Not to be the bearer of bad news, but the final bank holiday weekend of the year (not including Christmas as it’s far too early to be talking about that) is coming up, which means that for many South West businesses the light is at the end of the tunnel when it comes to one of the busiest time periods in the calendar.

This should be the time of opportunity; to take stock and take strides to get a jump on the competition. Even if you’re not driven by seasonality, you should still be returning from your summer break ready to do something big, so let’s take a look at what that something should be…

Getting a plan together

When I started a business I had a plan, and one thing’s for sure, that plan didn’t run into hundreds of pages, or even very far past two! It said what needed to be done and when it needed to be done by, and that really is the point of planning. It doesn’t mean hours of calculations and the use of the word ‘strategy’ on a repeated basis. It means working out where your customers spend their time online, and the best way to gain communication with them.

So for example, if you have a large email database, a key part of your plan should be making sure that you have calendar reminders of when your emails need to be going out, and what needs to be in them at that time of the year. Without this gentle reminder the day job will happen and you might find yourself behind the game, continually playing catch up.

Checking that website

The shelf life of most websites will be four years. When did you last update yours? And that doesn’t need to be the site in its entirety; it could be the copy, the photos, the pages, updating your blog, and even the copyright year at the bottom. Visitors don’t like sites that aren’t kept up to date, and neither does Google. So have an Autumn review of your whole site and remember, it can always be better!

Where do you spend your time?

This is something I work on with a lot of businesses; where is your money best spent online? With so many options and permutations the mix is going to be different for every business, but if you’re looking for a hard and fast rule to this, then always go with what’s worked previously. As an example, those that have spent time on Facebook and Twitter should have a feel for what’s driving revenue. Spend more time and resource there, because we know you won’t have the time to do it all in the day.

When is the best time to take photography?

Interesting one to pop into the mix but the sun’s been out so this is often the best time to take photos, particularly if you’re taking them of the local area, the outside of a holiday cottage or anything else that requires the UK not to look like a bleak and dark spot on the earth! Remember you’ll need time to book this in so get on it now, and you’ll have some great new photos to update that website.

Content

I’m going to risk sounding like a broken record here, but if it’s not broken then there’s no need for me to fix it. No matter which channel you’re using (Facebook, email marketing or anything else) you need content to engage with people. Think of what you can do to add value to your relationship with the customer or potential customer; what is it they’re going to be interested in hearing about and how can you answer that?

If you’re stuck for ideas, then don’t try to reinvent the wheel (old sayings galore here); your competitors have already done this for you so feed off and gain inspiration from what they’ve done. But make it better and don’t copy it!

And if you’re still stuck then why not give us a call; we’re pretty good at this online marketing stuff, you can just ask our clients if you don’t want to take our word for it…. http://www.mihidigital.co.uk/testimonials