Are you dreading Q4 or looking forward to it? We’re in the latter camp. Q4 presents tremendous opportunities to close deals, connect with clients, and make your team happy.
Here are seven things every B2B marketing team should do starting October 1st to make the most out of Q4 (+ bonus Q4 inspiration photos!).
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More pipeline, more demand generation. It’s not too late to run a few last minute Q4 campaigns that can still move the needle for the rest of this year — and set you up for success next year. Did you know that the last week of the year is a great time to run a webinar?
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Support Sales. Q4 is crunch time for many enterprise Sales teams, trying to close big deals and get more revenue under their belt. Now more than ever, ask them how you can help, and do it — fast. New sales collateral? More case studies? An educational webinar? Marketing should be all over it.
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Start working on your plan for next year. Your company is likely already planning the year ahead in terms of revenue and growth goals, team budgets, headcount, product — the works. From that, the marketing team can derive the marketing plan with marketing-specific goals, budget, headcount, and high-level initiatives.
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Put together a robust Q1 marketing calendar so you don’t lose two weeks coming back to the office on January 1st. We usually start planning the next quarter closer to the middle of the current quarter. In Q4, it’s better to start earlier, and avoid a last-minute scramble due to the end of year holidays.
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Hiring. Specifically, now is the time to think long and hard about your marketing team. What new resources do you need to support your future goals? If you need new skills on the team, should you upskill existing team members, hire new employees, or work with external agencies or freelancers? Many folks change jobs in Q4 and Q1, making it a good time to recruit. Make sure you’re ready for them. (Check out our new, free Marketing Hiring course for tons of helpful advice.)
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Q4 is the time for customer marketing. Gifts, thank you notes, a referral program — Customer Success and Marketing should tag team on these throughout the year. Q4 is the perfect time to boost your customer marketing efforts, or get them started.
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Q4 is also the time to spread holiday cheer around the office (including a virtual “office”). This is when the Marketing and People/HR teams partner to produce snazzy swag, team holiday gifts, a holiday party, and other fun activities. A fantastic side effect of these activities is photos and stories you can then promote as talent brand assets to help with recruiting.
Bonus: Q4 inspiration eye candy.
A well-researched, beautifully-produced industry calendar is a fabulous asset for both a demand generation campaign, and a client / team gift.
A survey is a great Q4 campaign. We did this one with Torii
What seasonal content is relevant for your audience in Q4? This is an example from TrueAccord.
We’re big fans of inexpensive, do it yourself, creative gifts.
Nothing like color-coded macarons or locally-produced alcohol and hand-written (or handwritten) notes to spread holiday cheer.
The holidays are a perfect time to get your creative marketing juices flowing.
The bottom line
Q4, bring it on! Let’s put more sales on the board and make sure we’re starting next year with a bang. 💥
