6 festive B2B content ideas to end the year on
It’s nearly Christmas, and while B2C marketers are all over it, for B2B marketers, this time of year is much less about getting people to buy your product for their beau. No one’s putting a CRM on their Christmas list.
But in that final push before the festivities begin, there’s a golden opportunity to get smart about gaining cut through beyond the dreaded ‘seasons greetings’ emails.
Creating relevant and timely content for your audience only serves to make them feel more engaged with what you’re putting in front of them. Improved relevance leads to better user experiences, and higher user satisfaction overall.
Well-executed holiday content can establish your brand as one that’s not only relevant, but also responsive and in tune with customers’ sentiments. It shows that you’re a business that embraces festivities and is actively partaking in seasonal celebrations.
Generally, people like that.
So, what kinds of content should B2B brands gift their audience this Christmas? Here are a few ideas:
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Your ‘Year in Review’
Think ‘Spotify Wrapped’ for this one — instead of sending a ‘thanks for choosing us this year’ type of email, consider creating something that will really add value for your customer.
The ‘Year in Review’ could be in the form of an infographic, a designed email or even a short animated clip depending on your budget and how many customers your business serves. It’s an easy idea to scale up or down depending on what you want to deliver.
Crucially, by sending out a summary of your buyer’s activity over the last year, you’re demonstrating to them that not only are they a valued customer, but also that you’re keeping up with how they’re getting on with your product or service.
For example, if you’re a financial services organisation, you could create a ‘Year in Review’ infographic or summary sheet for your accounts, showing what they’ve spent, how they’ve saved money through your platform and include key stats and milestones from the year. -
Naughty or nice list
Everyone gets good and bad reviews. But a business who only reports on the good stuff is a business that’s not living up to one of the big expectations of modern buyers – and that’s honesty.
So be an authentic business for Christmas time. A friendly, self-deprecating wrap-up of some of your favourite good and bad reviews across the year will go a long way to demonstrating how genuine you are. And the best part is, you get to cherry-pick the reviews so you still keep control of the narrative.
This idea works best as a social media asset – think a 12 days of good and bad reviews, or maybe even a video where your team members get to respond to the reviews, in the style of ‘mean tweets’.
Just be sure to always balance the good and the bad. -
Your B2B advent calendar
We’ve all gone through the upsetting and adulthood-affirming moment in time where we’re told we’re too old for an advent calendar. Well, why not give your audience the gift of nostalgia this year with a B2B advent calendar?
There are several interesting ways you could do this. For example, you might create an interactive, online tool that showcases an insight a day. Or if you’re thinking on a smaller scale, you might want to do an email stream that delivers the same. Although, perhaps whittle it down to the 12 days of Christmas so as not to annoy your audience. -
Our ESG roundup
If you’re a particularly sustainability and ESG-driven brand, a short video rounding up all the ESG milestones your company hit that year could be a great initiative.
Even if ESG isn’t a top priority for you right now, it certainly is for your audience — people (especially younger buyers) care about the practices of the businesses they work with.
This is a chance to spread some festive cheer and share what your team has been up to over the last year. This could be anything from volunteer days and donation efforts to special mention and sweepstakes shoutouts.
But a word of warning – make sure you’ve got the receipts to back up all of the good deeds. Nothing ruins Christmas more than unintentionally greenwashing your business. -
2024 expert predictions
Surprise, surprise, you’re experts! You’re specialists in what you do and that means you’ve got loads of insights that your audience will eat right up.
That’s especially good for predictions content. Corral some of the best experts in your organisation, sit them down with a microphone and ask them about what they think is going to be the big story for your industry in 2024. Their responses will give you everything you need to create top-draw prediction content in a variety of formats – whether that’s short social videos, audiograms, blogs or even all-singing-all-dancing scrollers.
And it’s a rolling asset that you can revisit year on year. For the year after, you can look back on all the older predictions you’ve made and comment on whether they came to pass or not. Sort of like a ghost of Christmas past-and-future deal. -
Wrapping things up
As a follow-on to the ‘year in review’, this asset could focus entirely on getting your customers over the line with their end-of-year goals.
While individual gift-giving might not be the primary focus for B2B brands, it might be worth considering how your products or services can be positioned as valuable solutions or tools for businesses to achieve their goals. This could include offering special packages, discounts, or exclusive access.
Create a piece of ABM content like a cheat sheet infographic that offers solutions for businesses looking to tie up loose ends, meet deadlines, and set the stage for a successful start to the new year. This could include productivity tips, project management resources and any products in your offering that could be useful to them.
The key to success here is measuring where your customers are at in comparison to the goals and KPIs that were discussed at the beginning of the year. By revisiting and reviewing this information, you should be able to offer solutions that could help them get the most out of your partnership before the year is out.
Ready to sleigh your content this Christmas?
So there you have it, some simple ways to get creative with your content during the festive season and keep your audience interested with new, innovative and exciting pieces that they’ll actually want to engage with.
If you’re looking for more information on content or wanting to speak to the professionals about content ideas, strategy or execution, why not get in touch? We’re all about that stuff – drop us a line today.
(Photo by freestocks on Unsplash)