For some companies, the holidays drive massive revenue. Look no further than this year’s record-breaking sales weekend, and you can see that plenty of e-commerce brands, B2C sellers, and other businesses that take advantage of Black Friday and Cyber Monday do exceptionally well after Thanksgiving.
Others, like a lot of B2B brands and service-oriented companies, aren’t quite so lucky. Your sales team’s points of contact and their internal decision makers are out of the office, traveling, and spending time with friends and family. Time is precious, and everyone’s a little harder to reach right now.
Plus, all your prospects probably have a million other things to check off their to-do lists before the year ends. Put yourself in their shoes: Replying to your email by the time you’d like them to probably isn’t making the top five for them.
All of this can lead to stagnating or slumping sales during the final weeks of the year. While many business leaders accept lower target numbers in December, confident that the pendulum will swing back the other way in January and February, a renewed focus on content marketing can keep leads warm during the winter.
That’s because the content your team produces isn’t limited just to the marketing team; your company content should be used by various departments to help them reach their individual goals. And sales is one of them.
Even if your leads aren’t actively searching for new B2B products and services yet, your salespeople can keep their pipelines moving and close a deal or two by distributing relevant, engaging content directly to your audience. Follow these three strategies to keep your sales operations churning at the end of the year:
1. Stop sending boring follow-up emails.
Everyone hates follow-up emails. No one has ever received an email saying, “Hey! Just checking in!” and considered it a valuable use of time. But when deals are slow, and salespeople want to stay on their prospects’ minds, those unfortunate prospects receive multiple follow-up emails every week.
It’s time to scrap standard follow-up emails from your sales tactics repertoire for good. Send better sales emails, starting this holiday season. Respect your leads’ time and help them out by sending them educational content instead of self-serving sales messages. Make the content holiday-themed if you like, but keep it informative so prospects want to read it. Even if no one emails back to buy, that content will do more to keep your brand top of mind than any regular follow-up email could.
2. Speak directly to prospect pain points.
Even in new relationships, you should know what kinds of struggles your prospects are experiencing. With that information in mind, work with your marketing team to create and send content that helps them overcome those pain points, positioning your company as a helpful, valuable partner during the offseason.
The more helpful your content, the more likely prospects will respond to the communication and think of you later when they are ready to buy. Use a knowledge management template to store and organize your knowledge of your prospects’ challenges and any other content triggers you think of to keep your momentum going beyond the new year.
3. Share your successes.
The holidays are a time of happy news and good feelings, a chance for people to reflect on the best parts of the closing year. Capitalize on that attitude by sharing some of the great things you and your team have accomplished. Talk about awards, positive press, and any other wins you’ve earned since January.
Prospects are especially interested in content that shows how you helped others succeed. Share a story about a time you helped a client or partner score a major win. This will reinforce your credibility and set you apart from other vendors vying for your leads’ post-Thanksgiving attention.
Content marketing drives sales all year long, but during the holidays, great content can become even more impactful. Stand out from the follow-up email crowd by using these strategies to provide value to prospects this holiday season.
