Every year about this time, my focus and energy begins to shift rapidly to the coming fall season. Why is this such an important part of the year?
For one thing, it’s the time of year when sales increase for many businesses. However, businesses who aren’t planning their fall marketing strategies right now, will be too late to capitalize on this increase in sales.
I know that you’re the type of business owner who is eager to grow your business, so I’m sure that you’re now ready to look at what you can do for your marketing this fall.
Let me give you a couple of quick ideas. First, Labor Day is this coming weekend, so you can put together a special and get that out to your list, to your Facebook friends, and your Twitter followers.
Beyond that, you’ll have more time to plan for marketing you can do in October, November, and of course, December too!
Here are some of my favorite types of promotions:
1) Bundles: Do you have products or services that go well together, yet are typically sold by themselves? Put them together and offer a price that’s better than buying each part individually. This marketing strategy is one I use with just about every one of my clients because it works so well.
2) 3-Day Sales: This type of sale is powerful because it’s limited in duration, and causes your customers to have very time to “think about it.” They either act now, or they’ll miss out. Send out an e-mail on every day of the sale as a reminder, then on the final day, make it a “Last Call” e-mail and that will generate more sales.
3) Bonus Items: Changing your pricing by dropping it is not the only way to entice people to buy more from you. One strategy that I love to use is to keep my prices where they are, but add in additional bonus items with purchase. These can be anything from e-books to audio CD’s, DVD’s, regular books, or if you offer a service, such as a massage, you could add an additional amount of time for the same price.
Now these are all great marketing strategies, but there is something that works better than any one of these.
This strategy is one that few businesses will attempt but those that do will often see their sales rise dramatically over the upcoming fall shopping season.
I call this strategy “Momentum Marketing.” What I mean by this is simply that doing one thing will make a difference, but if you only do it one time, that difference won’t matter much over time.
The idea here is that you want to put in place as many marketing strategies as you possibly can, even if they over-lap.
For instance, I might start this weekend with a Labor Day Sale, then I’ll follow up with that sale by offering a 3-day sale on other products. I’ll follow that up with a bundled offer. Then right behind that I’ll offer something with additional bonus items that are nor normally part of the package.
I’ll also include joint-ventures in the mix, and through it all, I’ll be looking for every opening I can find to build my list.
Imagine if you were to do this for your business from now on. Can you start to see how the momentum you’d be building would dramatically change the face of your business?
There is no “one thing” that will do it all, but there are many things that will all contribute to the growth of a successful business.
Now is the time to start working on your fall marketing plans. I can tell you that right now, today, this afternoon, that’s what I’ll be doing for my business, and tomorrow, I’ll be working with clients on their fall marketing plans too.
You will either go into 2012 on a high-note, or you’ll barely make it across the finish line alive. How it turns out for you starts with how you approach your marketing starting right now.