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In this episode of The Marketing Factory, I dive into the critical topic of marketing your business during the off-season. With over two decades of experience as an award-winning marketer, I emphasize how important it is to stay relevant year-round, especially for businesses that depend on seasonal sales. I encourage you to identify your specific off-peak periods based on your industry—whether you're in tourism, back-to-school supplies, or holiday retail. I also talk about the challenges of relying on social media for marketing, comparing it to building a business on crown land, where changes are out of your control.

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Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Introduction

00:00:21 - Social Media as Crown Land

00:00:42 - Welcome to The Marketing Factory

00:01:03 - Marketing in the Off-Season

00:01:25 - Identifying Your Industry's Off-Season

00:02:07 - Rule 1: Define Off-Season for Your Audience

00:03:00 - Christmas Shop Example

00:04:03 - People are Creatures of Habit

00:05:10 - Gym Membership Trends

00:07:17 - Marketing Help Offer

Remember this, people are creatures of habit. Every

week, every month of every year, our customers are

humans. They are not robots. Yet, the Christmas shop

can't merely survive on two months of sales. They

have to remain relevant throughout the year so that

when you're ready to buy, you think of that store. Social media,

I like to refer as we are building a business on

crown land. We don't own it. We're just merely allowed to

use it. And so when anything changes, the

crown changes, we are at the mercy of

what the crown says or dictate. Welcome to The Marketing Factory, where

we don't blend in. I'm Marisa Candy, founder and award-winning

marketer. And for over two decades, I've helped businesses think

differently about their marketing, and achieve powerful results. In

this podcast, I'll share proven strategies so that you can

create profitable marketing campaigns that drive real impact

for your business. Ready to turn clarity into action? Let's

get started. Today, we're diving into a topic many

business owners overlook, how to market your business in

the off season. My goal during this episode is to make you

rethink your marketing approach and help you manage those sales

fluctuations. Because understanding and leveraging your business

off-season can be a game changer. So first things

first, let's be clear. What industry are

you operating in? Are you in the tourism industry? You know when

those off-peak times are. Are

you providing some back to school supplies? So

your off season is obviously when school starts.

If you're a Christmas shop, we know that once that jolly

fat man arrives, then the price of your goods

is going to be significantly affected. So it's

really important to identify those periods in your business when

it takes a dip in demand. But the

key is to leverage those periods, not coast through or

simply try to survive. So I've broken it down into a few

rules for you. So you're ready? Let's go. So rule

number one, define what off-season really means for

your audience. And look here, I really want you to get specific. Which

months, which weeks in fact, when does

it start and when does demand return?

Because let's go back to that earlier example I posed, the Christmas shop.

The Christmas shop, when is the off season? Clearly

happens once Christmas has taken effect.

But does that mean that we only actually promote Christmas on

a couple of months leading up to December? I

don't know about you, but it's quite a contentious topic. When

should you put your Christmas tree up? And I think if I

recall, you know, last year, maybe

at Halloween, I might have seen a tree or two in

the shops as well as some Halloween merchandise. I don't know. So

it seems like it's getting earlier every year because the

Christmas shop, can't merely survive on two months of

sales. They have to remain relevant throughout the year

so that when you're ready to buy, you think of that store. And

that's what we need to do. Just because your business is

seasonal, we don't stop advertising. throughout

the year. We've got to address things and do things differently.

And in future episodes of this podcast, I know we're actually going to be talking about

it. So stay tuned. Determine when your

off season is. Remember this, people are

creatures of habit. Every week, every

month of every year, our customers are humans.

They are not robots yet. So we've

got to treat them as such. We can't just merely put an ad

out there or say, come and buy, come and buy. And everyone just goes,

oh yes, yes, I'll take two of those. Maybe, no, make that four. So

we have to remember that our customers are creatures of

habit. Now I've come from a shopping center background, as I've mentioned before.

And in our region, we had Thursday night late

night trade. It didn't matter if we threw $1 million

at advertising that we were going to do late night

trade on a Wednesday night, people would not show

up. Because why? They're creatures of habit. For

the last however many years, decades, whatever

it's been that we have been advertising and promoting that

we, this shopping centre, opens on a Thursday night, not

a Wednesday. So it didn't actually matter. So this is

where you can think sometimes as well that your marketing efforts aren't

working or they're going to waste. It's only because you

need to remember and fall back on the fact that people are

creatures of habit. And sometimes, no matter how much you

push to drive a message outside humans

habitual exercises, it just simply won't

happen. You just can't push sales when people aren't ready. Let's

look into an industry. Let's look at gyms. Gym

owners, when do you think their off-season is?

And predominantly, when do you think their on-season is? So, if you don't

know when your off-season is, think about when your on-season is, right?

Unless you are a business with recurring revenue and you

want to see your sales just keep going up and up and up, which is wonderful, you've

got to also factor in there will be a churn rate, there will

be a drop off. But if you're

not a business of recurring revenue, you're going to see your sales doing this up

and down, up and down. So let's come back to the gym owner.

20% of gym memberships actually take place in which

month of the year? You tell me, which month of the year? Does everyone

go out and go, oh yes, I want to join the gym. I want to join the gym. It's

January, right? Why? Because again, we're

creatures of habit. We have stopped working for

the year in December. We've gathered with our family and friends and we've

possibly overindulge in too much of

Arnie Joyce's Christmas cake. Okay, and so we're like, oh,

we're feeling a little bit sluggish. It's a new year, it's a new me,

let's go. So 20% of gym memberships

are actually taken in January. But can

I tell you another alarming statistic? 50% of

gym memberships taken in January don't even last six months. So

what do gym owners do? Stop marketing or do they keep an

ongoing message? We see another spike for gyms

in September. Why? Why? In this country, what

happens seasonally in this great country of ours, Australia?

We see another spike at September because everyone goes, oh, we've

just come out of winter. Oh, again, had a little bit too much of that comfort

food, maybe a little bit too many roasts or

too many hot chips and gravy. That's actually one of my favourites. And

we go, oh my gosh, it's warming up I've

got to put that bikini on, or at least attempt to. I want

to get my summer body back. Let's go. Let's get back into the gym and

get that summer body back. So we see another spike then.

Just quickly, if you're a business owner struggling to see results from

your marketing, or you're overwhelmed by the thought of marketing your

business, we can help. Book in a call with my team using the

link in the show notes, and let's get your brand thriving without the

struggle. Now, back to the episode. So what we need to do as

business owners is this, once we understand what the off-season is

for us, we've got to tap into the natural rhythm of

human behaviour, okay, and serve content

and serve messages to people in and outside

our on and off-season. So a rule that we can apply to this is

during your off season, save your ad budget. Don't

go and just keep continue spending your

money month after month, year after year

with the same activity, strategy, planning,

spend across every single month. Cut back on your ad

budget, but stay consistent with your messaging across

all channels. We've got to tap into all of the low-cost marketing

activities because that's going to still keep us relevant. It's

still going to keep us on the shopping list. You do not

want to disappear. The key here is to spread your

efforts accordingly and not blanket each month to

month. Keep posting your seasonal product and service

on your socials across all the platforms that

you are engaging in. And again, first

party data, we're collecting this, right? Tell me you're collecting your

first party data. Yes, you are. You're gathering email addresses,

you're gathering names, you're putting them into your database.

That's first party data. You collect it, you own

it. You're bringing people back to the platform that you own,

which is your database, right? You're sending

email marketing out to your subscribers, to your

database, because remember what we have with social media.

Social media, I like to refer as we are building a

business on crown land. We don't own

it. We're just merely allowed to use it. Okay.

And so when anything changes, the

crown changes, we are at the mercy of

what the crown says or dictates. And we only have to look backwards a

little bit in time to see what happens when Facebook

shut down, when algorithms change. Okay.

Make sure that we are looking after all of the data that

we're working so tirelessly for, so

hard to keep updated, and that's our customers and that's our database.

Keep updating your website. Keep writing those blogs. If we're clever

about it, with the way we go about our marketing, we

can batch our activities right. Don't be sitting down doing one

blog every month. Batch them, bring them together, do

as many as you can manage, three at a time, six at

a time, much more efficient use of your time. Because

when you get your mind in that right frame of

saying, right, I'm here now, I'm going to be writing content on blogs, doing

website updates and making sure that all

of our content is updated at once, you're going to be in

a really great position to repurpose it and it's going to work for you. Consistency

here is key. Tell me why? Because you don't want

to disappear. Another rule I like to live by is let's

go duck hunting in duck season. That's right. It's a

term that I've used for years and the people that have hung around me

long enough know it's something that I'm, you know, I'm not a big fan of

hunting. However, it's just a term to come with me. I'm

far more interested in raising peaks of the year rather

than trying to bring up the troughs. Capitalise on what's in

front of you. Now look, accommodation are great examples of

this. They have peak periods and low periods. Do you pay different?

So you pay different prices for the

same room, depending on the time of year. So

we have a lot to learn from that industry. And my final rule for

this episode is Embrace the February slump. You

know what, editors, we're going to cut this little word out, but February's just

always going to be, why? Because we only have

so much money to go around. There's only so much money we can spend on.

Once it's gone, it's gone. The household budget doesn't go, oh, I've

just spent all the money this month, love, but I really, really want to

buy those shoes because this company just keeps marketing to

me. It doesn't matter how much I want them. I've

only got so much money to spend. So for every dollar

you spend on marketing in your peak months, I can guarantee you this,

it will generate more sales for you than February. So

to wrap things up, the off season is not a time

to hibernate. Let's get ahead. Set yourself up

for success. Leverage these tips. Stay consistent.

Marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. Until next

time, Stay proactive and keep marketing. Thanks for

tuning into The Marketing Factory. If today's episode helped bring

clarity to your marketing strategy, please leave a five-star review

on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don't forget to

subscribe on your favorite platform. Stay connected with us

on the socials at The Marketing Factory or at

The Marketing Factory AUS, and let's keep turning clarity