What do seaside restaurants, ski resorts and lawn cutting services all have in common? They are ostensibly seasonal industries and generate the majority of their income during a relatively short period of time. Yet countless seasonal businesses make the cardinal sin of being content with their small window of opportunity and never look to branch out in a bid to extend their profit-making potential.
If you run that seaside café, do you really want to spend 8-9 months of the year brushing cobwebs from your cash register? In the Internet age, you can be certain your competitors will be conjuring up ways to cope with the off-season so you better follow suit unless you enjoy being left in the dust. Keep reading to discover how to avoid the off-season slump and keep the cash flowing in.
This is arguably the most crucial strategy as your goal is to keep your business in the minds of prospects 12 months a year and there are several ways to go about it:
If you want a 12 month business year or at least an extension to your existing peak period, you need to stay busy. This means consistent marketing and the production of great content is a sure-fire way to remain in focus.
First of all, creating blog posts, press releases, sales pages and articles for SEO purposes will keep you ranking well on the search engines. This means customers will continually see your company listed even when your peak season is long finished.
However, the key is to add some off-season flavour to the content. For example, if you are a fruit seller and your produce is only available during the summer months, you can create a host of fruit-related blog posts in December. Maybe you could write about the world’s toughest fruits that can withstand harsh climates or discuss the best fruits for the Christmas season.
You may have to think outside the box for this but the reward is well worth the endeavour. Although you are unable to offer your wares at a certain point of the year, you can still provide interesting and informative content. As a result, you will build relationships with customers and can look forward to their custom when you are ready for business once again. The alternative is a lot of empty seats!
During your off-season, it might pay to focus on a sub-niche as a means of generating profit during traditionally ‘slow’ periods. A sub-niche is a smaller segment of a market. For example, weight loss for new mothers is a relatively obscure sub-niche within the huge weight loss market. Another example would be gluten-free bread within the bakery market.
When you specialize in a sub-niche during your off-season, you have a competitive edge your rivals are unlikely to match.
It means you stand out in at least one aspect of your industry and this alone may be enough of a reason for prospective customers to check you out. You can develop a sub-niche as easily as creating a few well-researched blog posts. Read Sparringmind.com for examples of successful sub-niche blogs.
A clever distribution strategy will not only capitalize on peak seasons, it will also combat off-season slumps to ensure your business enjoys a healthy level of demand for much if not all of the year. If you know the fourth quarter of the year is likely to be bad, shift demand back on the first and second quarters.
A simple way of doing this is to remember that marketing is a global thing now thanks to Internet penetration. Billions of people can now surf the web looking for deals and you can use this to your advantage. For example, it may not be summer in New York but it is in Australia. Perhaps their local suppliers are not up to scratch. You’ll never know unless you try!
When experiencing a downturn, it is normal for businesses to offer discounts and to have special promotions. Your off-season is a great opportunity to show your appreciation for regular customers or, if you are a regional business, a chance to reward locals.
As well as bringing in people during slow periods, these discounts also help you maintain a good relationship with customers on a permanent basis. However, these discounts should add incremental value as opposed to simply slashing prices for the sake of it.
The days of accepting months of poor custom and low revenue are long gone. In the Internet age, the customer may have the power but entrepreneurs can still use this fact to their advantage. If there is little demand, you can create it and in the rare instances where you can’t, you can stay in vogue for the whole year through consistent and clever marketing.
Thanks to Patrick Lynch for sharing his advice and opinions in this post. Patrick is a professional copywriter and has worked for clients from the United States, Australia, UAE, UK, Ireland, Germany and more. He graduated with a Masters Degree in Literature and Publishing from the National University of Ireland, Galway. He has helped hundreds of SMEs achieve success in their content marketing campaigns by producing premium quality content that turns visitors into brand advocates. You can follow him on Twitter or connect on LinkedIn. Patrick also runs his own blog called Lynch The Writer.
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