(as told by The Office)
It’s finally summertime and the living’s easy but what does that mean for B2B? For many businesses, summer indicates a slowdown in sales. For prospects, it indicates vacation and relaxation. What should you do as sales slow for the season? Can you stay calm as the summer heat scorches your sales numbers? Let’s sizzle instead.
Prospect
In the summer months when things are a little slower and people are more laidback, why not generate some leads?
While you shouldn’t expect similar consistency to the busier quarters, your lead generation efforts shouldn’t cease.
Try to create a sense of urgency to stand out from the distractions of warmer days. This can be achieved by offering limited time offers or special discounts for the summer.
Your improved efforts can almost guarantee that you won’t have an empty funnel when the next quarter arrives.
Socialize
Take the summer slow-down as an opportunity to revamp your social media strategy.
Not on Pinterest? Take this time to create meticulously curated pins and boards.
Not on Instagram? Try creating engaging, visually-stimulating posts.
If you aren’t utilizing the wonderful world of hashtags or post timing and scheduling, discover what you’re missing out. Engage with followers and share their own user-generated content.
Make your social media about your audience, not your business.
Read
What better way to spend a slow day than with a good book? I’m not talking about picking up the 300th book by Stephen King but something a little bit more relevant (unless your office is located in Derry, Maine).
There are several books out there on marketing, sales, business practices, leadership, social media strategy, and really anything else you could want to read to improve your work life.
Want to read something a bit shorter than 200 pages? There are thousands of blog posts that can make you a better marketer.
Check out these two lists by Heinz Marketing (who also agree we should make the most of a summer slump):
SEO
Unless you’ve hired an expert to improve your SEO, you probably have some room for improvement.
What better time to improve than when it’s slow? Everyone wants to be the first option listed on Google, but how do you do it?
Improve your website structure, be the master of keywords and search terms, embed more links for link building. Why does SEO matter? It generates quality organic traffic, as well as essentially being a cost-free way to generate leads.
Network
A good excuse to get out of the office when it’s a warm and beautiful day out is to network.
How?
- Engage with existing clients, prospective clients, and other people in your industry.
- Attend networking events and improve your networking skills.
- Create a LinkedIn or Facebook group to connect with like-minded individuals while also getting your business out there.
This is also a great time to nurture your client relationships and remind them why your relationship is important.
Blog
Creating content is the perfect way to fill up some downtime but improving your blog has multiple perks.
Blogging can lead to more traffic, more leads and more sales while improving your SEO ranking and making you appear more involved (because you will be).
It creates the opportunity to target multiple keywords and search topics, generate organic and relevant links, and you can measure its success.
Anything you post on your blog can be shared on LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest, and other social media platforms. It is an extremely dynamic way to drive traffic to your website and social media accounts.
Update
Whether it’s a quick revamp or a complete rebrand, everyone can use a little updating.
Let’s start with your website:
- Does it need a refresh?
- Some new imagery or fixing of broken links?
- What about your brand’s image? If your logo looks out-of-date or your employee photo is 5 years old, consider a revamp.
- Could your marketing strategy use new efforts?
- What about new goals, tools or metrics?
An update could also mean identifying what works and what doesn’t. Evaluate your existing marketing impact and eliminate what isn’t working.
Recharge
Take a step back this summer and give yourself a moment to breathe.
Whether it be taking the day off (or even a week), everyone needs time to recharge.
Taking a meditative moment (like a walk outside or around the city you work in) can prove to be extremely useful in providing new ideas or realizations.
Don’t feel like slowing down? Plan a day with your fellow company and industry individuals and plan an outing. A summer picnic in the park can provide a great opportunity to improve employee engagement and see your coworkers in a new light.
Prepare
While the summer might be slow, it can allow you to prepare for the less-slow quarters.
Polishing and perfecting marketing projects, re-engaging with existing clients and prospective customers, and giving yourself a moment to breathe are all great ways to get ready for the fall.
By using all of these summer-slump suggestions, you’ll be sizzling (in the best way possible) in no time.
