With the UK economy experiencing only marginal growth since 2022, including two quarters of negative growth, and a weak last quarter, businesses are bracing for an austerity budget expected in under two weeks. This budget, forecasted to strike consumers hard, will inevitably affect businesses too. Combine this with the fact that we’re already midway through the first month of Q4, and the Christmas slowdown is fast approaching, and it’s clear that time is of the essence for B2B businesses to act.
However, there’s still an opportunity to mitigate looming economic challenges. We’ve been here before. By taking immediate steps to strengthen your business development efforts, you can build resilience and boost your pipeline, ensuring your company enters 2025 on solid footing. The good news? It’s not too late, but action is essential—sooner rather than later.
The Budget Lag Effect: Why You Must Act Now
Economic impact doesn’t typically hit in one go. There’s often a lag between a budget announcement and the drop-off in consumer spending. But waiting for that downturn could prove detrimental. As businesses across the UK brace for reduced consumer activity, companies that act now to secure and grow their client base will be in a stronger position to weather the storm.
One of the key areas B2B companies should focus on is optimising their approach to current and potential customers. This includes actively profiling and segmenting your whole customer base, re-engaging lapsed clients, cross-selling and upselling to current ones, and reaching out to low-spending or infrequent customers. By proactively targeting these groups, you can uncover untapped revenue opportunities that could help offset the impending economic strain.
If you lack the internal resources to perform these crucial tasks, check out this article on 10 ways simply picking up the phone can be used effectively to grow your business.
Immediate Steps to Mitigate the Impact of the Austerity Budget
Now more than ever, businesses must take a strategic approach to business development and lead generation. Here are a few key actions that should be prioritised right away:
1. Re-engage Lapsed and Infrequent Customers
Lapsed and infrequent customers represent a significant, but often untapped, opportunity for many businesses. They’ve already engaged with your company in the past, so there’s familiarity and trust. Now is the perfect time to reach out and understand why their activity has reduced or stopped. A targeted ‘care’ campaign aimed at re-energising these customers can reignite interest and boost your sales pipeline.
Tip: Focus on offering value. Recognise why they stopped. Whether you’re introducing a new solution or revisiting a past product/service they purchased, tailor your messaging to address their current pain points and needs.
2. Upsell and Cross-Sell to Your Current Customer Base
Your existing customers are already familiar with your brand and services, making them more receptive to new offerings. With the right segmentation and profiling, you can identify new solutions to cross-sell and upsell, increasing the average spend per customer. Now is the time to communicate how your products or services can address emerging needs and challenges in this economic climate.
Tip: Profile your customers by segmenting them based on sector, job role, past behaviour, preferences, spending, frequency, and industry trends. A well-structured multi-channel outreach campaign to present relevant offers will deliver maximum ROI.
3. Clean and Build Your Database
An outdated customer and prospect database can be a major hindrance to effective marketing efforts. Many businesses struggle with insufficient time or resources to clean and update their data. Now is the time to conduct a thorough review, ensuring that your database is accurate and comprehensive, ready for targeted outreach and lead generation.
By refreshing your data, you can launch new initiatives with confidence, knowing your team is working with up-to-date information that reduces wasted time and wasted funds.
If you need help with this, give us a call.
4. Prioritise Lead Generation and Appointment Setting
Of course, if your current customer base provides everything you need in terms of revenue and profit, and there is also opportunity for growth within, given that it’s more expensive to generate new business, why would you go out prospecting. However, that’s not the case for most organisations.
Building the sales funnel takes time, even amongst existing clients, which is why it’s crucial to begin lead generation efforts now. B2B businesses need to maintain a full pipeline of qualified leads to ensure steady sales opportunities in Q1 of 2025. By investing in getting in front of your customers, using appointment setting and multi-channel integrated lead generation efforts without delay, you’ll be ahead of the curve if an economic slowdown begins to take hold.
This is where a cross-channel approach—combining telemarketing, LinkedIn outreach, and email marketing—can make all the difference. Of course, there are all manner of other initiatives, including content development, and distribution, PPC, advertising, and so on. However, targeted, multi-touch personalised campaigns help fill your funnel with directly qualified prospects while ensuring your team focuses on key accounts and inbound enquiries. Ultimately, your business must remain top-of-mind with potential buyers.
Longer-Term Strategies: Building Resilience Through Proactive Outreach
While immediate actions are critical, businesses must also think beyond the current quarter and prepare for long-term success. Austerity measures and slow consumer spending may be unavoidable, but companies that prioritise proactive outreach and consistent lead generation will stand a better chance of riding out the storm.
1. Systematic Database Profiling and Segmentation
Many SMEs suffer when it comes to being able to devote sufficient time and expertise to release the value that a valid customer and prospect database can deliver.
With a large, often outdated customer and prospect database, businesses may struggle to identify who to target and how. Typically that increases frustration amongst the sales team. It also prevents marketing teams from doing their job effectively.
Now is the time to take a systematic approach to profiling and segmentation, ensuring that your outreach is focused on the right prospects and customers. By analysing past behaviour, buying patterns, and market trends, you can target those who are most likely to respond positively to your messaging. But don’t forget to optimise your marketing by making sure that your database is as clean as possible before you kick off any activity.
2. Multi-Channel Lead Generation
As businesses grapple with reduced budgets and hesitant buyers, a one-dimensional approach to lead generation will likely fall short. A multi-layered approach, using telemarketing, email, LinkedIn outreach, and additional initiatives, where possible, ensures that your message is reaching prospects across multiple touchpoints. An integrated strategy helps nurture leads through the sales funnel, creating multiple opportunities for engagement and conversion.
The Role of GSA in Supporting Your Business Development Efforts
Naturally, we cannot claim to be the answer to every problem. And, we are certainly not claiming to be the only solution. However, our experience tells us that it is common that, with limited internal bandwidth, many companies struggle to dedicate the time and resources needed to implement the strategies above. That’s where GSA can help. We specialise in:
- Database cleaning and building: Ensuring your customer and prospect database is up to date, so you can confidently reach out to the right people.
- Appointment setting: Helping you get in front of decision-makers, filling your pipeline with qualified leads.
- Lead generation: Building a robust funnel of prospects ready for outreach through telemarketing, LinkedIn, email, and more.
- Integrated lead generation: Using a multi-channel approach to engage your audience and convert prospects into long-term customers.
Our expertise lies in combing through large, outdated databases to uncover new opportunities, in addition to unearthing the value in new audiences. With the festive slowdown, and 2025 fast approaching, it’s essential to start these initiatives now. Waiting until the budget takes effect or consumer spending drops off could result in missed opportunities and a weakened sales funnel.
Time is of the Essence: Let’s Start the Conversation
With uncertainty looming and the end of the year approaching, it’s critical to be proactive. Let’s discuss how GSA can support your business in building resilience through a systematic approach to business development. Let’s work together to ensure your business thrives through these tough times and beyond.