A summer slump in sales? How to handle it…

Here at the Blog Marketing Academy, almost every year, we experience a “summer slump”.

It just means that we experience a sales slump. It isn’t as if it drops to zero or anything (that’d be insane), but it is just lower. Less affiliate commissions. Less new member signups. And more cancellations than usual.

And as I have talked to other people over the years, it appears I’m not alone. There is very often a lull in activity in the summer months. It is pretty much a known – and expected – thing.

For us, I think it comes down primarily to 2 things…

1. People are generally paying less attention. Their kids are off. People are in “vacation mode”. They’re just not operating on all cylinders.

2. We always go out on a big RV trip during the summer. And even though I keep the business moving and all that, I’m obviously not paying as much attention myself during the summer.

Given that #1 is happening, I think it is made a little worse because of #2. If I were in the office going full blast, I’m sure I could ward it off. But, thing is… I’m out there doing what everybody else is doing: PLAYING.

So, if you’re like me and you see this summer slump pretty much every year, what can we do about it?

I’m not going to sit here in my office all summer. Hell to the no. And you probably don’t, either. The whole point of these online businesses is to live the life we want to live… and the last thing I want to be is chained to my desk.

So a few things:

#1 – Plan out your summer marketing calendar.

Take the time to plan out the campaigns and offers you intend to make and put them on the calendar. Don’t get overly aggressive about it. It’s summer, after all. But, don’t just go play hookie.

One of the contributors to our slump this summer was our RV trip… combined with the fact that I had pretty crappy wifi way more than usual. So, even though I had some rough plans for some things to execute while I was away, I had a tough time doing them.

#2 – Pre-Prepare Those Campaigns

If you’ve got some campaigns in mind for the summer, it would help if you prepared them in advance. This way you can be sitting on the beach while your campaigns run. You can just hit some buttons and manage a few things, but you don’t have to sit there on your laptop writing out emails and such.

One thing that helps is to create a Campaign Library. Every time you run a marketing campaign of any kind, archive it. Save all the emails, the landing page – everything. You might even want to keep a log along with the package of the results each time you run that campaign so that you can improve it over time. We keep this in our private Google Drive. Over time, you create a library of campaigns that you can go pick from and hit the Replay button, essentially.

#3 – Have Contingency Plans

Not every campaign is going to go according to plan. And during the summer, you might have people laying less attention. To just keep hammering them with something they don’t seem to be biting on is a waste of time.

So, be willing to change things mid-stream. Have a few fall-back options if you notice a campaign isn’t performing as well. Have some cool content you can send to people who are not responding to your marketing. This way you don’t become a “pitch pitch pitch” person to them.

#4 – Use the slump to try some new stuff – or finish the old

If you’re not out playing, that is. But, one thing you can do is use this lull period to try some new stuff. Try out some new offers. Or take some projects that were stalled or backburnered and do them.

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One last thing…

Year-round, your focus should be on getting your average sales volume to a point where a summer slump is just not a thing you worry about. Know that it happens… and don’t freak because your overall sales volume is in a nice range.

Also, don’t forget that even online businesses should be using budgets – and that means having a reserve fund so that you can deal with times when your expenses exceed your income. Hope that never happens for you, but it is best to have an emergency fund in place.