10 B2B sales strategies during summer slow downs
What is one strategy to increase summer sales in B2B, during a time when many people are out of the office?
To help your B2B business increase summer sales, we asked business leaders and marketing professionals this question for their best ideas. From developing strategic brand partnerships to engaging customers in advance, there are several strategies that your business can implement to help bring in more B2B sales during the traditionally slow summer months.
Here are 10 B2B summer sales strategies:
- Develop Strategic Brand Partnerships
- Revamp Your Social Media Strategy
- Opt for Pre-recorded B2B Advertising Options
- Adapt To Using Online Tools for B2B Marketing
- Take Advantage of The Lower Competition
- Entice Your Customer With Sales Incentives
- Position Your Product as Ideal for The Summer Season
- Get Outside To Get Clients
- Position Your Website for Better Sales
- Engage Customers In Advance
Let’s get started!
Develop strategic brand partnerships
Most industries are affected by the summer slump, and the makeup and beauty industry is no exception. However, we can still maintain and even increase sales during those months with brand ambassador partnerships. These partnerships come in different forms and on different platforms, but our most successful has been through influencer marketing via social media.
By providing makeup artists and other beauty industry companies with the best products and experience, they want to recommend our products and services and amplify our brand messaging. This is why we created a brand ambassador program, where we provide beauty artists with the necessary tools and information they need and collect their feedback in a way that makes it much easier for them to share with their audience on their social media platforms.
Ultimately, this strategy helps to increase sales even during the summer slow season.
Vanessa Molica, The Lash Professional
Revamp your social media strategy
Many people are out of the office (OOO) during the summer, but their time online increases. Beach pics posted to Facebook, researching local events on Instagram, showing off the fun they’re having on TikTok — less work means more time to be social.
Take advantage of that by revamping your social media strategy for both paid and organic. Post your summer company fun and highlight new deals, discounts, or technologies in a fun yet professional way.
The tone and voice of your social media can differ in the summer months compared to the rest of the year. If you want to reach those OOO folks, you have to invite them to read something that doesn’t remind them of the office.
David Patterson-Cole, Moonchaser
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Opt for pre-recorded B2B advertising options
During the summer, it is common that B2B customers will be out of the office (and probably your employees, too). The way to try and avoid a dip in sales is to plan and spread your reach.
Plan the marketing material and schedule emails, social media posts, and direct mail to continue even when your team is out of the office. When planning the distribution of your media, look for alternative methods to try to stretch your visibility to reach alternative customers to those you normally target. Widening your net whilst people are on vacation will help to gain some additional sales from those that wouldn’t have normally been exposed to your advertising.
Look to test new channels such as YouTube and Podcasts — things that can be pre-recorded if needed. Try a different message, possibly a stronger sales offer, or added incentive for businesses to purchase during a down season.
Gary Warner, Joloda Hydaroll
Related: How to take time off: 7 tips to prioritize your health and business
Adapt to using online tools for B2B marketing
In times when most people are out of the office, securing summer sales in B2B requires adaptability to the online world.
Nowadays, there is almost no direct contact with salespeople, and buyers mainly conduct their research online. This is why the best way to increase your sales is to use media monitoring tools to gain insights into what buyers research and how they reach their decisions.
Using a tool that can get you in-depth data on how B2B buyers behave online when conducting their research is a great way to ensure you can provide the right solutions at the right places to reach their eyes. That way, you will stay ahead of the competition, and secure sales influence without direct contact, which is difficult to achieve when everyone works from home.
Marco Genaro Palma, PRLab
Take advantage of the lower competition
Many people are indeed out of the office but that also includes marketers, which means that there is more opportunity to stand out.
We find that summer can be a great time for B2B sales. Outside of using creative marketing, and incorporating summer holidays into your ads which can be pretty effective, another strategy is to focus on referrals.
Offering some incentives to your existing clients and partner network for them to refer you to their peers is a great way to ramp up sales since leads that come to you referred by someone they know are already much more likely to buy.
Rafael Romis, Weberous Web Design
Entice your customers with sales incentives
One strategy to increase summer sales in B2B is to offer incentives for early purchases. This could include discounts, free shipping, or other added-value items.
Many businesses also offer summer sales as a way to clear out inventory before the end of the year. Whatever the incentive, make sure it is something that will appeal to your target market and help increase summer sales.
Brian Meiggs, My Millennial Guide
Position your product as ideal for the summer season
Sales reps and decision-makers are busy with summer fun festivities, so why not play on this theme through digital marketing?
For example, a business that enables team communication, such as Zoom, could develop a social media campaign centered around how the products make working through summer easier. A video campaign sporting an employee soaking up the sun at the pool while using a virtual background to make it look like they are home offers a humorous take on work from home and flexible schedules.
If you see a decrease in sales rep numbers over the summer, invest more into digital marketing.
Amrita Saigal, Kudos
Get outside to get clients
In the investment management industry, many clients will be on vacation during the summer.
Our solution? Get outside yourself! Your clients will be able to relate.
Leave the desk and pick up the laptop. Create content and meetings on the fly that relate to those on the go. We have met some of our best clients while vacationing during the summer at the same resort. You will be able to relate to your clients more and adapt to their pace of getting work done.
Let’s say your client is based in Wisconsin but is vacationing in Florida? No problem! Leverage your company’s mobile tools to connect to them wherever they are. Position yourself as being agile and able to work across state barriers. Your clients will appreciate it.
Darin Tuttle, Tuttle Ventures LLC
Position your website for better sales
Summer, hot weather, and slumping sales. What to do about it when customers are taking a vacation and you get automatic out-of-office messages when you cold email them? And your salespeople need vacationing too so the effect on sales taking a dip is doubled. However, people love to consume content even during a vacation.
Your content and website are on around the clock working to make business for you. Make sure you have great content, especially top-of-the-funnel (TOFU) content. TOFU content is easier to consume during a vacation with that margarita on the side.
Once you have published content people love to consume, start making your website a growth machine. Add converting landing pages next to your blog content and personalize your website to really maximize conversions. Suppose the customers don’t convert right away. In that case, your personalized website can highlight relevant keywords from the blog post the customer read when they come back to visit your website after the holidays.
Teemu Raitaluoto, Markettailor
Engage customers in advance
The key is to understand the ebb and flow of your business. Some business notices decrease in the winter and some in the summer season.
However, the strategy is to build your community in advance. Make sure you start engaging your current customers and draw in new customers in the winter and spring season by utilizing social media platforms and email newsletters.
Engaging customers in advance helps them to keep your brand top of mind.
People purchase from businesses that they trust, so stay engaged all year long.
TK Morgan, Tuesday At 1030
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