Lyrics to George Gershwin's Summertime reminding us that we should just relax, take a break, enjoy our family and friends, play golf, go to the beach, and basically just have fun . But should we take time out to continue our inbound marketing efforts during these hot summer months? The answer is of course no. Remember, marketing is an investment in your business. You need to invest time and resources to keep your marketing campaigns going through the hot summer months. Taking a break can be the kiss of death for your small business. Even if you're busy right now, being consistent with your marketing is critical to keeping your pipeline full of leads. But for many businesses, the summer has tended to slow, with less revenue. Instead of panicking, take advantage of the slower pace in your business and accomplish something you don't normally have time for. There are a lot of marketing campaigns you can do that don't cost a lot and help you gain visibility. Whether you're on vacation or finding yourself with more time, here are some summer marketing tips to help you stay on track. plan ahead The content marketing part of inbound marketing is important, done regularly and consistently. If you have a content plan, create your content a month in advance. If you have old blog posts that could benefit from updates, include them in your content plan to ease the burden of coming up with lots of new content.
In summer, the time for reading books is shorter, so it is easier to add a few more content. Not everything has to be in-depth articles. Knowing that your business maintains visibility even while on vacation can make your vacation time more enjoyable. automation There are many tools that can help you automate your marketing, including: Lead Generation – Use an email autoresponder to create a series of emails for prospects who sign up for you. These email sequences can keep new subscribers engaged with your content. Blog Post Posting – Write a month’s industry mailing list and schedule them to post while you’re away. WordPress makes this easy. Social Media Posts – Use automated tools like Buffer or HootSuite to schedule posts to be published at the time that best suits your target audience. I use Buffer and love the ability to set different schedules for each social media platform, use the Buffer extension for Chrome to easily share content, and find useful content for my audience through the content inbox. Knowing you've written your content, automating lead generation, and scheduling posts can get you through the holidays and make the holidays a lot easier. get temporary help Offload tasks to others by outsourcing to freelancers who can help you with your marketing.
There are many marketing virtual assistants available, and they may execute your marketing campaigns better than an insider who doesn't do it on a regular basis. When seeking outsourcing, do your homework. Check your LinkedIn network for freelance marketing or virtual assistants. Depending on your needs, you can use LinkedIn ProFinder to help you find local freelancers. I use external sources to write content so I can spend more time doing the work I need to do for my clients and my business. Assess your web presence Do a web presence analysis and determine where it needs to work. If your business isn't visible to your top keywords, make a plan to update the third component of inbound marketing, your SEO. Include a review of your web content looking for content that needs to be optimized for specific keywords. This is a good time to focus your marketing on things that can increase your visibility and reputation as an expert. Check and update your local citation website to make sure your name, address and phone number are consistent. A local citation is any reference to your business that can be found online. These include Google My Business, Bing, Facebook, Yelp, Yellowpages, the Better Business Bureau (BBB), or other authoritative sites that may provide online directories for businesses in your industry. Listings that are inconsistent with outdated information or different spellings of your business name can reduce your visibility.
Optimize your Google My Business listing Having a well-optimized and accurate Google My Business listing can improve your visibility in search engine results. You can control how your business appears on Google's search engine results pages and other Google applications. Updating your entry will improve the accuracy of your business information on Google and any applications that rely on Google for data. Create and manage your listings with all the new features Google has recently added, such as posts, Q&A, bookings, and of course, comments. View your service offerings Are your service offerings attractive to your target audience? As your business grows, so does your service. Update and enhance your current service offerings to provide more value or add new services entirely. Make sure to price your services based on the value you provide. Get back to your deck with your tablet and start jotting down ideas with Evernote. Create or update your marketing system Identify marketing systems that need to be created or updated. A marketing system creates a repeatable, step-by-step routine to help you execute your marketing plan effectively. If you have a system in place to take the guesswork out of what needs to be done and when, your marketing while on vacation will be smoother. Make sure your marketing supports mobile Your clients and prospects are also on vacation, but that doesn't mean they're out of touch. Make sure your email marketing and website are mobile-friendly.