Perhaps to your surprise, clients are very receptive to promotions that solve seasonal problems. They need immediate solutions to temporary snags, making marketing all the more critical during these peak periods. So, even in the lull of winter, businesses can stay afloat with effective seasonal marketing campaigns.
What Is Seasonal Marketing in the B2B World?
Seasonal marketing is basically just regular marketing but festive. Businesses add a little razzle-dazzle to their strategies according to specific time-sensitive themes, holidays, or other celebrated events.
Instead of catering to typical continual customer needs (e.g., boosting revenue, meeting product demand), brands pivot efforts toward seasonal issues (e.g., winterizing crops, preparing for extreme weather). Leveraging these temporary problems allows B2B companies to drive sales now and establish customer loyalty that extends into the future.
Unique Seasonal Marketing Examples
One of the best aspects of seasonal marketing is customization. You have much more freedom and flexibility in terms of creativity. While you obviously want to stay on brand, you can veer from typical styles slightly to adopt holiday-specific color schemes, themes, and trends.
You also have a little more wiggle room when writing copy. I’m a big sucker for puns, especially ones related to different holidays. So, one way I like to spice up my seasonal content is with silly little jokes and idioms. I mean, marketing is snow joke, right? 😉
Check out these seasonal strategies to consider:
- Christmas: Let’s say you own a B2B landscaping company. A great seasonal promotion would be mailing clients a Christmas card with a discount on exterior lighting/decorating services.
- Halloween: Halloween is a great excuse for B2B brands to embrace humor. Seasonal marketing ideas could include branded materials (e.g., candies) or office decor (e.g., fake pumpkins, coasters).
- New Year’s Day: Everyone wants to be a “better” version of themselves come January 1st. While they may not stick with their gym routine, B2B companies can leverage this “new year, new me” mindset to market health or wellness-related services. For instance, cannabis facilities could send a sample of their latest medicinal strain to dispensaries.
- Spring reset: A greenhouse manufacturer could market a downloadable spring cleaning checklist for commercial growers.
- Wedding season: Wedding season is prime time for florists to market their services creatively. Consider hosting wedding-themed workshops or events for venues in the area.
Attract Clients With These Seasonal Marketing Tactics
A successful seasonal marketing strategy stems from proactive planning, creative brainstorming, and effective promotion. As with any other content creation process, you should ensure each post, video, webinar, or ebook aligns with customer values and your established brand identity. Utilize what you know about your client base and their evolving needs to publish memorable, interactive, and enjoyable campaigns.
1. Create an Editorial Calendar!
Editorial calendars are a godsend for B2B content marketers. These written logs ensure you stay on track and well-informed throughout the entire year. Lesser important (but highly relevant to you) holidays can easily fall through the cracks, meaning you miss out on massive opportunities like boosted sales and engagement.
Populate calendars with article titles, tentative publish/due dates, and any notes associated with promotional/social media efforts. Essentially, you take the headache out of brainstorming ideas last minute and dealing with miscommunications. Having all this information in one, easy-to-navigate space makes seasonal marketing much, much easier.
2. Start Early
Sure, procrastination is fun in the moment. But, once the high of playing hooky dwindles, you’re left playing catch up and rueing the day you decided to “take a little break.”
When crafting a seasonal marketing strategy, planning months in advance is advisable. Having everything written down, organized, and assigned to team members helps you avoid feeling overwhelmed as execution day nears. Even a simple to-do list can make a huge difference, as we tend to remember things best when given visual representations!
3. Don’t Market for Every Holiday
As a business owner, you naturally won’t benefit from targeting irrelevant holidays or seasonal shifts. Assuming you’ve been in the industry for years, you’re already well aware of this fact.
So, instead of investing money and time into every big calendar date, just stick with what you know will generate revenue. If you’re a women-run business, you may skip Father’s Day marketing in favor of a heavy Mother’s Day campaign. Or, as a horticulturist, you capitalize on industry-themed dates like Groundhog, Earth, or Arbor Day.
4. Get Trendy
Naturally, you don’t want to follow every trend as a B2B professional. Often, steering clear of them is best, as they are inherently short-lived. However, seasonal marketing offers the perfect opportunity to cash in on transient hype.
Social media is a hub for top-notch content ideas. Leverage viral videos, memes, or audio as the base for a campaign. For instance, the “Merry Chrysler” Vine created an online storm of hilarity in 2015, gaining a massive cult following. B2B companies could easily use audio from similar videos to create their own versions to attract potential clients.
5. Make Your Website & Socials Festive, Too
One of your goals for seasonal marketing is likely to increase traffic across channels, including your website and social media. Why not spiffy up your landing pages with themed colors or graphics for optimum festiveness? Tie any changes in with your campaign for a comprehensive strategy.
Say you sent clients a ghost-shaped Halloween card with a code for a free “Ultimate Fall Lawn Maintenance Checklist” PDF. You could redesign that online ebook page using dark hues, gothic themes, and (of course) ghosts! While this idea may sound “kiddish,” even adult business folks like a little humor scattered into the workweek.
Alternatively, you could turn this ghost into your temporary spokesperson on social media. For example, create a ghost mascot to pose for photos or star in short video clips. Regardless of your approach, get creative and think outside the box for a memorable (and engaging) campaign that’ll excite customers about the next one!
In Conclusion
Seasonal marketing can offer a break from the mundanity of content creation and business management. While customers benefit from special promotions or sales, you get the chance to branch into other avenues of brand development. Make a point of embracing holiday-themed campaigns to stand out in the industry and foster customer relationships.