With the biggest shopping day of the year just one week away, we have our minds on unique opportunities that exist for B2B companies to take advantage of the spike in shopping and spending that is about to take place.
While Black Friday and Cyber Monday are typically thought of as consumer-driven events, we believe that B2B companies can get in on the action with a few clever strategies.
Back in 2010, Matt Heinz wrote a post on Social Media Today encouraging B2B marketers to break through the clutter by sending marketing emails over Thanksgiving weekend. He noted that recent studies have shown most people check their work email over the holidays, and yet the volume of inbound marketing email is much lower on typical “days off” like Black Friday. While Matt recognized that it might not be easy to close a sale over Thanksgiving weekend, he maintains that marketers will be more likely to get a contact to sign up for a webinar or download a case study when they aren’t in the office fielding a never-ending stream of emails. It’s an interesting idea that we’d like to experiment with in the future.
We also think that more B2B companies (especially those with an e-commerce component) should experiment with Cyber Monday promotions. In 2011, nearly half of all Cyber Monday purchases were made at work. That means your customer is likely already in online, searching for deals and ready to spend. Why not add a special promotion for your B2B product to the mix? While making a personal purchasing decision is obviously quite different from making a business buying decision, it can’t hurt to get sales promotions in front of your customers at a time when they are already highly receptive to deals and special offers.
Are you doing anything to take advantage of the upcoming holiday shopping season?
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