As I write this, it’s December and so there’s a very obvious seasonal feel to a lot of marketing messages everywhere I look. But it’s not just the Christmas and New Year holidays that can lend themselves nicely (sometimes too nicely!) to promotions and connected offers.
There are seasons happening throughout the year (even if, depending on where you live, they are not weather-related). There are sports seasons (we've just had the last Grand Prix of the season, for example) and there are business seasons (tax years and budget announcements). All sorts of things have seasons and you can use these to your marketing advantage.
If your clients experience seasons in their businesses, work with them and ahead of them to help them through. Perhaps they have seasonal down times and busy periods, maybe they have to switch services throughout the year to react or respond. Sometimes these seasons can be surprising–an early frost brings Winter–or a surprise announcement of a budget or piece of legislation that comes into affect. Most often, however, these seasons are pretty predictable. So you can predict your marketing to run alongside them (or ahead of them).
The trick here, of course, is not to be too predictable too much of the time and have a sale ‘just like’ everyone else with the same theme. Black Friday may be an exception to this (or the Boxing Day sales in the UK) as, if everyone is expecting it, it can make sense to go along with it. But in my opinion there are only so many ‘Spring into...’ offers you can make around Spring time before it’s a bit obvious (and tedious).
So get creative, find those peaks and troughs, those ebbs and flows that your market really notices and show them that you notice it too and can help. If you know demand sky-rockets at a certain time, get in contact AHEAD of that happening and demonstrate how you can help. If you know there’s a slowdown about to take place, be ready to ‘show up’ and get your Thing in front of people while they have time to take notice of it.
Seasons signal change and that can really help when you’re selling something to someone who may not be ‘looking’ or ‘ready’ all year round for your Thing. Your job is to know when the best times are to buy and show up with a great offer with perfect timing. If you subscribe (and I highly recommend you do) to the marketing approach of consistent useful content with an offer now and then, this can help you plan exactly when now and then will work best. You don’t disappear the rest of the year, I must add, you simply show up with useful content and ideas, but your offers come when people have the time to review, or more urgent demand, for what you’ve got.
Time to mark your calendar...
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