Thankfully, the oppressive heat wave that took over New England last week has, for the moment, moved on. Hopefully, our brains (and computers) have now recovered and returned to a safe operating temperature.
Beating the summer heat is one thing, but unfortunately the ongoing challenge of slowing sales in the summer cannot be solved with air conditioning, and it continues to test how creative and resourceful companies can be. With this in mind, here are three activities to help prevent your business from fading in the summer sun.
Attend a Relevant Event. Give yourself the opportunity to make new connections and further develop existing ones. Personal interaction adds an element to a business relationship that cannot be attained online, and it could be the building block that changes a casual contact into a customer. In addition, attending an industry event will generate more website traffic and more conversation surrounding your brand—two more sources for new leads.
Start A(nother) Company Blog. If you do not have a company blog, begin one. If you have one, start another on a topic related to your market, your brand or the values or causes you want to showcase. Blogs create another communication channel that will highlight your industry knowledge, your company’s values, or your product in use. Content quality and frequency are very important—you want people discussing and sharing your content and coming back often. Increasing your level of influence and sparking relevant consumer discussion will both improve credibility and generate more buzz for your company.
Get More Chatty. Participate more actively in conversations that are engaging your target market(s). Whether or not the topics are relevant to your business, these conversations can help you learn more about your potential customers. Sharing your thoughts and comments adds a level of social interaction that will make potential customers feel that your company is a part of their community and shares their interests. This chatter may not be the main focus of your social engagement, but it will certainly help build awareness of your company or brand.
While there are many more strategies for increasing sales when business becomes slow, these are three techniques that, with continued practice, will all provide long-term value to your company as well as providing a short-term boost. Ultimately, discovering more activities that will help your business fight the seasonally slow pace of summer is only limited by your creativity.
What challenges has your business encountered this summer, and subsequently what activities are you now implementing?
