How to Generate B2B Leads During the 2012 Holiday Season
Pumpkins, witches and candy corn are making their annual appearances in stores across the country, a reminder that Halloween and, consequently, the 2012 holiday season are nearly upon us. For brick-and-mortar stores, this means that it’s time to set out the appropriate decorations and sweets. For consumers, it means lots of planning and shopping. For lead-generation marketers, the approaching holidays mean something else: an opportunity to get the attention of businesses, in spite of expectations.
Good time or bad time?
For B2B companies, the holidays typically present a lull, but that doesn’t mean opportunities can’t be found.
Timing is a significant factor in holiday-season lead generation. With people taking days off and generally less available during the months of November and December, the question is whether to cast your net anyway or postpone your efforts until after the new year begins.
“Regardless of what you do — email, content, social media — you need to keep the timing in mind,” says Christina Pappas, inbound marketing manager at marketing- and demand-generation automation firm Eloqua. “This means the timing for getting your message in front of your audience and your team’s ability to follow up. You don’t want to launch a campaign the Tuesday or Wednesday before Thanksgiving and generate a ton of leads that will not be called upon until the next week.”
On the other hand, Tom Crosby, content and creative strategist with lead-generation firm BlueBird Strategies, has seen clients send out messages during such seemingly inopportune times and achieve successful results.
“BlueBird had a client that insisted that a survey go out on a Tuesday, two days before Christmas,” he recalls. “We advised against it, given the timing. They persisted, and we agreed to send it out. We received three times the normal response. We
