Allison VanNestWhat comes to mind when you think of summer? It’s the season of vacations, of lazy days by the pool, of cookouts and beach trips and popsicles.
But for most businesses, summer isn’t exactly the peak season for sales and productivity. How can you maintain your business blogging momentum, gain new social media followers, and even grow your mailing list during the off-season? Read on for our best tips on beating the summertime blues on your blog!
Find Your Angle
One of the best ways to create evergreen—yet seasonal—content on your site is by finding a way to connect your business with a recurring yearly event. Writing themed posts related to summer can keep readers coming back year after year, so find your angle.
According to the folks at Business Promotion, “By writing about something that is already on most people’s minds – such as family vacations – you make your blog relevant and of genuine interest to your readers (not to mention that relevance plays a considerable role in influencing the ranking of search engine results.)”
Develop an Ongoing Feature or Challenge
Summer lasts for about a hundred days, so why not create a 100-day challenge on your blog? “I love the 100 Days of Summer blog [Fandango] started this summer,” says PR expert Arik Hanson, “where one guy (Chuck Walton) was asked to watch 100 movies in 100 days this summer in search of the ultimate summer movie experience.”
Ongoing features or challenges keep readers coming back to your site and encourage sharing on social media. Choose something appropriate for your industry and then take the plunge!
Do the Unexpected
During the summer, pretty much every blogger will write posts celebrating Father’s Day, Independence Day, and Labor Day. But what about holidays and observances beyond the big three?
Marketing executive Susan Miller recommends thinking outside the box. “Summer doesn’t have to be synonymous with stale news or relegating networking to the golf course,” she says. Miller cites National Splurge Day (June 18) as a great day to run a promotion or special. You can find many more offbeat holidays here!
Take Advantage of the Summer Slump
If summer is your slow season, you may be tempted to relax and take things easy. While everyone needs a vacation, don’t neglect this great opportunity to roll out new features, brainstorm a marketing plan, or update the design of your blog.
“If you’ve been operating for a few years and know when your slow times are, you can plan in advance to implement some targeted tactics aimed at lead generation during the month or two when leads seem to run dry,” advises blogger Nicki Violetti.
You can also use this relative downtime to do a little housecleaning. Study the metrics on your blog, plan your editorial calendar for the next season, and do a spot check of older posts for any spelling or grammar errors that you might have missed the first time.
Off-Season? What Off-Season?
“Just because your target audience can’t utilize your products or services right this very minute, doesn’t mean they won’t benefit from and be interested in the information you have to give,” writes marketing expert Brianne Shelley.
Shelley recommends focusing on producing a steady stream of content and building relationships even during your business’s slow seasons so that when your customers and clients need you, you’ll already have a connection. “If you create helpful content of this nature that speaks to your target persona, you’ll build solid relationships via your content that will sustain during the off-season, and bridge into your peak season … bringing in not only familiar faces, but new faces with whom you’ve gained a following because of your fantastic content.”
How will you be beating the heat on your blog this summer? Share your strategies for staying cool in the comments!
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