Christmas is knocking on the door and as we edge closer to the big day our lives will be consumed by festive-themed marketing campaigns, selling us every consumer product imaginable. There’s massive potential for B2C businesses to capitalise on Christmas marketing campaigns, just ask John Lewis, but what about if your business is B2B? It can be difficult to be relevant and get your message heard through chaos around Christmas, however, there are opportunities to be had. It’s important to think outside of the box and get creative. Here are our top tips for making Christmas work for your business.
Contents
‘Merry Christmas’ Email
Sending a Christmas greeting email is one of the most common ways to get spread the Christmas cheer an obvious opportunity to contact your database. In the week leading up to the Christmas break, we will get bombarded with emails from businesses passing on their best wishes for the holiday season. With all of this noise, as well as the final delivery reminders and last minute gift ideas, it is harder than usual for your email to have an impact. Be creative in your messaging to stand out from the crowd and try and add value to your audience with your email. Christmas is a joyous and happy time of year, capitalise on this but remember who your customer and where the line should be drawn. Whilst a ‘Merry Christmas’ from us all is a nice touch, think about including something of value for your audience, a review of the year or a look ahead to 2018 for your business.
Think carefully about who you are sending your message to and look to segment your audience accordingly. You may want to send a different message to potential leads and those you who have worked with throughout the year. If you have important information such office opening hours, this email is a good place to put the information.
Offer A Christmas Gift
They say that Christmas is a time for giving and this message can be tied into your Christmas campaign with a promotion or reward. Consider whether there is anything that your business can offer for free to join in the Christmas cheer but make sure to keep it relevant. Leave the free novelty gifts to the B2C companies and focus on something that your customers may actually want. Is there a service that you can offer at a reduced rate or a resource that you can share with them for free? These ideas make it easy to jump on the feel-good bandwagon.
Social Media
It’s important to remember whilst B2B means business to business, as far as social media is concerned it is still person to person. This means that your social around Christmas should focus on the people you are trying to talk to and engage with. Consider what this means for businesses as they start to wind down for the year and make plans for the new year. It’s a good opportunity to look back at the past year and talk about what’s coming up in 2018. Be visual in your messaging and find a good balance of Christmas theming without going overboard.
Some businesses may shut down completely in the break between Christmas and New Year but some will also be open. If you are closed, think about scheduling tweets and posts to go out during this time and think carefully about what messaging would be relevant at this time of year. Downtime at work doesn’t mean downtime on social media and whilst your customers may be less tuned into work, they may be checking their social accounts more which gives you a good opportunity to engage.
Christmas doesn’t have to be dominated by B2C and by employing creativity and planning to your Christmas campaigns, you can maximise your exposure this festive season. How will you approach your Christmas marketing campaign?
