Cyber Monday Is No Longer Just for B2C Companies
Every year, once the final piece of pie is sliced and the last turkey drumstick is gone from the Thanksgiving table, shoppers and businesses immediately turn their focus to Black Friday—and increasingly, Cyber Monday. Many consumer-facing companies hold their biggest online sales of the year on the Monday after Thanksgiving, and often rake in the revenue. And the impact of Cyber Monday is rapidly growing. Adobe found that in 2017, Cyber Monday was the largest online sales day in history with $6.59 billion in revenue. But with these deals being focused on the latest consumer gadgets, clothes, and other consumer goods, what is a B2B company to do with Cyber Monday?
While Cyber Monday is mostly a B2C event, B2B organizations can actually leverage the day as well to boost their own visibility and uniquely tailor their messaging to what businesses want to hear during the online shopping bonanza.
Be Where Your Consumers Already Are
Consumers’ Cyber Monday curiosity isn’t exclusively about the best deal on a fancy TV, the hot toy of the season, or a new ski jacket. People are thinking about business as well—LinkedIn conversations about Cyber Monday spiked to 70 times more than normal in the month of November compared to the rest of the year. Simply put: There is a lot of activity and conversations about buying and selling happening on one of the most prominent B2B channels available in LinkedIn. Missing out on leveraging these conversations to involve your business is a major missed opportunity to tie your own business values to what your customers and prospects are thinking about.
Beyond this, keep in mind that in offices across the country, employees are looking over their shoulder to make sure nobody sees them scouring the internet for deals. Nearly 90 percent of employees shop online during work hours on Cyber Monday. Almost 20 percent of the sales on Cyber Monday come from email, so don’t miss out on the opportunity. If your industry is one that can offer similar temporary discounts, consider joining in the action on a day where your buyers are already checking their email for deals. Yes, they may be inundated with B2C emails, but Cyber Monday remains a chance to stand out for B2B marketers to find a niche for your product and break your customers out of their consumer mind-set for a little while.
Think About Issues Affecting Your Customers on Their Side of Cyber Monday
In addition to thinking about Cyber Monday from the buyer’s perspective, you can take advantage by thinking about it from the seller’s perspective. There is an incredibly wide array of industries that invest heavily in Cyber Monday and expect a lot in return. Retail, consumer technology, food and beverage, and others are hoping Cyber Monday will be one of their prime revenue days of the year. If you sell into one of these industries, your No. 1 priority should be to figure out how your product will make these companies’ Cyber Monday efforts easier. Whatever your value to customers and prospects relative to Cyber Monday, figure out ways to tailor your message to their specific needs during this time of the year and how you add value at this critical moment in the business calendar.
Keep in Mind That Budget Planning Is Under Way for 2019
The return from Thanksgiving doesn’t just mark Cyber Monday—it also means that end-of-year planning is fully in effect, and organizations are beginning to set their 2019 budgets. With such a heavy day of spending, it is a great time to remember that companies are planning how they want to spend in the long term going forward. Effectively connecting any discounts you are offering on Cyber Monday or Black Friday to the fact that it can help your target buyers budget efficiently could be the difference between getting a deal in before the end of the year or not.
Ultimately, it’s all about keeping your company relevant and expressing the value you bring to the table during Cyber Monday. But the opportunities definitely don’t limit themselves to the B2C world—there’s a space for B2B companies to be involved in the conversation just as well.
Doug Winter is CEO and cofounder of Seismic, the recognized leader in sales and marketing enablement. A veteran entrepreneur, Winter is also a cofounder of Objectiva Software Solutions. Doug served as COO and general manager at EMC Document Sciences until founding Seismic in 2010. Doug has been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, and VentureBeat for his thoughts on entrepreneurship and B2B sales and marketing, and in 2018 was named a Most Admired CEO in San Diego by the San Diego Business Journal.