3 Easy, Time-Saving Steps to Market Your Seasonal Business All Year

Have you ever received an email you didn’t recognize and thought “I didn’t sign up for this! How did they get my email?”

This is a common reaction from contacts that haven’t heard from a business in months, even though they legitimately signed up to receive emails.

If your business goes on an email marketing hiatus when you close for the season, you’re running the risk of getting the same reaction from your contacts because they’ve forgotten about your brand.

Sending consistently, throughout the year will keep your business top of mind. Plus, you’ll see more success and return on investment (ROI) for your email marketing investment. That means more opens, clicks, and sales.

Just follow these three steps and you’ll be on your way to engaging your contacts in the off-season.

1. Start with a plan

Take a few minutes to put together a simple email marketing plan that will keep you on track. That way, you’ll know what and when to send your email campaigns.

Just grab a piece of paper and write down one thing you can talk about each month for the off-season and when you plan to send your email. Try to send around the same time each month so your customers will be expecting your email.

Remember, the content you send in the off-season needs to provide some sort of value so you stay top-of-mind. Here are a few ideas to spark your imagination:

• How you’re preparing for the upcoming season
• Celebrating a holiday
• Information about the inventory you’ll carry
• Industry news
• Tips & tricks to use your products and services
• Get them engaged on social media – Encourage them to share a story or a project they are working on.
• Run a contest to generate referrals
• Ask for feedback from last season and later, share changes you’ll make for the upcoming season

Planning ahead will give you the ability to grow your business and keep your contacts engaged year-round so they don’t forget about you.

This will ensure you’re sending enough to be remembered, but not too much too annoy your subscribers.

Here’s a plan from a local ice cream shop:

2. Design and create your emails

Once you have a plan in place, start creating your emails ahead of time. Use a simple master template with your layout and branding. This will allow you to quickly create your emails with a consistent look and feel.

Then, make a copy of your master template and add in the content for each email. Really, all you need is a picture, paragraph, and a call-to-action.

Every email should have a call to action, so don’t forget to make the button clickable. At the very least, you’ll want to link it to your website. If your email features a benefit of a product, link it to the specific product page on your website.

It doesn’t have to be time-consuming to create your emails. Following this simple approach will help you to have a design that stands out and gets people to take action without a lot of time.

Here’s an email from the ice cream shop. This is their email asking for people to vote on unique ice cream flavors. They used a poll to have people quickly provide an answer for the flavor they want to try.

3. Schedule your emails

After you’ve designed and created your emails, go back to your plan and schedule your emails for the days you chose. You’ll use the “Schedule for Later” feature.

Get them all ready to go so you can go back and focus on other tasks in the off-season or maybe go on that much needed vacation.

Get started today!

Once you’ve completed these three steps, you’ll be on your way to more email marketing success. Your customers will remember who you are and you’ll provide value that keeps your business top of mind, even in off-season.

This consistency leads to more success for your business. Your customers will be excited and anticipating your upcoming season.

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