With less than a week till Christmas the holiday season in general, you may have already mentally checked out for the year. However, you may also be wrapping the last of your marketing campaigns for 2014 and carefully analyzing your 2015 plan to know where to start when you come back in January.
While many people leave their marketing at the door when they rush out for the holidays, there are plenty of ways to keep your marketing going during this notorious "down time".
I am not going to sugarcoat it though - B2B marketing during the holidays is tough. In the B2C world, the holidays are an ideal time for marketing. Consumers are all about spending, gifting and then regifting. In the B2B world, most consumers are analyzing their budgets from the current year and wondering where all their money went and strategically planning for 2015 and don't particularly want to be bothered with your "hey our company is awesome at this email".
Here are some tips for your holiday marketing:
Hit the social media sites - Hard.
The B2B market is regularly on LinkedIn and Twitter - especially LinkedIn. Studies have demonstrated that LinkedIn use is higher during down time like right before work or right after work hours. So while our B2B market is filling up on holiday food and drinks and then recovering, they may be spending ample time on social media over the holidays.
If you can, post daily with links to the website. Feel like taking some down time yourself, schedule posts and tweets using Hootsuite.
Schedule an email marketing campaign - but keep it light
Even if the B2B crowd is relaxing during the holidays, most will still be checking emails on a regular basis. Try to organize a small content marketing piece on some industry trend or something forecasting 2015. Remember to optimize the campaign for mobile since most will be on phones and tablets over the holidays and may mark the email to read when back in the office.
Don't expect lead generation from this campaign, just use it to keep your brand fresh in their minds. Again, if you're looking to take a break too, schedule the campaign to go out ahead of time.
Collect content for the New Year
Ok, this requires some work on the marketer's end, but it's not as bad as it seems. While other marketers might be slacking, keep checking social media and your industry websites for news circulating over the holiday period and take note (or a mental note) of what's new and interesting so your January 2015 content can be fresh and first to market. Note what your B2B audience is posting in LinkedIn groups over the holidays because, believe me, they will be active.
Skip the sappy Happy Holidays message and go for the New Years message
How many pointless "Happy Holidays" emails do you get the week before Christmastime? The blank message with a cute decoration that says "Happy Holidays from Company X"? Great, thanks for the wishes, but at this point we just delete those emails. Focus on a New Years campaign that hits people when they are coming back into the office. It can be in the form of an email or even - gasp - snail mail!! Imagine getting a New Years card with a company brochure in the mail. Remember, sometimes marketing is about thinking outside the box!
With that being said, Happy Holidays from this blogger!