Marketing in the Time of Coronavirus, take a look at:

• A Regularly Updated List Tracking Marketing Responses to Coronavirus – AdAge.
• Coronavirus Champions: A Running List of Brands Getting It Right – Forbes.
• Corporate Goodwill Efforts During COVID-19 Outbreak – Courtesy of Scott Monty. Running tally of companies making extended efforts during the novel coronavirus outbreak.
• Responding to Coronavirus: A Playbook for Marketing and Communications – Forrester Research, Inc. Julie Ogilvie talks about how to market with transparency and compassion. You can also download a free “B2B Crisis Preparation” eBook.
• What Marketers Can Do Right Now in the Age of Coronavirus – Marketingprofs LLC. In her motivational letter, author Ann Handley says sometimes companies “need to slow down now to speed up later on,” and how crisis moments can have the positive effect of forcing that necessary slowdown.
• Marketing in the Time of COVID-19 – Marketing Week. Mark Ritson’s take on what really matters when marketing crisis is compelling, simple, and contradictory to most articles out there.
• B2B turns to digital marketing in the wake of Coronavirus outbreak – ClickZ. One Dan Gerstenfeld’s of most poignant takeaways is “This is not 2008”. A must-read for B2B marketers.

Sometimes it’s better to have real product literature in your hand.

Not a PDF.

Not a product web page.

I mean a real, honest-to-God, full-color flyer, brochure, or catalog.

There’s even science that backs this up.

In the case study “Using Neuroscience to Understand the Role of Direct Mail”, Milward Brown hooked up 20 people to fMRI brain scanners. Each participant looked at a dozen advertisements. Some ads were on screen, others were on printed cards. Ads on printed cards generated more activity within areas of the brain that integrate visual and spatial information. “Physical materials,” reads the study, “produced more brain responses connected with internal feelings, suggesting greater “internalization” of the ads.”

Who says “Print is Dead”?

Here’s a personal case study. I used to work for a commercial lighting dealer. In our office was a bookcase swelling with lighting catalogs. One day I picked up a call for 12-volt landscape lighting – a category I knew nothing about. “Can you hold one moment?” I asked the caller. I jumped to that bookcase, and pulled any catalog that had landscape lighting pictures on the spine. With a few of these catalogs open, I was able to walk the caller through step light options (and sound like I knew what I was talking about).

The result? I actually sold 8 step lights along with a $100 transformer.

Call me dumb. But when I need to speed-learn a product category, catalogs beat Google any day of the week. Twice on Sunday.

Finally, look no further than a contractor’s truck to see the endurance of printed media. Here, you’ll often find crumpled, dog-eared pocket catalogs on the dashboard and floor mats.

Given the power of printed material, manufacturers should love mailing out their literature, right?

You’d think that, wouldn’t you?

Well, if you’re an engineer, contractor, or maintenance professional (what suppliers call an “end-user”), I have a secret to tell you:

Most Manufacturing Marketers DON’T like sending physical literature!

In fact, the dirty little secret of our industry is… we actually hate mailing literature.

That’s why we’ll bury our literature request forms seven pages deep in our website.

We’ll hide our email addresses for general inquiries (or not list them at all).

Call up the company operator, and you’ll probably get bounced from one department to another. After listening to “hold” music for a while, you finally reach someone of authority. And they tell you to “just go to the website”, “download the PDF” or “call your Rep”. Then CLICK.

If it sounds like I’m disparaging manufacturers, I am not. It’s simply an ingrained defense mechanism we have. We’re over-worked. We wear too many hats. And literature is expensive to print (not to mention the postage).

We don’t have mailrooms staffed with kids working Summer jobs. Instead, requests get handled by a mid-level marketing, sales, or customer service person. Folks who have bigger things to worry about, like making sure orders get shipped on-time.

Suppliers also have to make sure their sales team is flush with literature at all times. It’s their “ammunition” for making sales calls. These sales people will always get top priority over you.

Make friends with the manufacturer’s representative, and they’ll be your best source for literature.

Read ahead only if you don’t plan to go through the manufacturer’s rep for literature.

How to Get Free Product Literature without going through the Manufacturer’s Rep

Use my Seven Commandments of Requesting Product Literature to amass your own library of catalogs and brochures. I based these Commandments on my “insider knowledge” as a manufacturing marketer. I’ve also requested literature from dozens of other suppliers, so I know these tactics work (at least 7 out of 10 times).

Expect some suppliers to be stubborn or unresponsive. Some will push-back and say you have to “call your rep” or “visit a distributor showroom.”

The Seven Commandments of Requesting Product Literature

1. Avoid Web Forms like the Plague: trust me, you’ll almost never get a reply from most suppliers by filling out a form. Completed form requests often get logged in the website back-end, and rarely see the light of day.
2. Look for General Inquiry Emails: most businesses have email addresses like ‘sales@xyz.com’ or ‘info@xyz.com’. These are often distribution list emails, meaning several employees see your request at once. The manufacturer’s own sales reps and customers often hit up these email addresses. So your request will have a high probability of getting seen by the right people.
   
   Can’t find any general inquiry emails. See the side note at the end of this list.
3. Specify the Titles of the Literature you’re requesting in the body of your email. Don’t just say “Can I get some literature?”. Be exact. Look at the supplier’s Literature web page (sometimes called “Resources”). Call out the titles of the brochure, catalog, or flyer. See my example below.
4. Give Quantities: most sales reps know to call out the number of “pieces” when ordering samples. The same goes for literature requests (ex. “1PC—Full Line Catalog”). Put the quantity next to each title. “Act” like someone the supplier does business with.
5. Ship-To Address in first email: I’ve gotten so many vague lit requests where the person does not leave a ship-to address. Doing this may irritate the marketer on the other end, who now has to follow up. Please, don’t make us work so hard to send you FREE shit. Make your email so complete that I could copy-and paste it, and send on down the line.
6. Act “as if”… without being pushy: when you type that email, imagine you are the supplier’s ideal customer. Also, assume the person you’re addressing is the right person. One easy way to convey this is to never ask a question (like “Who do I go to for literature?”). If you do get push back (such as you need to be a distributor customer) don’t snap back or ask “Why Not?” It’s a waste of effort and puts you on their company poop-list.
7. What’s In It For Me?: remember how I said in commandment #6, to act as if you’re the ideal customer? The best way to do that is be the ideal customer you already are. Got a construction project where you’re trying out the suppliers products? Say it ( even better, mention the project name). If you’re a contractor, engineer, or facility manager, SAY IT, as well as which company you work for.
   
   But what if you suspect you’re not the manufacturers ideal customer? What if you’re a student, a handyman, a DIY’er, a property owner? Well, do you a have friend or family member that’s a contractor, or an engineer? Then say “I’m requesting these on behalf of my uncle who is an electrical contractor.” It’s surprising how often that works.

Note on Commandment #2: sometimes you won’t be able to find general inquiry emails anywhere on the corporate site. This is generally true for really big companies. When you can’t track down that all-important email address, here are three ways to reverse lookup:

1) Open a new browser tab, go to Google.com and type info@[company URL], (do the same with a sales@ alias). There’s a 50/50 chance you’ll uncover a buried webpage or old flyer in the search results confirming a valid email address.

2) Google search didn’t yield any usable email addresses? Try running that info@ or sales@ combination through an email verification site. My favorite free tools are MailTester.com and Email-Checker.net. If these sites return a VALID or UNKNOWN result, type up your email lit request, send, and see if it bounces back.

3) So what do you do when those emails don’t work? Log into your LinkedIn account, look up the company page, and click over to the hyperlink that says “See all _ employees on LinkedIn.”

Scroll through the list of employees. Pluck out names of anyone with a “Sales” or “Marketing” role. Typically, you want someone mid-level, with an “Assistant” or “Coordinator” title. However, if you can’t find anyone mid-level, take a crack at a “Manager”, “VP”, or “Director” title.

So now you have a few names. You can bet the contact’s email alias is probably the company’s URL (if it’s www.xyz.com, they will have an @xyz.com address). In my experience, 95% of corporate email addresses follow one of three patterns:

1. FIRST NAME.LAST NAME@ALIAS
   • ex. Joe.Blow@xyz.com
2. FIRST INITIAL+LAST NAME@ALIAS
   • ex. JBlow@xyz.com
3. FIRST NAME+LAST INITIAL@ALIAS
   • ex. JoeB@xyz.com

Draft your lit request email to each marketing employee, hit send, and see what happens. If your email bounces, try one of the other two variations just listed. One is bound to work.

In my experience, this approach works wonders with large manufacturers. It’s hard to ignore a request when its addressed directly to you!

Email Template for Product Literature Requests

Here is a generic template of the email I used to great success. Go ahead, copy & paste it, and modify to your liking.

SUBJ: Catalog Request [Info/Sales] Team, Please mail out the following literature. I work for [Company Name], a {contracting firm/ wholesale distributor}. 1pc — Full Line Catalog 1pc — LED Lighting Brochure Please ship to: [Your Name] [Street Address and Apt #] [City], [State Abbreviation] [Zip Code]

Pretty simple template, am I right? You can fire off a dozen of these requests during your lunch hour. Again, if you can’t say you are a contractor or distributor, replace that second sentence (“I work for…”) with mention of a friend or relative who is. For example, “This is on behalf of my uncle, who is an electrician.”

That’s it for now, buckaroo.

Can’t wait to start building your library of free manufacturer’s product literature?

Stay tuned for the next blog post. I will give you the full list of 50+ electrical and lighting manufacturers that I reached out to. This list will include links, phone numbers, and email addresses.

Are you a contractor, engineer, facility manager, or distributor? Do you request product literature directly from you manufacturer? Or do you go through a sales rep?

And if you’re a manufacturer marketer, what does a “good lit request” look like to you?