It’s the height of summer and the office is gaping empty. Maybe you have a few days left before you get to go on your well-deserved summer holiday break. When business is slowing down in the marketing team, some would opt to slow down their pace and enter a mental holiday state – and some would take this great opportunity to create marketing value and get a head start ahead of the busy peak business months that’ll come up around the bend faster than you can say ‘supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’.
Here are 9 ways you can create marketing value on those slow days:
- Make a to-do list for when it gets busy
A great way to ramp up for those über-busy days that will inevitably come is to create a to-do list and set both achievable deadlines and priorities. What are your goals for the next few months, what do you really need to get done and what would be nice to get done? Write the to-do list and prioritize your tasks from 1-10. Hot tip: When #1 is completed down the line, a good practice is to rewrite your to-do list as priorities may have changed and your fifth priority/task on the list may have to be moved up to number one or two. - Find your company on Google
What comes up when you Google your company name? Does the Title and Meta description look clear and appealing or is there anything you can improve in order to get more clicks to your website? Also; remember to have a look at how you are ranking on a few of the key search phrases you would like to rank well on. Oh and when you do, remember to do a search cleared of all your own personal search cache/history in order to get an accurate ranking. - Review your online and offline content
Slow days are perfect for reviewing online and offline content. Have a look through all your b2b/b2c content and make sure that all your company information, product information and key sales metrics are up to date. One of the worst things a marketer can stumble upon is two-year-old sales collaterals floating around the sales floor. - After you’ve reviewed it – SEO-optimize it!
When you are sure all your online and offline content is up to par from a factual point of view – have a look at your online content again, your website in particular, and SEO optimize it. Remember ‘2. Find your company on Google’? Your online content should be kept fresh and up to date and it should also be loaded to the brim with keywords and phrases that are important for you to rank on. Also, when you do; make sure you optimize all aspects of your webpages: Title, Meta, headers, body content, link names etc. - While you are at it, review and optimize your email marketing as well
Email campaign templates for newsletters (especially automated ones) are one of those things that are easily forgotten about when you are busy with many other pressing items on your never-ending task list and can therefore easily get outdated. Log in to your email tool and ensure that all your content is up to date, that no links are broken and that your company logo looks top notch. Oh and why not pull some analytics reports for your last few email campaigns and have a look at how your campaigns performed. What content performed the best and where did you get the best click through? On the flipside; what content didn’t perform? Why do you think that is? - Give your social media followers some extra TLC
Why not give your social media following some extra Tender Love and Care over the summer or Christmas holiday season and post engaging content that’ll create both engagement and value in terms of traffic to your website etc? Ask your following summery questions, post fun Christmassy images or maybe run a competition that will keep your following engaged until it’s business as usual. - Help your sales teams ramp up for the busy season
Sales reps generally do not like creating their own sales material like email campaigns or sales presentations. When the business is up to full speed and the sales activity is high; chances are that your sales reps also won’t have the time to do so. So, why not give your sales teams a helping hand and prepare some awesome emails and sales presentations that each sales reps can have readily available as soon as the slow days are over. - Build up your bank of client references
Slow days is a great opportunity to reach out to clients and build up your bank of client references and client success stories. Work with your sales reps, the ones that are still in the office, and identify a number of happy clients to reach out to and ask for references. Chances are that at least some of your client contacts are also less busy and actually have the time to help you with a smashing reference, which of course will help your drum up new business later on. - Check out what your competitors are doing
In the office, your colleagues may or may not talk about your company’s competitors in the most positive light but trust me – any leading company in any industry in your market are doing something right. Otherwise they wouldn’t be leading. Take the time to have a look at what your biggest competitors are doing and see if there’s anything you can mimic. How are they positioning their products? Are they hosting webinars? Do they use video in a really smart way? Maybe they have a smart way of collecting email addresses for news letters or maybe they are doing something really engaging with their social media channels. Couldn’t hurt to look, right?
Good luck!
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