We just crossed the autumnal equinox. In layman's terms – Summer is over (at least on the calendar.) Summer is one of the most active times of the year for me. We have longer days and better weather. Chances are you spend more time outside and take more days off than at any other time of the year (unless you live in the hot and humid zones).
When it comes to business, chances are your customers are doing the same. At least in my business, September is when business starts to rev back up again. By October, it's in full throttle as we lean into the holiday season and the end of the year.
When it comes to marketing, it can be a good idea to market what's coming. Think about how Pumpkin Spice everything is everywhere. In my day, pumpkins were for Halloween and were more prominent at the end of fall, not summer! Frankly, it's annoying but I am sure the Pumpkin Spice people can't wait for Pumpkin Spiced EVERYTHING season.
What's Next
Marketing is about understanding what your clients and prospects want. Sales is all about being the right option for what they need and are ready to buy it! As we veer into the end of the year, it's a good idea to start planning how you can market to milestones that your customer may be facing in the next three months.
- End of Years Sales Numbers – The first three quarters are over and the last quarter can make or break a year. Sales require inventory, distribution, and execution. Does your product or service directly support your clients' end-of-year sales?
- Spending End Of Year Budgets – Many corporate clients have annual budgets. When I worked in corporate, we had to spend the rest of our budget before the end of the year. If we did not use it all, it often would lower our budget in the coming year. Do your clients have money that has to be spent before the year ends?
- New Year Positioning – New years mean new beginnings. Often businesses like to promote new products or services to kick off a new year. Does anything you provide clients offer them a way to help position them as new or innovative to start out a new year?
All of those are great marketing opportunities. But, chances are your clients are not thinking about that at the beginning of the fourth quarter of the year. You don't want to promote too early or be all in your client's face about their “use it or lose it” budget. So let's dig into how to plan and nudge your clients and prospects to quietly consider what you have to offer before the year is over.
The Nudge
All too often, we get distracted by the urgent and ignore the important. Think about how you feel every Monday morning. You think you have a clean slate to start the week. But then a problem rears its head via email, a phone call, or a planned meeting. If you think about it, a Monday problem can change the course of an entire week. Then imagine we have only 12 or so more Mondays left in the year.
Now factor in that many businesses close between Christmas and New Year and factor in Thanksgiving. The window for opportunity keeps getting smaller.
So how can you maximize your opportunities to stay top of mind and help your clients achieve their end-of-year or end-of-quarter goals? You can nudge them along by providing them with marketing that promotes ideas while reminding them of the time crunch. You want to be subtle yet helpful at the same time.
Let me offer up some marketing ideas and tips to help you nudge your clients and prospects along to keeping you in mind as the year draws to a close.
Create Blog Posts – Find ways to write and share articles that pose questions to clients in a way that nudges them.
- Nudge them to look at their current inventory, and add surplus to start the year off strong and avoid supply chain delays.
- Nudge them that the end of a year is a great time to do preventive maintenance or repairs.
- Nudge them to consider upgrading systems or software to start the new year off on solid footing.
Create Videos – Consider a series of video shorts that promote great end-of-year ideas to help end strong
- Nudge them to look back and look forward to the coming year. Help them celebrate wins and fix the misses.
- Nudge them to take a look at technological advances that they may have missed and need to prepare for in the coming year.
- Nudge them to reach out to you early to set up end-of-year status meetings before the celebrations begin.
Create Systems – If you have existing assets, can you update or repurpose them and feed them out across days and weeks?
- Nudge them to download your updated eBook. Then turn the eBook into a series of email drips to parse out the content over days or weeks.
- Nudge them to come to an end-of-the-year webinar. Then follow up with emails directing them to products or services that are mentioned.
- Nudge them to a survey or assessment, then offer a free gift once they complete it.
There are tons of things that you could create or reuse. The main goal is to keep them engaged with small bites of information if possible. You never know when the right message, meets the right person at the right time to help you strike a deal.
Lessons Learned – Final Thoughts
I don't know about you, but this year has moved fast. It's hard to believe that we are getting prepped for a holiday season while it feels like the Fourth of July was just last week.
But I know that I have created some great podcast episodes, blog posts, and eBooks, for myself and my clients, that could help nudge our marketing game at the end of this year or maybe even close some end-of-the-year deals. Either way, it's all about keeping the messages simple, and consistent, and priming the pump for yourself, your clients, and your prospects to create new business.
“Every time you tear a leaf off a calendar, you present a new place for new ideas and progress.”
– Charles Kettering
I would love to hear how you plan to finish the year strong for yourself and your customers. What marketing content have created this year that is still relevant and new? What can be broken down and repurposed as drip content? How can you keep the attention of your clients and prospects while helping them achieve their goals?
Comment below and share your thoughts, ideas, or questions about how you can nudge business at the end of the year.
To learn more about this and other topics on B2b Sales & Marketing, visit our podcast website at The Bacon Podcast.
