What is digital marketing strategy and how should you pivot as a result of the pandemic?  In this post, I’ll tell you how to evaluate digital marketing strategy in this time of uncertainty. Eric Siu is a digital marketing strategist who runs a modest, multi-million dollar empire that includes a SaaS company called ClickFlow (an SEO Experimentation Tool), a SaaS digital marketing agency and a portfolio of mega profitable, digital marketing oriented online media properties that collectively draw millions of unique monthly visitors. That’s right. Millions of uniques every month. If you want to know how to start a digital marketing agency or a SaaS company from scratch, Eric Siu is a living, walking case study. Or if you want digital marketing tips to grow your startup, Eric is a geek famous, living legend.  I caught up with him and shared how he creates a successful digital marketing strategy, what considerations go into media channel selection and how to develop a digital marketing program designed to drive users for SaaS offerings. In fact, digital marketing for SaaS is Eric’s specialty. He’s a bonafide expert. ClickFlow and Single Grain Founder Eric Siu Siu grew his digital advertising agency from nothing and today he represents some of the biggest SaaS brands in the world including Amazon, AirBNB and Uber. Nuff said.  Single Grain specializes in ROI-focused marketing programs that generate sales accepted leads for complex B2B software as a service subscriptions. Eric Siu is a big believer in product lead growth, which usually means offering a free version of a premium service, as a way of giving people a way to try your product without having to bleed excessive customer service resources trying to get functional.  Let them churn and support those customers who have the where-with-all to be successful.   According to a conversation Siu had with HubSpot VP marketing Keiran Flanigan (@searchbrat), it really wasn’t until HubSpot introduced an entry-level, freemium product, that their business really took off. Impact of Coronavirus of Digital Marketing Orbit Media just published a study with Drew McLellan about the impact of COVID-19 on digital marketing spends, and it showed B2C getting hit much harder than B2B, although marketing across the board is way down.  Siu spoke about the impact of the pandemic on ClickFlow and Single Grain. But his recommendations for what marketers should do at this point in time may be counterintuitive to many listeners, because it's far from what most people seem to be doing.  If you want to hear what he’s doing to get through this rough patch, listen to the podcast. Digital media strategy framework from Start Ups Guide to PR - 2020 Report. What I will share is what he said about his discussions with venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, who are essentially writing this year off.  But he does think that when business resumes, don’t expect to see the same aggressive approach to paid media as a primary source of traffic.  Instead, expect to see start-ups and change-ups take a more innovative approach to digital media marketing, and closer look at owned and shared media, like this. Digital Transformation’s Big Moment For a lot of companies who still haven't gotten their arms around digital transformation -- meaning they don't have a digital business infrastructure or much sophistication around revenue operations --  the pandemic has accelerated the need for adoption big time,