Summer is my absolute favorite because I love to roast like a weenie on a spit.
And with the heatwaves rolling in, and the World Cup is heating up…
my marketing opinions are getting hot and spicy to match.
And one of my hot takes is that summer should (usually) be your planning, writing, and building season for your marketing year, not January. With some exceptions (gov, edutech), most people aren’t buying in the summer.
And my guess is that you really want to be enjoying life during the summer, not working like mad to both market, sell, and deliver the goods.
So on today’s newsletter issue of Hot Ones, I’m going to walking you through how to figure out what your marketing cycle is, and how to match your marketing plan to it.
So you know when to do your marketing, and when just do your job.
(Cue an exhale about the fall and you enjoying your summer stress free, knowing that sales are on their way in.)
Let’s dive in, the water’s keen.
Smells like seasons
Sales Seasonality breaks down in multiple ways for a target audience:
Busy. buy! buy! buy! - They only buy when they’re busy (agencies) or only when they’re not (accountants)
Fiscal calendar - Can only buy at the beginning or the end of the year, and might be non-calendar based (edu, gov)
Tied to events - CPG’s that make the majority of their sales around Christmas and holidays like Mother’s Day, Wedding, and Graduation Season
Wild card - There’s some rhyme or reason, but also a lot of “this is just the way it is for my company”
For starters, you need know how long it takes for someone to go from interested in the product/service you sell to actually clicking buy.
Timeline - in days | Time of the year - by month(s) | |
|---|---|---|
They first heard about you | ||
They researched you to make a decision | ||
They reached out to buy (self-service or a sales call) | ||
They bought (signed and paid!) |
How to figure out when to start the clock?
If you have a SaaS product, then check the user ID’s on when they first visited the website, when they trialed, and when they purchased.
If you are selling services, then when they signed up for the newsletter/followed you on LinkedIn/commented on your post, when they wanted to get on a call, when they actually signed the proposal.
Then,
Map that to your actual calendar (I love paper for this!) so you can see when the majority of your clients and customers hit each stage in the cycle.
Map that in days to know what your closing cycle is and how long people stay in each stage
You need to know both -
Calendar - so you know when to focus on what
Closing Cycle - so that you can actively plan your cash flow so you know when you can afford to invest in marketing.
Because you need to know when to spend money and time on marketing, and when you can afford to spend money on it.
Honestly, if you’re marketing-selling-doing delivery in a pell-mell fashion, you might need to go through a few marketing cycles to bank cash to invest in a new website or a full marketing plan or experimenting with a new channel.
Which is fine, but you need to set the expectation up for yourself (and your beleaguered or brimming bank account) from the getgo.
Word to the wise: Focus on just one service/product when you go through this mapping product. Whatever you want to sell the most of.
Once you have that down you can come back and do it again for your next service/product and see where they connect and overlap.
But trying to do them all at once is a recipe for confusing yourself quick.
What channels are they interacting with at each point in the timeline?
Here’s the thing, typically the awareness stage of when they need help and the seasonality in which they’re buying overlap almost perfectly.
If you don’t know the general awareness stages, Aelia wrote a great issue as few weeks back on what they are and how to find yours.
Sure, someone can hear about your product or offer randomly at a party and then followup when they need it. Sure.
But typically people only remember things when they really need the help.
Which maps straight to an awareness stage ⤵
Hopefully you have your marketing channels broken down by awareness stages, and if you do, you should get something like this:
Riiiiiight, riiiight, it’s all coming together now….
Stop, wait a minute!
Now, before you jump into marketing planning, let’s take a moment and look at your business goals.
Usually you’ll fit into one of three categories on when you need this to werk baby werk.
Are you trying to get your marketing to work like right fricking now? (in 30 days or less)
Then do a 90/10 split on the marketing channels that hit those last two awareness stages with a tiny bit on setting up the earlier stages
Don’t stay here more than 3-6 months if you can avoid it, this is supposed to be for survival mode only, not a permanent place to call home.
Do you need some wins soon (next 60 days), but you’re also in a spot where you can afford to invest for the long term?
Then focus on getting marketing materials out to hit your next upcoming sales window, and prepare for the 2 after that.
This is probably going to take 9mo - year to get into a good cadence of marketing-selling-delivery-repeat.
Are you playing the long game, with confidence that you’ll be fine for the next 6 months worth of sales?
Then map out the next 3-6+ months of marketing with a focus on getting everything in place to hit your next big sales window from start awareness stage to finish and backtime when it’s going to take time.
This is where you want to live after year one, planning 6-mo’s ahead of time so you’re ahead in your sales with a full pipeline.
Goodie goodie - now, let’s plan out how to hang ten for that next marketing cycle
Start out by asking yourself these questions to see where you need to start.
What Marketing Foundations are you missing? Do you have your analytics setup?
What marketing do you already have in place? Website good? email series in place?
Do you know what marketing channels you want to focus on?
What marketing channels (content + distribution) do you need to setup or scale? Do you have a workshop schedule and podcasts booked as a guest? Do you have your newsletter issues drafted and scheduled in advance? Are your product announcements drafted for each channel to match your product roadmap?
Once you have those answered, you can map your marketing to your calendar.
Here’s what that looks like in practical terms to setup a marketing calendar you can use.
Say your…
Next busy season is September. That’s when people start dusting off their inboxes and realizing that they need you before the year is out.
They’re going to dilly dally research from October - early December
And then everyone’s gonna sign between Thanksgiving to Christmas for kickoffs in the new year
And people…
First hear about you when you do Workshops, Podcasts, or post on LinkedIn.
Research and make decisions via asking people for thoughts on your work in Slack communities, reading your newsletter, and checking out your guides.
then they book sales calls or start their trial, buy or subscribe, and expect you to be able to support them in their onboarding from the getgo
And the current state of your marketing is “sorta okay but pretty damn scattered” and your Marketing Foundations are done (enough).
And you need ~2 weeks to do all the steps you just read 😉,
So you’re starting on doing the marketing the week of July 6th.
Then this is your marketing priority list:
July Book Workshops and Podcasts that will start airing late Aug-Oct - Get your pitching profile in order and start pitching. build workshop templates and slides once you have several booked or update existing ones, make sure of which CTA’s you want for each , set them in your calendar with internal deadlines and prep date so you don’t get surprised by one and bomb it
July/Aug Then you need to write and schedule out some LinkedIn posts to compliment your (the exact number doesn’t matter as much as quality of the posts) timed to one or two weeks before the workshop or for when the podcast drops
Aug Draft your newsletters for the next 6-8 weeks starting in September - late October (so you have wiggle room for a surprise issue, but the majority are written)
Aug Create your content workflow with Claude based on your original content so that you have the blog posts on the site helping with SEO and AEO for when people are searching and researching
Sept Block out time each week for 1-3 hours during Oct-Nov to (you won’t need to worry abotu marketing tasks during this time because….you already wrote and scheduled everything else!) to answer questions in communities
Sept Stress-test your operating and onboarding systems and email flows in September so that when people start signing you’re not overwhelmed
Then come Oct-Dec you just have to:
Show up to the podcast tapings and workshop zoom calls prepared and at ease
Write a few lingering newsletters when a flash of inspiration strikes
Nail your sales calls and your followup process
Podcasts and Workshops that won’t air during that timeframe you want them to for this fall buying cycle? Ask to record so that they’ll air during your next big buying cycle? .
Have more newsletter ideas than weeks? Write extra for the next buying cycle. Same for LinkedIn posts.
Your product roadmap far outstripping your calendar year? Then draft the emails and posts for your top distribution channels so you just have to slip in product screenshots when the feature gets shipped and hit send.
Boom. Marketing calendar, complete.
Time to put up your feet by the pool.
It’s a lie that you have to always be marketing all the time. You don’t. You just need to be there when people are deciding what to buy (and if it should be you).
Your business has slow and busy seasons.
Your marketing can (and should) too.
Ideally they’re not the same seasons (because heckkkkkk to the no!)
And once you start planning your marketing for “the next time you need it” instead of “now! now! now!” you can enjoy your slow seasons and not worry about sales.
Want someone else to do all this thinking for you and just tell you want to do next with your marketing so you can relax?
Lucky you, I have a call for that. Let’s talk.
We’ll see you and your inbox next week!
“Suns out funs out“ Sophia 👩🏽💻 ☀️
Powered by: The every-four-year-fanaticism of the World Cup. I even built a little web app for background noise so it feels like I’m watching with my friends around the world. ⚽ Let’s Gooolllll 🇺🇸 🇹🇷
