Every business experiences slow times. During the first quarter, many customers are recovering mentally and financially from the holiday season. As April begins, so does the pressure to file taxes and *hopefully* end up in the green. This can mean less traffic for small businesses, unfortunately.
But there ARE things that you can do to boost traffic during these slow times. In fact, there are so many things to do, that we built an entire course on it! The Slow Day Marketing Guide lives within the Social Edge Archives, and has a ton of information on getting ahead and getting customers’ attention, no matter when your slow season falls.
Here are five tips, pulled straight from the kit, to help inspire you to be proactive during slow times:
Plan and evaluate. Ask yourself some important question about your business now, when you aren’t up to your elbows in customers, orders and inventory: Are our current marketing channels the right ones? What’s working best/worst? Do we need to hire/need help? Do we have programs that support our goals?
Create a lead magnet. Lead magnets are content pieces that drive people to give you their name and email address. Think of when you visit a new website and a pop-up appears asking you to give your email address for an exclusive coupon. This is a lead magnet. Lead magnets can also be catalogs, infographics, guides, graphics, or any other type of content that your customers may find valuable depending on your industry.
Get rid of unwanted items. Choose the worst-selling item or items you want to get rid of, and brainstorm some social media posts you can use to highlight the items off your shelves. Try going live on Facebook and talk about these items, sharing their benefits and price.
Switch up your signage. Put out sidewalk sale signage or fun window signage to encourage people to come inside. For example, if it’s cold outside, on signage invite people to come in and warm up with a cup of hot chocolate or invite people in to take a picture, share to social media to enter to win {prize}.
Show some pride for your community. Get together with some other local businesses, like restaurants and coffee shops, and offer a discount if a customer shares a receipt from these businesses at checkout.
Think of slow periods less as something keeping you from reaching your goals and more as an opportunity to think outside of the box. These ideas are just a small sampling of what you’ll find inside of the Slow Day Marketing Guide, so if you’ve never gone through it or it’s been awhile since you have, now is a great time to click and be inspired!
What are your best tips for getting through slow times? Comment below!
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