It’s that time of year again where business slows down, outreach campaigns are put on pause, and business owners start to refocus on next year.
But not all businesses are slowing down at the end of the year. In fact, many are taking advantage of this time to secure more leads – and they’re doing it well.
The truth is, the holidays are a prime time to continue with your LinkedIn outreach campaigns.
Your leads are checking social platforms more than any other time of year, and with some easy tweaks to your campaigns, you’ll find it surprisingly easy to reach new prospects at this busy time of year.
In this post, we’ll show you the outreach strategy you need for the holidays and how to use this time of year to get ahead of your competitors.
Want to know how you can generate new warm leads from LinkedIn Groups? Check out our guide to find out.
Why is it So Hard to Continue Doing LinkedIn Outreach During the Holidays?
The holiday period is often seen by marketers and B2B companies as a time to slow down, reevaluate goals for next year, and slow down content creation.
Because so many businesses take this time to slow down and many people are away on leave, it can be a difficult time to continue with your usual outreach campaigns.
With parties and festivities taking center stage, mindsets shift and it’s hard to keep any prospect’s attention on closing a deal, even if it’s the perfect solution for their brand.
That’s not to say that it’s impossible to prospect during the holidays, though. It just means your strategy needs to be tweaked.
Top Reasons Why You Should Continue With Your LinkedIn Outreach
If you’re currently planning on pausing your outreach for the holiday season, here are some key reasons why you should keep it up until the new year.
Potential leads are still on LinkedIn
Research from LinkedIn shows that a large percentage of members do research on LinkedIn during the evenings and over half of members use LinkedIn on weekends.
This shows you that clients are active on LinkedIn constantly – whether during work hours or not. In fact, engagement rates on social media in December are a third higher than the yearly average.
So many B2B businesses people have made a habit of continually checking LinkedIn and other social platforms throughout the week for client messages, updates, and more.
When the holidays come around, your ideal prospects will still be on the LinkedIn platform getting updates and keeping an eye on the competition.
If they’re still on the platform, you should be too.
Avoid losing market share
Just because you stop your outreach on LinkedIn doesn’t mean your competitors will. And when you stop marketing, you leave a void that is quickly filled by competing brands.
The last thing you want is to reach out to an ideal client in the new year only to find out they made last-minute arrangements with a different company in December.
You’ll find it extremely difficult to claw back that market share that’s already lost. By continuing with your outreach efforts over the holidays, you stay front of mind with your prospects.
And if your competitors do pause their outreach over the holidays, you get a head start stepping out ahead of them.
Builds trust
In the B2B industry, the decision-making process is considerably longer than the B2C. You might have prospects who are still researching brands over the holidays looking for the best option for the new year.
By showing up with continued outreach campaigns, you show your prospects that you care about their business year-round and you are always available. This establishes trust and helps solidify your brand as the top contender in your lead’s mind, even if they’re not quite ready to make a purchase yet.
Your lead might have spent the last six months researching potential companies to do business with. If they happen to be ready to buy during the holidays, you want to be the one who is there ready to give value.
If they’re not ready, your outreach will help keep that client warm moving into the new year, and they’re more likely to think of you when they are ready.
Can be cheaper long term
Having an “always-on” approach to your outreach can actually be cheaper in the long run. Stopping and starting campaigns means you could lose hot leads. When you start up your campaigns again, they are likely going to be warm or even cold, and you’ll need to cycle through your campaigns again to get them into your sales funnel.
On the other hand, keeping up with your outreach throughout the holidays helps to keep your leads warm. You may have to follow up more than usual during the holidays, but you won’t experience that same drop-off – which can end up being expensive for your marketing efforts.
Creating a Strategy for LinkedIn Outreach During the Holidays
The good thing about continuing with your outreach over the holidays is it doesn’t take a lot of change. Some small tweaks to your messaging and approach are all it takes, but your core message and proposition remain the same.
Identify dead zones
When you get started planning your outreach for this quarter, it’s best to start by identifying dead zones.
Each industry will have specific times of day or week during the holiday period where it’s almost impossible to contact leads. You can use your LinkedIn analytics here to figure out when your audience is online the most and tailor your outreach around those times.
The great thing about automating your outreach efforts is you can be precise about when you send out messages so you can target leads when they are most likely going to be online.
Zopto lets you set up personalized, automated outreach campaigns that allow you to message your leads at the best times – whether you’re actually in your office or not. And with automated follow-ups, you can engage with leads even when you’re unavailable during the busy holiday season.
Send personalized, festive messages
Now more than ever, a personalized approach to outreach is key. This is a festive, fun time of year, so the last thing prospects want is cold, corporate pitches.
Instead, keep your messages light, include a general “happy holidays”, and keep the tone fun throughout.
This small tweak to your messaging style is highly effective over the holidays and will make leads more likely to reply. After all, most people are already in a good mood this time of year.
Focus on value for the new year
Most businesses take December to go over plans and goals for the new year, so your outreach should focus on the value you can offer moving into next year.
Whatever your service or product, highlight the benefits it will have if it’s implemented now ready for the new year – these are the kind of last-minute changes B2B businesses will be looking to implement.
Tips for Your LinkedIn Outreach Campaigns During the Holidays
When setting up LinkedIn outreach campaigns for the holidays, here are some of our top tips to help you boost your response rate during a time when most B2Bs are winding down.
Prospect with holiday spirit
This is the most important change you’ll make to your campaigns. Keep it professional, but inject some seasonal spirit into your messaging. Your offer won’t change over the holidays, but this is a great time of year to show a lighter, more fun side of your brand.
Continue posting
Don’t stop posting to LinkedIn over the holidays. Remember that research that showed users are more active in December? Take advantage of that and use this time to boost your SEO and engagement with well-crafted posts.
You don’t need to create new content for the holidays either. Now is a great time to re-post your high-performing content and do round-ups and reviews of the year to keep your leads engaged.
Want to know what to post on LinkedIn to generate leads? Here are six of the best types of posts.
Include added value, free gifts, or additional offers
Most people associate the holidays with discounts, offers, and gifts – even in the B2B space. If it aligns with your overall marketing strategy, offer prospects added bonuses for the holiday period.
This could be a free trial, a free demo, a discount period, or an additional service. It doesn’t have to be a steep discount, but including added value in your holiday outreach is a great way to engage prospects and take advantage of the time of year.
The “testing holiday”
There is a palpable mindset shift during the holidays. Brand content becomes lighter and most people within businesses are happier and more receptive. So, this is a great time to test out some new outreach strategies.
Whether you want to play with your brand’s voice or visuals, or just tweak your offer, the holidays are a unique time of year with this type of test won’t have a negative impact on your marketing efforts.
Set up a winning holiday campaign today
Hopefully you’re convinced that you should continue with your LinkedIn outreach over the holidays. It’s a great time of year to set yourself apart from your competition and close deals with prospects, even as the entire B2B industry starts to slow down.
If you want to set up a high-converting LinkedIn holiday campaign quickly and get started with outreach right away, Zopto can help.
Once we have your campaign set up, you’ll get dozens of hot leads this holiday season, all on autopilot. Request a free demo today and we’ll show you how we do it.
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