“If you want your car to last for a long time, never EVER miss an oil change.”

That advice was embedded in my head by my parents ever since the day I turned 16. Thirteen years later I have yet to miss an oil change on any of the cars I’ve owned, and honestly, I have to say that my parents were right.  All of my cars have needed minimal maintenance and remained in tip-top condition for years at a time.

Cars and Marketing engines alike need regular maintenance

I believe that clients also need “oil changes” to their marketing approach every once in a while.  Too many times marketers, myself included, can become overly comfortable with how we’ve been marketing for our clients. Sometimes, it seems easier to slightly tweak pieces that showed positive results in the past than to develop new tactics.

Truth is, the environment, people’s behaviors, and much more change every year, sometimes every month. If you’re basically using the same marketing tactics year after year, you can’t always count on the same results that you received from those initial attempts.

If you’re struggling with ideas of how to freshen up your marketing, check out this blog: “Five Simple Ways to Refresh Your Marketing.” It’s short and sweet, and it will get your brainstorming wheels a-turning! Or if you’re looking to rejuvenate a specific campaign, check out this article.

Really, there’s no excuse. Having limited time doesn’t cut it. Focus on what’s best for your client and keep their marketing engine fresh and in top-notch condition.

Tis The Season…To Email Your Customers

Well, it’s that time of year again.  The decorations are out, cards are cluttering mailboxes, festive cheer is in abundance, shopping malls are packed to max, people are driving crazier than ever…yep, tis the holiday season!

During the final few months of the year, peoples’ lifestyles seem to change drastically with everyone focusing on the upcoming holiday festivities. I think that most B2C marketers would agree that the holidays are a prime time to market to consumers seeing as how consumer spending increases so drastically in December. But what about for B2B customers?

Actually, there are many reasons why the holidays are the perfect time to market to B2B customers as well:

-          End of the year is a perfect opportunity to help B2B customers meet their Q4 and end-of-year business goals.

-          December usually sees the number of business trips and meetings decline, so B2B customers may be more receptive to receiving ads.

-          There may be some budget left over that B2B customers are looking to spend.

-          The B2B sales lead generation cycle can be long, so businesses won’t want to start the new year poorly. As noted in the article, “Christmas ideal time for B2B marketing, expert claims,” most sales (16 percent) come three months after the original lead generation and businesses that don’t market around the holidays may find that sales conversions don’t happen until well into the new year.

Image courtesy of Indiandiary.wordpress.com

So what types of marketing communications should you focus on in December? That’s simple; emails, emails, emails! According a study conducted in the month of November by Experian CheetahMail, a provider of integrated email, social, mobile and display marketing, emails significantly outperform other types of offers or campaigns during the holiday season.

Having said that, it is important to note that email volume increases significantly during the holiday season, making it more challenging to break through your targets’ inboxes.  In fact, according to the article, “Email Marketing Companies: Should B2B Marketers Celebrate Christmas?” by David Sims, there was a 20 percent increase in email volume last year and this year is showing additional incremental change in volume as well. This makes it even more challenging for B2B marketers to get through to their end users who are already seeing an influx of extra messages.

So how do you break through the proverbial holiday clutter and mass of Black Friday and Cyber Monday blasts? Be creative! Try sending emails later in the day so they are not deleted with the others, or perhaps changing the distribution schedule and frequency of your email marketing. As always, the goal is to get your customers to opt into your program.  This not only engages your customers, but also gives them the option to customize the emails they receive from you, especially during the holiday season.

Are you engaging in email marketing this holiday season? Do you find December a good time to market to your customers? What is your favorite holiday tune?

Every day, more businesses are taking advantage of social media to reach their customers. You can “like” a business on Facebook to get access to special offers and if you tweet about a business, you could be re-tweeted and be included in a promotion for its product.

Businesses are clearly using social media, but how much business is actually being generated from social media outreach?  The problem is there are few data points for sales impact. There are many studies about B2B social media successes (see these Top 10 examples), but no information regarding the correlation to actual sales metrics.

So, what is the best B2B social media resource?

I found a great article in Fast Company that takes a look at LinkedIn being a great resource for B2B businesses to find information on companies and people. And, a recent study by Performics said that almost 60% of active social networkers claimed that LinkedIn was their most important social network.

Image: splashmedia.com

I found a great example of an active B2B social networker company using LinkedIn— IBM. IBM has over 450,000 followers on LinkedIn, making this B2B company the most followed company on the network. IBM features recent blog posts, tweets and stock prices. More importantly, IBM features over 300 job postings and recommendations, driving viewers to learn more about particular jobs and departments of interest.

So, what do B2B companies need to do to grasp this kind of following in social media?

Before incorporating any social media channel into your communication plan, you must ask yourself a couple questions. Is your target audience using these channels? And, if so, how can you calculate the sales impact from using social media? And how does your company plan to define B2B success from a social media perspective?

How is your company using social media? Have you found any sales impact?

All my co-workers know that Christmas is my favorite time of year. The holiday spirit immediately kicks in for me on Thanksgiving Day when watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade, and of course, the Black Friday commercials.

Every year, stores around the nation brace themselves for Black Friday as bargain shoppers camp out to get the greatest discount. One could say that Black Friday is the bargain consumer’s paradise and it has turned into the traditional start of the holiday shopping season in the U.S. Not only has Black Friday store spending become the holiday norm, but online spending as well. This year, Black Friday saw $52 billion in store sales and $816 million in online sales.

This year’s outrageous holiday shopping activity got me thinking about ways B2B can take advantage of Black Friday strategies offline and online. Is there any way we can do something like this in the B2B space?

I found a great article that outlines how the end-of-year consumer supply and demand benefits retailers around the holiday season and how B2B companies could potentially match the same supply and demand.

Consumers have continued to cut back on money, leaving them with more money to spend at the end of the year, creating strong profits for many companies, and in return, giving these companies more money to spend. So, what is the supply in B2B? This article outlines what B2B companies can do to match the demand and the ability to spend:

• Make it easy for companies to spend with a range of prices to meet their budgets
• Address the need to invest, i.e. Communicate that the product or service will bring opportunity to grow and advance the business
• Know your customer’s budgetary cycle
• Understand customer needs and wants; prepare way in advance for the holiday season

Do you think it’s possible to promote B2B business sales on Black Friday? Why or why not?

Whoever is reading my post, I hope you have wonderful holiday and a happy new year!