Summer’s coming up! Some businesses find that summer brings a seasonal lull in sales, manufacturing, or services business activity.
But whether you’re looking to bring customers in over the next few months, or just finding ways to come back strong once the summer is over, there are plenty of things you can do right now to spread the word and grow your Florida business.
Here’s a few ideas about how to make the most of the “Summer Lull” and have fun doing it!
Join or setup a community event
Summer in Ocala, as in most towns, is usually packed with art and music festivals, concerts in the park, movie events, food cook-offs and other outdoor public activities. The SBA suggests you check with your chamber of commerce and your city’s parks and recreation department to find out what events are planned for the upcoming few months.
Decide which events are likely to attract your target customers, whether it’s health-minded seniors, snow-birds, parents, or art and music fans. Once you’ve chosen some events with potential, you could:
- Sponsor a local event in return for your name on flyers, programs, a website, or banners at the event.
- Host a booth at an event and give out free samples or sell your product. Be sure bring your own business card and collect contact information with a signup sheet or box to collect business cards.
- Donate products to or volunteer for an event and mingle.
- Host a Summer themed event, such as a picnic, baking class, wine tasting, or networking event for your customers as a way of saying “Thank You” and to reconnect.
- If you’re a retail store, you could run a contest or offer free giveaways to loyal customers.
Evaluate and refine
- Summer is a great time to evaluate what you’ve accomplished so far this year. You don’t have to do this alone! You could plan an outdoor adventure or bar-b-que with your sales people and internal staff – you’re likely to find new ideas and opportunities for expansion.
- Review your website and optimize for leads. Add high quality content and otherwise tweak your website. You can refine your email marketing outreach activities and grow your mailing list by offering freebies such as downloadable eBooks in return for subscribing. Retail stores can offer an in-store Free Gift sweepstakes in return for subscribing to your website email list.
- Evaluate your social media accounts. Social media profile layouts are changing all the time. Is your profile photo and banner meaningful and of good quality? Is it representative of your business and culture? Be sure to post, connect, and be active. Active social media accounts sharing interesting and relevant blog posts are great for better rankings in the search engines.
This is a good time to check to make sure you’re able to login to all your social media accounts with administrative access so you can post!
Connect, Connect, Connect
Out and about? What are others in your industry talking about?
Summer is a great time to make connections with industry leaders and peers, subscribe to your favorite mentors’ newsletters, attend networking and business events, or hold your own event. Put that business card in action!
You wouldn’t want to sit idle while your competitors are finding ways to make the most of the Summer lull. There are plenty of things you can do right now to spread the word about your Florida business.
Here’s to coming back STRONG!
Stacy Layman
Director, eCommerce Development
Ocala, Florida