Week 2: New Benchmark Data on the State of Business

[#1]

Over the next few months, we will be releasing week-over-week trend data on website traffic, email sends and open rates, sales deal volume, close rates and more - that will help inform the themes we select for Adapt 2020. 

This week we’ll be focusing on marketing and sales data and how companies and customers are adjusting and responding since the start of this crisis.

This data has been culled, aggregated and anonymized from a collection of 70,000 companies and organizations across HubSpot’s global user base.

Overall, trends indicate that companies and customers alike show an eagerness to connect, despite deal volume declining. 

1. Marketing outreach is up year over year since the start of this crisis - as are opens. 
2. Sales outreach is up year over year since the start of this crisis - but responses are down. 
3. Customer initiated conversations are up year over year since the start of the crisis. 
4. The number of deals created are down since the start of the crisis. Close rates are flat. 

This data displays an opportunity to shift your marketing and sales strategy to reflect the early data we’re seeing on changes in behavior across your marketing, sales and service activities. 

For more information on this week’s topic and to find resources to help you face these challenges, check out our main series page. 

Use this space to ask questions, share your feedback and connect with your peers around this topic! To get things started, tell us what part of this data do you find most interesting or surprising?

[#2]

Enjoyed the webinar last week. I have a followup question about something Michelle mentioned on the webinar about placing the customers in three different "buckets": Growth, Adapt, and Survive. How do you classify these companies? Is there any literature you could point me to regarding this?

Thanks!

[#3]

Hi Brian, thanks for the question! I work on HubSpot’s Sales Enablement team, where we are using the Survive, Adapt, Grow framework to help our sales team prioritize their outreach.

Businesses in the grow category are uniquely positioned to solve a COVID-related challenge. They are scaling operations and need infrastructure to support increased demand. Examples: e-medicine, e-learning, e-commerce

Businesses in the survive category rely on socialization to sell their offering. They are the most negatively impacted by social-distancing guidance and are fighting to stay alive long enough for things to normalize. Examples: travel, hospitality, retail

Most businesses fall into the adapt category, where operations have been impacted but not decimated. Once these companies stabilize after the initial shock, they will need to make investments to strengthen their online presence, adapt to remote work and rebuild pipeline. Examples: software, professional services

We've received a lot of positive feedback on this framework from our reps -- hope it's helpful for you as well!