Part of the premise of Bullseye Marketing is that companies that have been around for a few years have marketing assets, such as email lists and website traffic. But sometimes companies have been so inattentive to their marketing that, even after many years, they may not have these assets. Their website traffic may be very low (and half of that may be bots), and much of their contact list may be out of date.
What do they do then?
From a marketing point of view, companies in that situation are similar to a startup. They can expect that it will take some times to generate significant website traffic, and results from it, and their lists are so small that their email marketing may not produce much in results for some time, either.
They still can focus on understanding their customers better: interviewing them, and working on improving the customer experience. A superior CX is a true competitive advantage. Retaining and growing existing accounts may be even more important than ever.
A customer reference program could be very effective in this situation. The company has customers, the customers like the company’s work, use them to open doors to new accounts.
Focus on direct sales. Choose target accounts and work with marketing on gaining access to them, creating custom content to move the deal forward, and closing them.
Search ads may also be effective since they can get the company in front of people who are in serious search mode for a purchase. These companies may find that purchasing third-party intent date is worthwhile, too.
To make sure that these programs are as effective as possible, you still need to make sure you have your website messaging, calls to action, and conversion experience optimized. Otherwise you’ll be wasting a lot of your effort.
