10 Christmas Marketing Tips for B2B Businesses

The festive period can feel like a quiet period for some industries, which is why you need to make every effort to stand out from the crowd. Budgets are closing, sales cycles are slowing down and decision-makers are starting to put their ‘out of office’ on. However, at Christmas, there’s a powerful opportunity that’s presented to businesses in the form of B2B marketing. It aims to boost visibility, nurture leads and strengthen relationships, therefore setting the stage for success in quarter one. With this in mind, here are a few simple tips for Christmas marketing for B2B businesses that are easy to implement and straightforward to track.

1. Prioritise relationship-building over hard selling 

Over the Christmas season, there seems to be a natural shift in tone from transactional to relational and personable. Rather than pushing sales aggressively or robotically, you should look to focus on other sales techniques that are more personal and thought-provoking. This can include things like: sending ‘thank you’ messages to clients and partners, personal or handwritten cards, year-end appreciation gifts and “looking ahead” notes that spark future conversations. This helps to build goodwill and ensures your brand remains at the top of your priority list moving into the new year.

2. Create Christmas-themed value content

Despite being B2B buyers, they will still engage with helpful, strategic content, even during the festive period. With this in mind, you should consider things like: a ‘year in review’ industry insights report, a Christmas-themed webinar or LinkedIn event, a Christmas gift-style lead magnet or a blog post on planning for Q1 or even navigating industry trends in the new year. By aligning your content with your clients’ December mindset, you’ll be able to foster reflection, planning, budgeting and strategy-building.

3. Host a virtual Christmas event or networking session

B2B relationships thrive on things like connection and Christmas, which is an ideal excuse to gather your network. You could come up with some events that will help to nurture leads and deepen relationships without feeling salesly. Some of those event ideas could include the following things: a virtual appreciation party, a micro-conference or expert panel, an industry “state of the market” roundtable and non-sales networking events.

4. Use seasonal email campaigns wisely

Email remains one of the most effective B2B channels in the industry. If you keep the tone light, human, relevant and personal, then your audience will feel more important and valued. Some Christmas email messaging you could choose from includes: warm, personalised appreciation emails, special year-end promotions for long-term clients, reminder emails about upcoming renewals and even Christmas-themed educational sequences.

5. Leverage social media with festive flair 

While this sounds like a great idea, it needs to be done with professionalism in mind. This is usually why B2B businesses sometimes shy away from Christmas content. However, your audience is still scrolling. Use platforms in a professional capacity to share: company Christmas greetings, behind-the-scenes team moments, Christmas charity initiatives, year-end wins and milestones and engaging polls and questions. Choose platforms like LinkedIn to do this. Remember, authentic, warm branding helps humanise your company, so bear this in mind.

6. Offer exclusive year-end deals or packages

If your product or service can be framed as a year-end investment, Christmas is a strategic time to promote things like limited-time discounts, extended free trials, service bundles and “buy now, start in January” offers. This works especially well when companies have leftover budgets or want to lock in next year’s tools as early as possible. It’s also a great way of standing out from the crowd, where your competitors are likely to forget to offer such deals to their B2B customers and/or clients.

7. Support a cause & amplify it 

Corporate social responsibility is increasingly important in B2B marketing, especially at Christmas. Show your values through things like: Christmas charitable donations, team volunteering activities, partnerships with nonprofits and sustainability-focused Christmas campaigns. Once you’ve done this, you can share these stories as value-driven initiatives and not just as PR stunts, which can seem desperate.

8. Prepare a strong lead-nurturing system for January

The devil is in the details and the planning. While Christmas can be an overwhelming time of year, it’s easy to forget about the new year and January as a whole. Christmas will boost visibility, but the real payoff often comes in January. With this in mind, you should make sure that you have the following things in order to ensure that your Christmas efforts will drive momentum as we go into quarter one: automated follow-up sequences, new year onboarding or from campaigns, fresh outreach scripts, updated landing pages and a January content calendar for good measure. 

9. Send useful, business-focused gifts

B2B clients appreciate thoughtful, relevant gifts. But the goal is to be memorable and thoughtful, not flashy. Some examples of this include the following: productivity tools or software credits, books related to their industry, high-quality branded notebooks or planners, digital experience gifts (such as courses, memberships and classes) or, simply, donations made in their name. 

10. Don’t forget your internal audience

Your team is your brand. An invested team will most certainly deliver better client experiences all year long. With this in mind, you should strengthen loyalty with things like: Christmas bonuses, festive recognition, team-building activities, branded Christmas swag, a year-end “state of the company” message and internal training or upskilling gifts, to name just a few. 

Kumo is a full-service digital marketing agency backed by a committed and highly skilled team. From our base in Nottingham, we partner with clients throughout the UK, supporting organisations across diverse sectors to deliver meaningful, measurable results. Our capabilities include SEO, PPC, content marketing, web design and more. Contact our approachable, knowledgeable team to learn how we can help drive your business forward – we’re always here to support you.