KNEE JERK MARKETING
I like to refer to the business year as “Wavey”. By that I mean it’s up and down. (Know what I mean?). You get your months where you’re flying, you’re winning a higher percentages of new business, you’ve got great cash flow and you start to think about scaling up. Then you get the months where nothing is going your way. Bills seem to pop out of thin air and you have thoughts of scaling down.
I’m pretty sure most people reading this will say that they know when their quiet months are, it’s the same year in year out. I’ve been guilty of saying it. And then, BAAM!, December looks amazing, August meeting diary is full for some strange reason, and January is shocking.
We often get the call from companies wanting help to market themselves in the bad months. It’s the nature of the beast, they look to the bad times and think “Crap, I need to drum up more business!”. That, for any agency, is a mountain to climb. (Most) clients at that moment will have unreasonable expectations on both results and time it takes to achieve them. It’s “Knee Jerk Marketing”. It’s desperation, and that can come across. Refer back to those months when you just keep on winning new business; these customers are like busses right?
Let’s look at the smart businesses – they spend time, money and energy in building that brand awareness 365 days of the year. They ensure they have brand loyalty at those times when they need it most. They don’t have to go from a standing start when times are tougher, they just apply a bit more effort and see a return almost immediately.
Don’t be THAT client that waits until it’s too late. Be the smarter ones who understand that it’s an all year long game, and give your agency a fighting chance to do great things for you. It’ll yield the best results for everyone involved in the long run.
