It may well be the last weeks of summer holidays, the countdown to school is already well underway. In many cases, we can feel the change of season even if we’re all trying to ignore the autumnal feel to the clothes that are arriving in our favourite shops!
In business a lot of structures change over the course of the summer, with people on leave and more so than ever with many working from home life is quite different from how it used to be. And, as restrictions continue to ease with more businesses planning to get back to the office, what can you do in your business to get in on the ‘back to school, back to business’ theme that’s going to be very prevalent in the weeks ahead?
Social media – we’re all online a lot more these days, reports suggest the average user spends in the region of 2 hours 24 minutes on social media daily (see more here). If you’ve not updated your various platforms so often over the summer months, now is the time to review what’s working or not and get set for the months ahead. Look at cover photos, bios, ensure any links to third-party sites are in place, a spring clean or review if you like but 30mins now could really help you in the longer term.
Content – get your graphics, video, blog posts, or emails ready now if you know you’re going to be busy once we move forward to a more ‘normal’ work life again. And, if you’re not sure what you need find a content creator (like us!) who can either train you or arrange it for you, being organised ensures you will stay on track.
Website – when did you last update the essentials on your website? If you’re on WordPress, the most popular option in the world, you need to update plugins, themes, WordPress versions, and PHP on an ongoing basis. If you haven’t logged in for a while, book some time in the diary now to get the essentials up to date. If you’ve got an eCommerce store, get your content ready now for the festive season with photos, text, video, pricing, delivery information, etc – you should in most cases be able to hold back sales until the date you like but it’s a big job you’ll be glad you tackled before it gets too busy. You might like our post, ‘Always Keep Your Website Updated’ for more information in this area.
Prepare for the inevitable – whatever else is happening in the world we know in the months ahead there will be certain key dates such as Halloween, October Bank Holiday (Ireland), Black Friday, Thanksgiving (US), Christmas, and New Year. There will also be important local dates in your region or country too such as the All-Ireland which will be important to some audiences in Ireland, take a look at what’s relevant and see if there’s a fit for your business when it comes to autumn marketing.
Email – if you’re engaged in email marketing, why not acknowledge the change of season or simply remind people who you are and what you’re brilliant at? Quite often we all have emails that arrive into our inboxes that we see a subject line on but go no further, show your subscribers in the subject line that there’s a reason to open this update.
Promotions – you know more than anybody else what the high and low seasons of the year are, if you know December is quiet because your business isn’t in retail for example make a plan now to offer something different during the low season. As we head towards the end of 2021 it’s perfectly appropriate to start promoting an event for 2022 or booking in appointments for the new year, think though about early booking incentives to make it worthwhile for those keeping the cash flow more steady for you in a quiet time.
Get the team together – after 18 months of video who among us doesn’t have a little Zoom or Teams fatigure? Even if you’re not fully back to the office or indeed, if you don’t plan on ever going back to the office, now’s the time to look at a little team bonding or planning a Christmas party. Yes we’re all living with restrictions and it won’t be life as normal just yet but a happy team is a productive team and whether it’s a simple lunch in September, a team-building day out or a night away to celebrate Christmas, now’s the time to get booking.
These are just suggestions to get you up and motivated to take your autumn marketing more seriously again. Even if a heatwave hits, once the schools are back and this year a lot of workplaces too, you’ll find response times back to normal levels on emails and fewer out of office replies so make the most of the weeks ahead and be ready for Autumn.
If you’d like assistance in areas such as Websites, Content Creation or Social Media, get in touch with debbie@themarketingshop.ie and take us up on the offer of a complimentary consultation to find out how we can help you.
Debbie Ringwood is a Marketing Specialist with over 20 years of experience in B2B and B2C Marketing. She is a Graduate of the Marketing Institute of Ireland and the Digital Marketing Institute. She is a Canva Community Canvassador, Linkedin Certified Marketing Insider and META Certified Community Manager..
Debbie supports, coaches, and trains businesses in Marketing, Social Media, Canva & WordPress along with her team, working with businesses at different stages of their journey.