How’s your content strategy shaping up? Are you getting the results you predicted? What about your tech stack? Is your technology hindering or helping?

Get your house in order

Recently, I highlighted the importance of effective marketing planning and why it’s crucial. However, how frequently do you revisit, review, and adjust your marketing plan? Are you making the time to do so? Even the most well-thought-out plans require review. Now is the ideal time for your technology business to embrace the summer slowdown and ensure that the second half of your year will be the best yet.

Embrace the Opportunity of a Slower Summer Pace

Summer’s slower pace is not a hindrance but a golden opportunity. With reduced business activity, it’s the perfect time to reflect on past marketing initiatives and evaluate their effectiveness. Seizing this moment allows for dedicated time and attention to review marketing plans without the usual demands and distractions of peak seasons.

Assessing Marketing Performance

It’s also an ideal time to take control of your marketing performance and assess your various marketing initiatives and their ROI. By delving into web analytics, social media engagement, lead generation metrics, and lead conversion rates, you can pinpoint areas of success and those that need improvement. This process empowers you to determine which marketing channels have delivered the best results and make assertive adjustments or optimisations to enhance your overall marketing strategy.

Review your tech stack

Summer is a great time to review internal processes and technology that will enhance and help you achieve better results in less time, thus freeing up time for other initiatives within your business. What technology do you already have but might not utilise at all or to the best advantage? What’s still a largely manual process that could benefit from some level of automation? What technology is not unified but could be. For example, are there intelligent add-ons to your CRM to enhance productivity and communications with your customers and prospects? Could simple (or more complex) workflow technology aid sales and marketing processes? Think campaigns, how you want to interact with your audience and what you want them to do. Think of friendly, engaging autoresponders for web form lead gen and following interactions via the phone, online chat or email.

Lastly, is there technology missing that could benefit you and your teams? For example, AI-generative tools or platforms to aid with keyword phrases and content creation for enhanced SEO.

For instance, tools like Clearscope or Frase can help you identify relevant keywords and create SEO-optimised content.

Plan for the Busy Season

Carefully assess the year to date, identifying the main achievements and lessons learned. Establish ambitious yet realistic goals and objectives for the future. Determine the strategies or tactics you wish to implement and enhance your technology marketing. This could include expanding your content marketing to a specific audience, enhancing SEO through additional landing pages, or creating more defined and targeted campaigns. A revisited marketing plan guarantees that your business is fully prepared to capitalise on the months ahead with a fresh vision and an energised team.

Stay ahead of the competition

While your competitors may be taking a back seat during the summer months (or simply needing to know where to start), this is your prime opportunity to gain an advantage. Review and refine your marketing plans to position your technology business for success when Autumn kicks in and the world is back! Identify industry trends or strategies that can give you an unbeatable advantage and seamlessly integrate them into your marketing plans.

Look at your content. What could you repurpose in alternative formats without having to rewrite the book? Don’t spend hours producing new content if you don’t need to—this trick will save you and your teams much time and stress!

This proactive approach will keep you ahead of the game and your competition.

Implement summer-themed marketing campaigns

Host engaging webinars or workshops for your customers with a summer vibe, offer exclusive summer promotions and create compelling summer-themed content for your social media platforms. Use this time to prepare customer engagement surveys so they’re ready to go. By exploiting this time of year, you can make a lasting impression and distinguish your business from the competition.

In a nutshell

Don’t let complacency set in. Instead, use the summer season as a launchpad for revitalised marketing efforts. Stay sharp, stay proactive, and make the most of this time to meticulously review and fine-tune your marketing plans. This proactive approach will pay dividends for a few hours or days of your time.

Now, shades, check; ice lollies, check; off to the beach you go; you deserve a break.