Summer can be a tough time for businesses. For businesses that aren’t seasonal, it usually means a slow down in sales, which can lead to frustration. Here are a few ways you can overcome the summer slump and get more from your summer marketing strategy.
Tweak last year’s strategy
We always talk about working with what you already have. If you had a summer marketing strategy last year, take a minute to figure out what worked and what didn’t. Look at things like customer engagement regarding your social media campaigns, follow through and brand recall after events and sponsorship opportunities, and general customer sentiment. If you aren’t building metrics into your marketing strategies, you should start. It is easier to know if your strategy was successful if you identify your goals and how you’ll measure them! The idea is that you can recycle strategies and tactics that worked well but find a creative way to keep it fresh for the upcoming summer.
Try something new
If you didn’t have a summer marketing strategy last year, or perhaps it just didn’t work well overall, or maybe you are just adventurous, you might just want to try something new this year. Summer is a great time to step out of your comfort zone but remember that anything you choose to do should fit with what your audience would want. There is no reason to try something new unless you think it will bring positive results.
Connect with the community
There is so much community activity in the summer you should really focus on engagement rather than selling. Whether you look at sponsorship opportunities for sports teams or community events, or even creating your own event, find ways to connect on a more personal level to build solid relationships that will continue throughout the rest of the year.
The idea is that you need to focus on brand recall through positive interactions rather than a hard sales technique. Just have fun with your marketing. Your target audience will respond will to it.
Focus more on visual content
People generally have less time to consume content in the summer, so you have to really grab their attention. A great way to do that is to focus more on visual content for your digital channels. Think snackable content with lots of images or even video or audio.
You can easily do this by doing things like:
- Posting more images on social media with shorter captions, or even memes with no captions;
- Doing vlogs (video blogs) instead of written blogs;
- Do How to blogs that take you through step by step with images and less words;
- Start a podcast; or
- Create downloadable content so it can be consumed offline (at the cottage!).
Pick a theme for your summer strategy
Get your audience invested in your summer marketing strategy by picking a theme that they can follow. If you pick a them and tell a story around it using tactics that build on each other throughout the summer, you can create forward momentum even at a time of year that is normally slow.
Summer doesn’t have to be a tough time for your business, you just have to be proactive in creating a summer marketing strategy that makes sense.
A version of this article was originally published on the SongBird Marketing Communications blog.