Year-End B2B Marketing: 9 Smart Ways to Spend Your Remaining Budget

If your fiscal year ends on December 31, you may be suffering from one of the following marketing maladies:

1. Vanishing Budget Stress Disorder: You’re running extremely low on 2017 marketing dollars—and fretfully counting down the days until January 1, when you’ll be flush once again. In the meantime, you need to make the most of the limited money you have left.
2. Marketing Budget Surplus Blues: You have a surprising amount of money left in your 2017 marketing coffer—and are now scrambling to figure out the best ways to use it before you lose it. Come January 1, 2018, any unspent dollars will slip from your grasp. Even worse, you’ll have a very hard time justifying your desired budget for the coming year. In fact, you could see your 2018 budget reduced as a result.

Either way, you’re under pressure to make the most of your remaining budget. Here are 9 year-end projects to consider:

1. Google Adwords: Simple to budget, easy to measure, and quick to deploy, Google Adwords is a great choice for year-end spending. Before you run an ad, set the budget according to how much—or how little—you want to spend.
2. Low-key Nurture Email: Send a thoughtful year-end email to your database. Include something of value that’s not at all “salesy.” Like a third-party industry article or report, an exceptional client success story (emphasis on “story” – this should not read like a marketing case study), a cheat sheet of helpful tips, a roundup of relevant stats from 2017, or industry predictions for 2018.
3. Infographic: Invest time and resources to research, design and publish a valuable industry infographic.
4. Newsletter: If you’ve been thinking about starting up a weekly, monthly, or quarterly newsletter, now is the perfect time to get the back-end processes in place, set up your template, and create an opt-in box on your website. If time and budget permits, consider mapping out your editorial calendar and creating the content for your inaugural issue.
5. Upcycle: Create a white paper based on a series of existing (and complementary) blog posts. To go a bit bigger, publish a comprehensive eBook, based on 3-5 of your existing white papers and/or reports.
6. Holiday Cheer: Get more creative with your holiday card and/or gift this year. Throw a small appreciation party for your marketing team, or a holiday shindig for your customers.
7. Content Library: Lighten your load for 2018 by planning out your editorial calendar and creating a handful of pieces that are ready to go. 
8.  Martech Planning: Invest extra time and resources to prioritize your marketing technology stack. Attend martech events, research more solutions, and read industry analyst reports to weigh the pros and cons of various vendors.
9. Website Refresh: Conduct a comprehensive and meticulous review of your website. Improve the content structure to boost click through. Tighten up the writing. Update old messaging. Evaluate your resources page, and look for different ways you might use your existing content to create new lead generation opportunities.