PREAMBLE: If you are not a pro football fan, there is a marketing point to all of this.

Usually, the time between New Year's and Super Bowl Sunday is filled with lots of sports that provide some warmth to the colder part of the year. You've got pro and college football playoffs, basketball, and hockey. But being a huge Chicago Bears football fan has made this time of year less than exciting.

The Bears have had a revolving door of general managers, coaches, coordinators, quarterbacks, and position players for years. Since 1986, the Bears teams have been OK to terrible. They did make it to the Super Bowl in 2006 (and lost), but had lost all but one game with a playoff win in 2010 (16 years ago). Last year, they went 5-12. But this year is different.

Not only have the Bears won their first playoff game, but it seems like a big changing of the guard, with new coaches and a quarterback (all within the last two years) who are still standing as dynasties fall.

Players and coaches are different. They are faster, more creative, and better at adapting to changing times, and those who do are winning the day.

I believe this can offer valuable lessons to our new year marketing efforts.

The New Age of Marketing

There are three keys to success that make football exciting and can make our marketing more timely and relevant: better design in play calling, making adjustments at halftime, and making the most of the players you have.

Every football season starts out with hope and a plan, with each game having pivot points to learn from and adjust to. Players get hurt, so you have to have a solid set of back-ups to fill in for as long as needed. And even with the best strategy, a football can bounce unpredictably, so sometimes it just takes luck.

But you keep moving forward, play each play and game, and do your best to win (and adjust when you don't).

When it comes to our businesses, we're not that different. We also start a new year with hope and a plan. Each week and month has pivot points. Your staff is probably changing faster than it has in years past, and you have to find and train high-quality backups. And our economy and business climate have been bouncing more like a fumbled football than ever before.

It's imperative that we are creative, agile, flexible, and take it one play at a time.

Designing a Better Play

The first thing you have to realize is that we are in an “Attention Economy.” People are getting tired and overwhelmed by the volume of content being created.

The good news for B2b business is that LinkedIn sessions are up with usage that is frequent, purposeful, and growing in engagement quality rather than raw minutes. Think “short, intentional work sessions” instead of endless scrolling. LinkedIn is consistently cited as the top organic and paid social channel, driving the majority of B2b social leads and often outperforming other platforms by 2–3x on lead generation.

It's a focused slice of professional time, with attention scarce but high-intent. So your content has an audience.

The operative letter here is “U”, as in You, Unique, and Uplifting.

Although the content should focus on them, you are the star. It needs to reflect your brand, personality, and thought-leadership.

Copying other people's look and feel or letting AI do it for you just blends you into the noise. You have to find unique ways to use images (both static and moving) in short, digestible ways to get people to stop and pay attention.

Finally, on LinkedIn, emotionally charged posts get more attention, but fear‑bait and FOMO‑bait are risky because the algorithm and audience both favor relevant, uplifting, honest, expert, and constructive content.

Making Adjustments

Calendars are great for events and past (but not future) context. The world is changing at an increasingly rapid pace. What's important on January 1st will be different from what's important on February 1st. That is why we only plan out a month at a time for our clients.

This is also why we meet weekly with the client to discuss changes in customer needs, sentiment, and communications.

We also look at each week as its own mini ecosystem, with a focus on reaching out via both email (increasingly important) and social media. We share a mix of new content (blogs, videos, graphics) and past posts that show engagement to drive people back to their website. Then we measure effectiveness.

We also look at visual styles that mix tension and creativity with short text that talks to those changing customer interests.

Having a current, relevant, and interesting focus surprises viewers like a trick play in a football game, garnering attention and hopefully creating new opportunities to score sales.

Utilizing Your Whole Team

Winning in sports takes a team effort. The same goes for business. And both have best practices that can help a team succeed.

First, make sure your team's LinkedIn profile is current. Many companies don't check the people associated with their company. They often have old employees and the dreaded “LinkedIn Member” (blank profile) that takes attention away from the real players.

Most team members don't want to spend time on social media, so that's why we help them add the right graphics, update their profiles, and post on their behalf. Make sure you are using a LinkedIn-approved third-party app, or you risk having your LinkedIn account and pages compromised.

Personal profiles have a much higher reach and engagement rate than company pages. That is because of the established relationships with personnel. Each account post is normally seen by 150 people. If you are lucky, 10% will stop and read it. That means that your company page or a personal profile has about 15 real engagements.

For every 10 people you get to post your content, that number increases to 150 (10-fold). Imagine how that can increase not only your reach, but also opportunities to have real sales conversations.

Closing Thought

Business, like football, takes creative planning, team execution, and a little luck to have the ball bounce your way.

Your game can have a plan or script for your first drive, but then you have to adapt to unforeseen changes and manage them. You have to motivate your players to help you execute that strategy.

Ultimately, each play, series, quarter, and half is unique, and you have the power to make changes. Your coaching staff helps support your goal of winning the game. This is why our customers count on us to help them plan, execute, and be prepared for bouncing balls.

In business, you are in the game whether you like it or not. Make the most of what you have and optimize it to get your clients' and prospects' attention, score the most points, and win!

GO BEARS!

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Comment below and share your thoughts, ideas, or questions about business-to-business sales and marketing today! Do you have a sales or marketing communications strategy that works for you? What tips or techniques can you share that work for you and your business?

To learn more about this and other topics on B2b Sales & Marketing, visit our podcast website at The Bacon Podcast.