In certain industries, summer is a true off-season, when hardly anything happens. Everyone is on vacation, there are no inquiries or orders, and business life almost grinds to a halt. But a good entrepreneur and a good online marketing professional or agency doesn’t sit back. At times like these we prepare for the fourth quarter.
Typically, in the B2B sector, in healthcare services, sports, theater, and education-related industries, the mills grind very slowly in the summer. The number of purchases and inquiries decrease, business decisions slow down. Businesses are prone to push online marketing processes into the background or even turn them off. Don’t do this, because you can gain a significant competitive advantage over those who waste the summer! Here are 5 things you can do in the summer to end the year calmly and successfully.
Online marketing strategy
This is my pet peeve. Without a strategy, you simply can’t steer your ship (your company) where you want it to go. In the economic boom of recent years, you might have managed without a business and online marketing strategy. However, be on the lookout, because the crisis is creeping into our lives – not so slowly anymore. What worked before may not continue to work, so it’s time to dust off your previous strategies and update them – and if you don’t have any, now is a great time to create your first one. Or have it prepared for you by a professional marketing agency. You can find help in our article “Online Marketing Strategy Planning in 9 Simple Steps.“
Marketing audit
Use these few months to assess how well your current online marketing processes are working and what you need to improve.
First, check your website:
- Is it fast enough?
- Is the purchasing process clear?
- Do you have adequate product descriptions everywhere?
- Did you not leave out the spring (or even the Christmas?!?) promotion?
- Are your references up to date?
- Are the SEO settings in order?
Then check your social media activity:
- Are you present on the right platforms?
- Are you posting enough? Or perhaps too much?
- Are your contents diverse?
- Are your images and videos of good quality?
- Are you utilizing all content opportunities?
- Are you using CTAs (call-to-action)?
- Do you have stories?
Check your blog and newsletter activity too:
- Do you blog frequently enough?
- Do you send newsletters at regular intervals and at the best times?
- Are you sending newsletters consistently?
- Does your blog meet SEO criteria? Are the meta tags filled, does it contain the right keywords, are there headings, subheadings, image descriptions, etc.?
- Is your content strategy ready for the end of the year?
Don’t forget your PPC activity – review all your paid ads:
- Are there any old, outdated ads running?
- Are your creatives and texts not tired?
- Are your CTAs not too high, and is your CTR low? (if you don’t know exactly what these mean, you can find help here)
- Are your keywords definitely relevant?
- Are you using Performance Max, Shopping, remarketing, and retargeting ads?
Once you have completed the audit, create an action plan! What steps do you need to take and what changes do you need to implement? Break them down into subtasks and assign deadlines to them. If you need help with conducting an online marketing audit, you can request a offer here.
Cookie Regulation
Google has announced that it will discontinue support 3rd party cookies Chrome, starting in 2023. This follows Safari and Firefox, which have not been using third-party cookies since early 2022. This is part of a broader initiative aimed at placing the personal data protection of internet users on much more transparent foundations. You still have time until the end of the year to prepare for this! Develop the appropriate online marketing strategy, as significant changes approach in the area of targeting. If you need help getting started, planning, start with our blog post on third-party cookies! Or enlist the help of an online marketing agency, like ours.
Plan systems, develop new processes, find subcontractors
If you have identified the errors during the audit, then create your action plan: start the website development – especially since the capacity of web developers is usually higher in the summer, and from autumn onwards, you can expect longer waiting times and, under the current economic conditions, almost certainly higher prices. Create your content plan, write down the content of your newsletters, blogs, posts, videos, and then plan your activities and actions until the end of the year.
If you are looking for a subcontractor, an online marketing agency in Budapest, or you are considering switching, then this is the right time. It always takes time to switch, and if you plan this for the autumn, the end-of-year madness, it will be at least much more stressful, and usually also produce more errors. Since the prices of contractors are constantly increasing in the sector, if you sign a contract with an ethical marketing agency now, you will probably get the service at unchanged prices until the end of the year. From autumn onwards I expect a significant increase in prices on the market.
Never too early for X-Mas
And I know I’m going to shock you, but if you have time now, start planning for Christmas: for example, Readers Digest already plans its December campaigns in January, so they won’t forget anything during the Christmas rush and can fully capitalize on the holiday shopping mood. You can find Christmas online marketing tips here.
If you’re thinking about sales funnels, now is the time to plan new ones, and it’s also a great time for product development. At Chiro, we use this time to develop new services or service packages that we will launch at the end of the year or early next year. There is still time for careful planning and testing, and usually only the execution fits into the autumn rush.
Prepare your online marketing content in advance, test new surfaces
Take the time to write blog posts, create newsletters, posts, take photos or organize a photo shoot, shoot videos. Stock up on high-quality content in advance, because when things pick up, you’ll have less time to deal with this, so in the rush, there’s a good chance that posts will be left out or the quality of your materials will deteriorate.
Use the cucumber season to test new surfaces: if you’ve only used Facebook so far, try LinkedIn, TikTok, or Pinterest now.Play, experiment, test: experience what your options are, what’s comfortable for you, what results each has, etc. If you practice these surfaces now, you can produce measurable results with them by autumn. However, be careful to only get into these if they are truly relevant to your target audience and your product/service, and if you really have time for it. It’s unlikely that you’ll find a corporate partner for your law firm on Pinterest, or sell banking IT solutions on TikTok – first, use common sense!
As you can see from the above, there are plenty of opportunities to deal with online marketing tools and processes even in the middle of summer, during the cucumber season. I know it’s hard to deal with this while at the poolside or during a well-deserved rest, but believe me, it’s worth it. If you’d like to pass on the burdens and hassles associated with this to someone else, read when we recommend outsourcing online marketing tasks, and if you’d like to work with Chiro, you can contact us here.
