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B2B Marketing Strategies for a Merry Christmas

Strategy
22 Dec 2015 | by Ian Blake

3 B2B Marketing Strategies for festive content to send to clients at Christmas.

It’s Chriiiiiiistmas! Or close enough, at least. Close enough to start asking: what are you giving your B2B clients this year?

I don’t ask lightly: getting your festive content marketing right is as tricky as buying your significant other the perfect gift – and lazy B2B marketing can get you into just as much hot water. The vast majority of companies fall back on tired old strategies like sending out an email offering a “Christmas discount” that immediately blurs into the background with all the other “Christmas discount” emails their competitors are clogging client inboxes with, too. It’s the marketing equivalent of getting socks from a distant aunt.Of course, these kind of ploys might work slightly in the B2C world, where people are actually preoccupied with buying presents and have an eye out for a good deal. But when it comes to B2B, it’s a poorly contrived strategy.

After all, few budgets are going to get signed off in the weeks leading up to the Christmas break. Few procurement managers are going to be free for, or focussed on, chatting about changing their supplier or scaling up their services. Companies don’t buy each other business subscriptions for Christmas.

To make it work, you’re going to have to be smarter than that. To get you started, here are three ideas for Christmas B2B Marketing to catch your clients’ eyes this holiday season.

1. Play a Game

If you have the time and resources handy, creating a simple festive game and sending a link to your clients is very effective. Adding a competition element, like a prize to be won, and it’s virtually addictive.

You don’t even have to make the whole thing from scratch – many companies, like the makers of the “Fat Santa” game, allow you to license their source code and adapt it with your own branding. What better way to have some festive fun with your clients and keep yourself on their radar until the New Year?

2. Year-in-Review Roundups

Summing up the biggest changes, most important moments or major product/tech releases of the year just gone makes for great pre-Christmas content, especially in easy-to-consume, entertainment-friendly formats like blog posts, videos or podcasts.

The “Top Ten” or “100 Best” countdown structure is a familiar fixture at the end of the year, and adapting it to offer some interesting observations on your industry means that you can subtly reassert your authority in the field while tapping into the light hearted, pre-Christmas mood.

3. Forecast Next Year’s Trends

As the year draws to a close, most organisations will be putting off their biggest decisions until 2016, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t thinking about what might be around the corner.

Pulling together a really interesting, well-researched, insightful piece of long-form content, like an eBook or video series, that explores or forecasts next year’s trends not only makes for highly popular content, it also gives you a great excuse to call up thought leaders and potential clients in your field and pay them the compliment of asking for their expert views and predictions.

Plus, don’t forget that many B2B publications and websites are on the lookout for top content at the end of the year, and may well be keen to use or repurpose what you have to offer, helping you reach an even bigger audience of potential clients. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

What Christmas B2B Marketing has really jumped out at you so far this year? Are you planning a festive content marketing campaign of your own? Share your thoughts with us. If you need something to fill up your Xmas work stockings, see our free B2B Content Marketing Masterclass Book below. (Naughty or nice, we’ll turn a blind eye just this once!)

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