Festive Content Curation Delights: Elevate Your B2B Holiday Marketing Strategies
Just because many business stakeholders are away during the holiday season doesn’t mean you can no longer promote your product or service.
Chances are, they’re probably still thinking of ways to make their company better. And they might even browse the sites of solution providers for special holiday promotions.
Either way, you can take advantage of this opportunity with the right B2B holiday marketing strategies.
Reasons Why B2B Companies Should Invest in Holiday Marketing
You may think slowing down your B2B marketing efforts during the holidays is necessary.
Maybe you’ve concluded that your marketing team needs a break, that this is your slow season, or that no one is in the office anyway.
Each of these arguments may have some truth, but taking them to heart could cause you to miss out on lucrative opportunities to boost sales.
One reason is that professionals tend to have more downtime during the holidays since they’re taking time off work. That means they have more time to browse social media platforms like LinkedIn, a great way to promote and engage with B2B buyers.
Another reason to invest in holiday marketing is to build lasting relationships with your existing customers and attract new ones to show your company’s human side.
So, leveraging B2B holiday marketing strategies can help you:
- Maximize return on investment (ROI)
- Increase lead generation
- Build brand awareness
- Drive more sales
Crafting the Perfect Time Frame for Your Campaigns
The key to a successful B2B marketing strategy is the right timing.
Consider the length of the holiday season. People tend to start thinking about and preparing for the holidays around October. And celebrations usually run through January.
To guarantee you have enough time to prepare, consider starting your campaign in the early fall — you can start as early as August, but ideally not past October.
So, make sure your campaign aligns with specific dates and holidays. But don’t expect much email engagement in the days before or after major holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day. That’s why it’s best to start early.
Doing so also gives you ample time to implement S.M.A.R.T. goals to help you define your marketing strategies and measure their performance towards the end of your holiday campaign.
How to Develop a Holiday-Themed Marketing Strategy
So, now that you know how important it is to keep your marketing efforts going during the holiday season, the next step is to figure out your strategy.
What type of content will you share? What are your preferred marketing channels? What value will you offer your leads and clients?
The generic holiday messaging likely won’t be effective. A warm and fuzzy email without business substance won’t move decision-makers. So, what will?
Consider the strategies below.
Think Mobile-First
In B2C, many consumers use their mobile phones for holiday shopping. In fact, in 2022, 90% of Millennials used a smartphone or tablet to make a holiday purchase.
Gen Z ranked second, following closely with 82%.
The B2B industry is, of course, different. Business decision-makers look to purchase products and services from other businesses.
However, most B2B buyers still use their smartphones to do their shopping. And 50% of B2B inquiries originate from mobile devices.
So, adopting a mobile-first approach for your B2B holiday marketing campaigns is crucial.
What does that entail? Your holiday-themed visuals should render beautifully on smaller screens. So should your written content.
To achieve this, consider implementing a responsive website design, which means how your content appears depends on the device your audience uses.
As a result, you won’t need to create and manage two different websites — one for desktop and one for mobile. You’ll only need one.
You should also simplify sign-up forms for people using mobile devices. Some tips include;
- Removing unnecessary form fields. Only ask for the information necessary to register the lead in your database (i.e., name, password, email address).
- Using a responsive design that automatically adjusts the form to smaller screens.
- Using a minimal design to eliminate distraction and frustration.
- Running A/B tests to increase mobile conversation rates.
- Allowing social login with OAuth and auto-fills.
For example, Semrush uses a simple sign-up form so potential customers can join the popular SEO tool without hassle.
Publish Holiday-Themed Content
While B2B buyers look to purchase products for their organization, that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t enjoy some lighthearted content during the holidays.
Just make sure your content provides value. Otherwise, they won’t walk away with anything helpful that they can apply to improve your business.
Consider these ideas for holiday-themed content to share with your B2B audience:
- Social media challenges (e.g., Encourage followers to share their creative decorations, holiday workspaces, or success stories from the year)
- Collaborative content (e.g., Partner with other businesses in your industry to create festive content, including co-hosted webinars, joint blog posts, or shared resources)
- Countdown to success (e.g., Launch a countdown series sharing daily tips, insights, or best practices in the days leading up to the holiday season)
- Charity or giving-back initiatives (e.g., Stories, photos, or videos of your team volunteering or supporting charitable causes)
- Holiday-branded resources, such as e-books, whitepapers, or templates to help B2B buyers prepare for the upcoming year
- Interactive holiday (e.g., What’s Your 2024 Business Resolution?)
- Holiday-themed blog posts (e.g., 5 Ways to Boost Productivity Before the Year Ends)
- Festive webinars or workshops
- Year-in-review infographics
- Virtual networking events
Tailor Brands, a B2B company specializing in business branding and identity, does an excellent job creating holiday-themed promotional content that brings value.
Its article, “What is a Seasonal Logo and Why You Should Have One,” is a great example of how brands can promote their product or service.
In this case, the company was promoting the Tailor Brands logo maker in this case. But it also shared some helpful holiday-themed tips with its readers.
Not sure where to start with your holiday content creation?
In the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, crafting professionally written and easily digestible content is crucial.
Your audience is likely pressed for time. Presenting them with error-free and straightforward content can make all the difference.
Incorporating AI-powered tools like online logo makers into your content creation process can be a game-changer. While these tools can generate content quickly, they may fall short in grammar and flow.
To ensure polished final content, consider using a free proofreading tool. Such tools can help you improve ?content flow and fix grammatical mistakes.
You can also use a tool like Scoop.it to streamline your content publishing process. Using our content curation tool, you’ll boost brand awareness, establish thought leadership, and access authoritative sources.
Spread Holiday Cheer on Social Media
Post festive content that gets your B2B audience in the holiday spirit. This might include festive banners, images, and posts to boost engagement.
Here’s a great example from LinkedIn, where they marry humor into the holiday season.
Social media is also the perfect channel to incorporate social proof because social media brings out the human side of your B2B brand.
So, what better way to embrace that than to share customer photos and reviews that humanize your organization and instill confidence in buyers?
You can also run holiday giveaways to engage followers, acquire new ones, and generate excitement.
For example, if you’re a software provider, you could give away a premium subscription for your software tool and let the winner enjoy three months of free use.
To enter, users must follow your brand on all your social media platforms and like, share, and comment on the giveaway post.
If you need inspiration, look at how Semrush engages with its audience on Instagram during the holidays.
Create Engaging Holiday-Themed Video Content
Stand out from the competition with engaging branded video content that captures the joy and warmth of the holidays.
Ideas include:
- Season’s greetings videos: A warm and personalized happy holidays message from your team wishing leads and clients a warm holiday season.
- Holiday tips and hacks: A video with tips and hacks that can help B2B buyers navigate the holiday season.
- Festive behind the scenes: A video taking your audience behind the scenes of your office or virtual workspace decorated for the holidays
- Product showcase: A video demonstrating how your product or service can benefit businesses during the holiday season or in preparation for the new year.
Start a Holiday Email Marketing Campaign
Plan an email campaign for the holidays to keep your brand top of mind and build customer relationships.
Start by defining your campaign goals and understanding your audience. Create different audience segments so that you can create more personalized emails, tailoring your content for different preferences and needs.
Create attention-grabbing subject lines and clear calls-to-action (CTAs) to drive more opens and boost conversions.
Check out how HR software company Insperity uses a simple CTA within an email to encourage subscribers to read the full blog post.
You can also use marketing automation software to schedule your emails. And create email workflows based on different online behaviors (e.g., welcome series, abandoned carts, post-webinar, free trial, etc.).
Craft festive email templates and personalized email signatures to leave a lasting impression. Tools like Wisestamp allow you to customize holiday email signatures.
Leverage Tools to Track KPIs and Events
If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it. So, be sure to track KPIs to measure the success of your holiday campaigns.
Use tools like Google Analytics (website analytics), Ahrefs (SEO performance), Napoleoncat (social media management) or Social Sprout (social media analytics).
Also, consider employing customer engagement tools and processes like an AI chatbot to deliver exceptional holiday customer service. And use preferred channels for instant customer engagement.
Wrap Up
Follow these B2B holiday marketing strategies to engage your audience, build trust, and make your brand stand out.
Take a holistic approach using multiple channels like your website, social media, email, and video. This strategy will ensure you’re reaching the right people at the right time.
Need help curating B2B holiday-themed content?
Try Scoop.it for free, or request a demo.
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