Offset Seasonality in Marketing

Keep Your Business Growing During the Seasonal Slowdown

For contractors in much of the country, peak season comes to an end through the fall and winter months. As nice weather and favorable temperatures fade, homeowners get busy with holidays and other distractions of life. Home projects shift to next spring’s wish-list.

For forward-looking contractors, this “slowdown” can actually be an opportunity to fuel the growth of your business for the years ahead.

It is crucial to have a plan for every season of your business. To employ smart marketing to help offset seasonal slowdowns and leverage that seasonality for growth, consider the following tactics.

 

Offer Alternative Products and Services

After the peak season contractors have a great opportunity to reach out to new and existing customer bases to offer services that can be done in the off-season. By identifying an “off-season” service that meets your customers’ needs, you can keep your crews busy and your business profitable.

For example, a Midwest concrete contractor that focuses on high-end driveways might be able to offer off-season snow removal and protective maintenance to the driveways they install during the peak season.

 

Generate Leads with Seasonal Offers to Highly Targeted Prospects

Use social media and other targeted strategies to offer select homeowners “deals they can’t refuse.” Promotional discounts, add-ons and financing deals that may not make sense to offer to a broad audience year-round, can keep business humming. In the off-season this will set you up for cross-selling down the road.

You can focus your messaging to the specific off-season services if you’ve established what works for your business. You might use “maintenance” or “routine inspection” of past projects to get in touch with previous buyers and create the opportunity for upselling or cross-selling.

 

Create New Content that Matters to your Customers

Take advantage of any “slow” time to bring your experts together and create content. Blog and video content can be created in large batches and used throughout the future years’ advertising.

Organizational leaders can take the off season to create explainer videos. This content can be used for online video content, video marketing and could even be added to your resource library. In turn, this collection can be used in other marketing content, training tools and press resources.

 

Get in Touch with Your Customers

Use your CRM to stay in touch with your past customers. Keep them up-to-date with your business as well as a touchpoint for any other services they may need. Many business owners make the mistake of assuming that past customers know all about the company and the services they offer. You would probably be surprised how often even your best customers might think, “Oh I didn’t know you did that, too!”

Educating current customers about your other services and the problems they solve can be an effective way of generating future leads. Engaging with your customers can organically lead to more brand awareness, referrals and a growing brand identity. As homeowners learn to trust your brand and the messaging you share, your seasonality may actually fade.

There are plenty of new and unique ways to communicate and stay in touch with your customers to sustain brand awareness and set your business up for your upcoming busy season. Reach out to the experts at RCG Contractor Marketing for a strategy that’s right for you.