If you are as old as me, you may recognise this line from the Fresh Prince!
“Summer, summer, summertime.
Time to sit back and unwind.”
But is it? Has the Fresh Prince and Jazzy Jeff got it right? Should we as marketers and agency/business owners sit back and unwind? Or should we be working at our normal or even sped up pace?
According to a study by Sopro, two-thirds of B2B businesses experience a sales slump over the summer. Of these, nearly 75% reported a drop in sales of 20%, and 1 in 5 claimed dips of 40% or more.
So does this all mean you should slacken on your marketing and sales effort? Some will say yes but I say no.
The Summer months can be a great time to work on your business and on your sales and marketing.
How?
If your business is quieter with less going on, surely this means you, and your team if you have one, has more time to focus on neglected tasks or tasks that have fallen down the to do list. Why not do a bit of probably overdue project management and account management.
For example:
- Work on those projects that have taken a back seat – such as working on your systems and processes for customer and client projects. For example, onboarding, customer experience, lead gen and bus dev. Do a bit of project management.
- Brainstorm and set up projects for Q3 and Q4 – pricing strategies, service or product launches, customer acquisition, process and systems, writing reports or creating articles, competitor research, creating a slide deck of credentials, market research and so much more …
- Catch up on those tasks you didn’t get round it – cleansing that database, following up on proposals with ghosters
- Make plans for the key stages of Q3 and Q4 to end the year on a high – for example, creating a sales pipeline or sales funnel, researching networking events to attend to make some new connections, review your LinkedIn connections. You can also audit your current sales and marketing activity
- Strategise and planning – create a bespoke strategy and turn this into a marketing plan for the remainer of the year and going into next. Areas to cover off include:
Objective Setting – setting goals and knowing your why (including competitor analysis, keyword review, market research, website review, social media profiles review and SMART goal setting)
Defining the messaging – the wording used to attract your audience and understanding your niche/USP
Pinpointing a strategy – this is the blue sky thinking
Refining the target audience – your ideal client avatar, plus your prospects, leads and then your customers
Developing the tactics – what marketing channels to use plus collaborations
Implementing the plan – this section is split into 3 phases along with outline budgets. Phase 1, the foundations. Phase 2, the one off campaign and 90 day marketing activity. And phase 3, a 30 day mini marketing plan. Plus a marketing roadmap
Measuring and evaluation – knowing the results then the ROI
- Catch up with your team.
- Or catch up with your clients, old and new ones. Take them out for a coffee or ice cream or lunch. Check in with them, not just to upsell to them, but to keep nurturing your relationship. Manage your accounts and do a bit of account management.
So what do you think?
Is the Summer a sit back and relax time or is it a case of making hay while the sun shines (whilst taking a well deserved holiday of course!)?
What will you be doing this Summer?
Need any help???
