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As the year winds down, many businesses in the B2B landscape typically slow down on their lead generation efforts. Most people are out of the office for the holidays, and the marketing and sales teams tend to focus on strategizing for the following year. Booking meetings and making connections can be tricky since most leads might focus more on enjoying the holidays. While this is the typical scenario, research shows it’ll be to your business’s disadvantage to slow down on lead generation.
Here are a few reasons why your business should take advantage of the lull in outreach efforts from other B2B businesses to capture leads in preparation for the coming year.
Enhanced competitive advantage
As we’ve mentioned, many other businesses will shut down/close, including putting a pause on their lead generation campaigns as the year slows down. Your business can capitalize on the reduced campaigns from similar businesses to reach out to leads most likely not receiving any other marketing material. Target coveted leads in your niche using personalized, holiday-themed messaging that shows them how partnering with you can benefit them.
Less than 30 percent of businesses will be running display ads, search ads, or any social media marketing. Since competitors have effectively gone silent, there’s less noise to cut through, and it’s easier to catch a lead’s attention. While you may not focus on closing deals since they’re likely out of office, you’ll establish your presence in their minds, making them ready to make a purchase when they do return to office in the new year.
More people are active on social media during the holidays
Since they’re not at work/business has slowed down, leads will have more time on their hands, and are more likely to spend a lot of time on social media. As we know, social media is a great place to connect with leads, learn about their interests, and insert them into your sales funnel. Social media can also be a great place to reach prospects who’ve shut down for the holidays and are perhaps no longer responding to work emails or checking their work messages.
They’ll still be active on social media, so take advantage of their online presence on platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. A study by Deloitte showed that social media influences 23 percent of consumers’ Christmas shopping decisions. These include everything from ads, organic posts, and recommendations from friends and family on social media. More reason for your business to keep active on social media during the holidays.
You don’t have to do too much here. A lighthearted, seasonal, and straightforward approach to the campaign works best. Engage in activities like leaving a comment on their posts, responding to messages and comments on your business page, and sharing valuable and relatable content. This reminds leads of your presence, which is often enough (if the above is done) to make them interested and more receptive to the more hard-hitting marketing material you may target them with later. It also builds more trust, showing that you maintain communication even when business is slow and often inspires confidence and commitment from your audience.
Algorithms find it suspicious when domains are inconsistent
Unlike people, algorithms don’t slow down or take holiday breaks. They’re always active and analyzing patterns and activities in every domain. We send more than 300 billion emails every day, and algorithms are constantly working to filter out emails considered harmful or suspicious. About 90 percent of suspicious emails are filtered based on several parameters, such as how often a domain sends emails.
It’s important to maintain consistency and stay constant with your outreach efforts to avoid getting flagged as spam or having your emails filtered out of your lead’s inbox. There’s is also the risk of losing any progress on your SEO efforts. Slowing down or completely stopping your campaigns can lead to tremendous losses in SEO as your business ranks lower and becomes more challenging to find when leads search for it.
High-intent prospects plan during the holidays
The last few months of the year are more than shutting down and assessing how the business performed over the past year. It’s also a time for planning. Many companies will go into strategizing for the new year, deciding what partnerships to form, what businesses to purchase from, and how to improve their product or services. Seventy percent of B2B buyers research and plan to inform their buying decisions, so they must always have content they can refer to.
Businesses that position themselves correctly at this time stand to gain a lot as the decision-makers can see that your business is always performing. It’s a great time to get in front of them and emphasize your offer’s value and how they can benefit from it going into the new year. Having researched the company and learned their pain points, centering your pitch around solving them, and helping the company achieve its goals for the next year can help seal the deal and land you their business.
The end of the year can be about more than gifts and eggnog, especially for B2B businesses. It’s time to double down on your lead generation, taking advantage of the absence of competitors to capture more leads and sell them your business. Another tip for connecting with your audience is to get really involved and engage with customers. Think of your business as the Santa Claus of the B2B landscape. Ask your prospective clients what they want, how you can improve your services, and make the most of their responses.
Feedback can be a great source of information for your business strategies for the new year, so don’t just focus only on sending more leads into your database. Listen to them, offer incentives, and inject the holiday spirit into your campaigns. It’ll do wonders for your lead generation.
Sending out thousands of messages can be overwhelming. However, with automation tools like Zopto, staying consistent with your lead-generation activities during the holiday is easy. Contact us today to learn more about how to run effective automated campaigns.
