Leads vanished overnight. We had to pivot.
In March 2020 our customers were the first to close. Leads fell from about 120 a day to 20. This is how we decided what to stop, what to keep and where to bet.
120 → 20 leads a day- Company
- Unimat de México
- Year
- 2020
- My role
- Marketing Manager
- Decided with
- The owner and the sales director
- Launch
- Seven working days
- Result
- From 20 to about 50 leads a day in two months
Before the crisis
In 2020 I was Marketing Manager at Unimat, a Mexican company of floors, entrance mats and parking safety products. Our customers were offices, hotels, gyms and stores. I had built the department from scratch with a small team, and our websites brought in about 120 new leads a day for some 20 salespeople.
In March the pandemic arrived, and our customers were the first to close. Within a few weeks we were down to about 20 leads a day.
Cut and wait, or bet
The owner, the sales director and I sat down. We could cut back and wait for it to pass, or put the little money we had left into something we had never sold.
Listen to what the customer needed that week
What tipped the balance was listening to customers. They no longer wanted to renew their floors: they wanted to reopen without putting anyone at risk. And the entrance of a building was already our territory.
We decided to open a temporary disinfection line, without stopping the regular catalogue.
What I paused, kept and moved
The hard part was executing with what we had. I paused new proposals and the planning of trade shows and events. I moved the development budget and the budget of campaigns already running to the new line, because the regular line wasn’t moving.
We launched it in seven working days: sanitizing mats in three sizes, sanitizing liquid for homes and a concentrate for businesses, shoe trays, acrylic screens and white KN95 masks.
- Every week we measured leads, purchase orders and page conversion.
- Every month, sales.
It didn’t erase the losses. It kept the company standing.
In a couple of months we went from 20 to about 50 leads a day. It didn’t erase the losses, but it kept the company going. And because we never dropped the main lines, we were ready when the market came back: they recovered the following year and were still growing when I left in 2022.
What it left me
In a crisis, last year’s plan is useless. Managing is deciding what stops, what holds and where you bet, with this week’s information.
Illustrative images from the case video.
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