So… What is your festive season communication strategy?
The conventional wisdom is to pull the plug on all marketing activity over the Festive Season holiday period because ‘no-one is working’ but that’s simply not the case.
These days the extended festive season spans mid-December to the first week of January. During which many employees take annual leave. And for the week covering Christmas Day to New Year many businesses close down.
Business executives are not shutting down their computers or their minds. They’re still consuming business content via mobile devices, many using the downtime to do research and consume long-form content.
According to a survey into holiday working habits by The Institute of Leadership & Management, two thirds of business leaders have admitted that they check their work emails while on holiday, and three quarters have taken or made a work call. Unsurprisingly, most senior leadership teams check their emails and engage in business content while on holiday (81 per cent).
If you think about it, there’s a solid logic behind the data. Business leaders have two very demanding masters. The state of their business at end of the calendar year, and the looming benchmarks for the end of financial year. So, it’s understandable that they will use their downtime to research and plan so they can ‘hit the ground running’ as early as possible in the New Year.
That’s where your communications strategy can make a difference. You want to put your company front of mind when business ‘as usual’ kicks off in the New Year. And to do that, you’ll want your relaxed business prospects to find you, remember you, and as much as possible, you want to create a compelling a reason for them to speak with you in the first few weeks of January.
Have a well-considered festive season marketing strategy
Focus on creating informative content that keeps your business top-of-mind for decision-makers when they return to work in the new year.
According to LinkedIn, 73% of B2B decision-makers research products during the evening and 51% during weekends. With more time off work, there’s a higher chance that you can reach an otherwise disengaged audience with your content during the holidays.
Begin the festive season by communicating in the spirit of the season with existing and past clients, prospects, industry colleagues and partners, and social followers. Your holiday comms campaign should encompass email, social posts, blogs, and some targeted advertising and outreach such as LinkedIn. Your messaging should be well-considered, and complimentary to the spirit of the season. It should include:
- A Christmas greeting (or a generic culturally inclusive Festive Season greeting).
- Some ‘Holiday Reading’ via a whitepaper. Focussing on their problems and challenges and how to solve them in the coming year.
- Blogs discussing the state of the industry and anticipated trends for the coming year.
- A ‘welcome to the New Year’ message! Where you create a sense of urgency with a limited-time Value-Add or Offer to kick-off the new year. This could be a free audit/assessment, a discount on services, a free trial, or a time extension of services at no charge.
- An invitation in the first week of January to set up a meeting or phone chat. To discuss how you might help them achieve their objectives for the end of the financial year.
- This time of year is also a great opportunity to repurpose content. As well as re-post your greatest hits from the past year on social media.
You can’t sell a secret
When selling B2B products and services, obscurity is your biggest challenge. If you’re not visible, then no-one will find you.
Being active over the festive season helps new prospects discover you because they have more time to consume and digest.
Make sure you can track consumers of your content. So you can touch base and hopefully fill your calendar with hot prospects in early January. For example: “Thanks for reading my article over Christmas, do you want to have a chat.”
Whether it’s inspirational, aspirational, educational, humorous, insightful, or a showcase of your 2021 ‘favourites’, use the festive season to give your target clients a chance to hit the ground running in January with you in the frame.
