Thanksgiving.

Christmas.

New Year.

I’m not just naming different holidays. The end-of-year holiday season is the time when many entrepreneurs wonder if it makes sense to keep sending cold email campaigns. And rightfully so: will your prospects have time to read your emails? Even if they do, how can they buy anything when their yearly budget is virtually empty?

Should you just give up, call it a year and watch Love Actually instead?

In this article, you’ll learn why you shouldn’t pack your bags and give up on outbound in November and December. You’ll also find multiple tips on how to approach cold emailing in this period.

(You should watch Love Actually, though. It’s always a good idea to watch Love Actually)

Why shouldn't you stop outbound at the end of the year?

1. Deliverability

As you probably know, SPAM is one of the major enemies of successful cold emailing. The only way of maintaining good deliverability is consistency. SPAM filters and blacklist curators monitor your sending patterns and look out for sudden changes. Pausing your campaigns entirely and restarting them again at full volume a couple of weeks later would most likely make your emails land in SPAM in no time.

2. Your goals

The end-of-year period is the time when you can work on reaching your yearly goals. Not only that - it’s the crucial moment when you need to build a pipeline for January, so that you can begin the next year at full speed. If you take your foot off the gas in the closing months of the year, you will not only end up with a slower end of the year, but you'll also enter 2024 with a completely depleted pipeline, and you'll spend entire January rebuilding it.

3. Results in holiday season

Our data shows that the results in November and the first half of December don’t drop below average. Sure, December is a bit of a strange time in the life of the majority of B2B companies. However, people tend to have more free time, which makes them more likely to actually read your emails and take their time to think about your offer. It’s also a common case that such companies have some “spare change” they need to use before the end of the year, which gives you a nice sales opportunity. Finally, some people may not be celebrating the same holidays, and they’ll be working during the whole holiday period.

Also, we have some enhanced features in place: all OOO’s will now automatically get rescheduled, so you don’t need to worry about those.

In other words, it’s a terrible idea to stop doing good deeds right before Christmas. You’ll finish December with no presents to unpack, and begin 2024 with a bad rep.

When is it reasonable to pause your outbound?

There are situations in which it’s definitely a good idea to pause your campaigns:

1. You’re on holiday

If you’re responsible for handling the replies and scheduling calls with your prospects, it’s perfectly reasonable to pause the campaigns during the time of your absence or even a couple of days prior. Otherwise, it’s like inviting guests and ghosting them when they’re at the door.

2. Peak holiday season

The peak holiday season (i.e. the last week of December) is the time when the results tend to decrease, so it might be reasonable to pause the campaigns. This way you’ll make sure you don’t waste your valuable leads.

You can easily clear your outbound timeline using the exclude custom dates feature. However, remember that it’s crucial to keep your email accounts’ busy and keep sending out emails consistently. You can achieve that by keeping Warmbots on for all your email accounts.

IMPORTANT: Our Customer Support team can increase the limits of daily Warmbots emails to 100 per day upon request. It’s a good idea to increase it for the time of your leave to maintain a consistent level of traffic going out from your mailboxes!

How to run outbound in Nov/Dec?

Below, you'll find a couple of tips on how to approach your cold email campaigns in the holiday season:

It’s a good idea to refer to the current situation and the season you’re in, but it can also be a trap. Direct references to celebrating Christmas should be avoided: firstly, because everyone does this, and secondly, because you may reach someone not celebrating Christmas. It’s better to refer to the end-of-year challenges, budget or the plans for the next year.
End of the year is, after all, considered a rather positive time. It’s a good idea to use a positive tone and heavy personalization, whereas more aggressive strategies should be avoided.
Outbound at this time is not about closing the deals right now, but rather about building foundations for the next year. Don’t be too pushy.
If you’re pausing outbound in the last week of December, you can spend this time on prospecting and building a list you can then reach out to in January.
Rewarm campaign: EOY period is a great opportunity to reach out to people who were initially interested, but drifted away. Do your homework, remind them why they got interested in the first place, make the messages relevant for their current situation & win them over.

Example rewarm sequences

A little gift from us: below, you can find examples of templates that proved to be successful in the end-of-year rewarm campaigns:

Initial templates:

1. Basic rewarm

Hi {{first_name}},
 
I was doing an EoY cleanup and realized that you wanted to review our XYZ, but we didn't have a chance to connect after all.
 
I believe that end of year is a great time to rethink ABC and prepare to hit the ground running right away in 2024. We'd love to show you how COMPANY NAME could help you effortlessly get in touch with potential customers and fill up your sales pipeline with quality leads.
 
Does it make sense to reconnect and get you a closer look before the New Year?
 
Best,

2. Special offer

Hi {{first_name}}!

I’m not sure if you remember COMPANY NAME - you had a demo of our platform in {{month}}. Back then you spoke with REP’S NAME and told them that [the timing was off] / [the pricing was too high] / [you were not considering doing XYZ].
 
Since you’re probably preparing your plan for 2024 and a lot might have changed on your end since we talked, it made sense to reach out. Especially since we’ve just launched our EoY special offer - a X% lifetime discount on XYZ.
 
Also, just to refresh your memory: we can help you with  [a short summary of your offer].
 
Does it make sense to reconnect?

Best,

Follow-up:

Hey {{first_name}},
 
Is ABC still in your area of interest?
 
If not, I totally understand - believe me, I know how business’ priorities can change over time :) At the same time, the incoming economic slowdown might be reflected in a smaller amount of referrals or clients knocking on your door. 
 
Building a predictable outbound pipeline is a remedy in such situations and that’s exactly what you could do with us.
 
{{first_name}}, would you find some time next week to learn more and take advantage of our End of Year discount?

Best,