4 Things to Do When Business is Slow

Summertime, holiday season, a pandemic; there are many reasons for business to slow down. Don’t let the dips in attention or revenue shake your vision. Downtime is a great opportunity to revisit what you have been doing and tweak your plan for the coming months.

Utilizing your slow periods strategically can catapult your business forward. Reflect on your marketing tactics, look at the data and re-acquaint yourself with your customer’s journey to give yourself a more accurate picture of your marketing efforts. Check out these 4 actions you can take to grow your business through the slow times.

1. Get to Know Your Clients and Audience Better

The day-to-day schedule of running your own business rarely leaves you with a chance to grow your online audience. The audience you build online creates a foundation for growth. Taking some time now, when things are slower, to turn to your online audience.

One great way to deepen your understanding of the clients and audience you currently have is by sending out a survey. Keep it short, to the point, and purposeful. What do you need to know from your clients and audience to help make better marketing decisions in the future? You can send your clients a survey through email or while you are with them face-to-face. Create simple social media surveys through questions and poll stickers or simply direct message your followers and ask them what you want to know.

2. Research Your Competition

This is not only a great time to get to know your clients and audience better but to also get to know your competition better as well. Use your down time to better understand what your competitors are doing, and where your clients are going when they don’t come to you, to inform your future marketing actions and align them with your community.

Scour the social media accounts, websites, and online communities where your competition exists and take note of what they are doing. What are they offering, how are they offering it, who is showing interest and in what?

3. Update your Hashtag and Keyword Lists

It’s time. Yes, updating lists can be a drag but it can significantly set you up to increase your reach and improve your SEO. Use your slow times to revise your hashtag and keyword lists. Compile the words you have used so far and determine how effective they have been. Do you need to stop using some or maybe use some others more? To learn how to create and update your Hashtag list, download our free Hashtag Handbook here:

4. Do a Social Media Audit

If you think back to the content you have posted over the past few months, what posts stand out? Do you know which social media posts generated the most traffic to your website, or better yet, resulted in booking customers or registering students? A social media audit involves looking back over each of your profiles and identifying what worked, what garnered the results you wanted and what didn’t. What did your audience respond to and what fell flat? Once you have gathered all this information you can use it to inform how you approach your Social Media marketing going forward. Create content that aligns with past successful posts and bring more value to your audience with targeted content, copy, and ads.

From July 4 – 15th, 2022 we are offering small businesses our Summer Social Audit service for free. Book a 15-minute Discovery Call before July 15th 2022 and receive a free social media audit of one profile.

Conclusion

The slow times do not need to be scary. If you welcome them as well-earned opportunities to collect and reflect you can come back clearer, stronger, and ready to grow. Utilize times when clients aren’t as abundant or class demands are few to get to know your audience and community, update your marketing lists, and do a social media audit. This will set you up for improved marketing tactics for your coming months. 

If you want more guidance or are looking for support in managing your digital marketing, book a Discovery Call now. We can help you bring your services to those who need them most.