Episode 16: From Ghosting to Growth: Unleashing Off-Season Marketing Strategies That Drive Results

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Quote of the Episode

“Don’t ghost your audience during the offseason and then come back with this big, warm, embracing hug like, hey, you’ve missed me. I’ve got a sale on. Come and buy some stuff. It’s like you got to communicate during your offseason, but the way you communicate starts to change.”

Robbie Fitzwater

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Objectives

In this episode, you will be able to:

• Understand why keeping in touch with your audience during off-seasons can make a massive difference.
•  Dive into productive off-season marketing strategies that yield laurels.
•  Discover why channels like email marketing emerge as champions during off-season communication.
•  Figure out the nuances of modifying your messaging to captivate audiences during the off-season.
•  Realize the importance of relationship building and providing tangible value during the off-season, rather than pushing for sales.
• Don’t ghost your audience during the

Transcript

Tim (00:00):
So Robbie, what are your marketing plans for the off-season?

Robbie (00:02):
I’m gonna try something I’ve never tried before.

Tim (00:05):
Tell me more. I like this.

Robbie (00:07):
We are gonna be using the strategy of click on competitors to ads all the time.

Tim (00:13):
I’m in. Let’s Bleed ’em Dry.

Robbie (00:15):
We’re in next year. No competition.

Tim (00:19):
This ad’s really cheap to bid on.

Robbie (00:22):
It suddenly works.

[Intro]

Robbie (00:33):
Hello everybody. This is Tim and Robbie with the Content Community Commerce podcast. We are, again, talking about topics on the convergence of content, community and commerce. And today we’re gonna be diving into a topic that is pretty relevant right now, but also relevant for pretty much any marketer at some given time of the year is, Hey, we are not on a peak season. We’re not on our, how do we market on our off season? And what do we do? How do we look at this time and how do we maximize these opportunities to continue to grow even when people may not be as in love with our brand right now as they are typically during the year?

Tim (01:10):
What do you mean people don’t love me all year round?

Robbie (01:13):
People love you all year round.

Tim (01:15):
They don’t.

Robbie (01:15):
You’re smooth, you’re smooth Irish voice. Like they, they can’t, they can’t get enough of it. Me, like I get tired of me pretty fast. I lie.

Tim (01:22):
They don’t, they don’t wanna buy my Uggs and Canada Goose or Canadian Goose coats in July in South Carolina.

Robbie (01:30):
I mean, no . Okay. That will be the only time. This is not appropriate. But normally, yes. But this is again, something that happens to every business at some point in the year. Everybody’s not always thinking about your business, your brand, especially for the e-commerce businesses. Like a lot of groups are based around some seasonality. Yeah. And even the groups aren’t the based on their own seasonality. Like this is everybody. Not everybody’s always gonna be.

Tim (01:55):
It even bleeds across, into B2B. It’s like summer and B2B. Nobody’s wanting to close, like, you know, a huge new software deal in the middle of the summer when half their team is out and nobody to implement whatever they do. Like, it’s, it’s just not.

Robbie (02:09):
It, it doesn’t happen August in Europe. Like ciao we’re out. Yeah. it’s something that happens to every business and it’s like, I used to always recognize this in a former life leading social for a university during the summer, it was painful. Like we cannot, people have peaks and valleys in terms of like love and excitement around certain topics and certain things. And people are not in love with the university in the summer because nobody’s just thinking about university in the summer. During the fall, that, that thing, that changes quite a bit. But how do we maintain a connection? How do we keep a drum beat going? And then how do we strategize around how we can maximize the opportunities during this time to really come out and make a big impact when we are in season, when we are in our peak. So we can again, do the best job we can.

Tim (02:57):
I think the first big thing that comes to mind is don’t ghost your audience during the off season and then come back with this big warm embracing hug. Like, Hey, you’ve missed me. I’ve got a sale on. Come and buy some stuff. It’s like, you gotta, you gotta communicate during your off season, but the way you communicate starts to change.

Robbie (03:15):
Yeah. So that communication, again, I think you’re referring to like the, the always the always everybody’s favorite. Oh, I haven’t heard from your brand in a year, but oh, it’s Black Friday. I wanna, you said you suddenly wanna, you suddenly want me back.

Tim (03:28):
Yeah. I have some things for you. I know you’ve missed me.

Robbie (03:31):
Yeah. It’s so creepy. Nobody, nobody wants . Nobody wants to be friends with you at that time of the year and, and nobody’s, nobody has a bandwidth.

Tim (03:41):
But that’s that one friend that calls you once a year and it’s usually for a favor. Like, Hey, can you take me to the airport in Atlanta? I know that like, you’ve nothing going on that morning, .

Robbie (03:49):
Could you buy my my kids Girl Scout cookies? Like yeah, that’s, it doesn’t, it doesn’t feel reasonable. So that, that off season communication is really important because it, it maintains that relationship, but it has to change because it can’t be, oh, this is how you’re using my product. This is how you’re using our service during those peak times. It changes in the, and changes its tone and feel because, hey, I know you’re doing something different. I know the context of your life is slightly different than it will be during that peak season, but how do I still support you and serve you in different ways around what you’re looking for and helping you kind of achieve your goals through different means.

Robbie (04:28):
Yeah. And what does that look like? And we talked about like how to kind of unpack this and we talked about different strategies for, for email, for SEO and for even like organic social, yeah, and paid social.

Tim (04:39):
So let’s, let’s, let’s hit email first. ’cause I feel like email is maybe the most like front facing thing to your audience during that time. ’cause SEO it’s still going on, but it’s not necessarily something that’s for like in that moment. So like email, like what do you, what are you doing? Like how does your messaging change? Like why?

Robbie (05:01):
So, so when we are on a, when we’re working with clients and we’re again, going into a slower season, we want to understand, okay, how do we, we have a, we try to approach it with a few goals. We want to first understand what’s a parallel path that we can find to serve our audience.

Robbie (05:20):
So parallel path is in, hey, what’s something that is gonna be a pain point for them in during this time? Or what are things that are going through their mind during that off season that they could be taking advantage of or that they’re already wondering themselves that we could help communicate to them during this time. Like, Hey, it’s winter. I can’t get out on my bicycle as often. How do I train? What are some strategies for training indoors? What are, what can I do to, like, what do I wear for an indoor cycle cycling ride? I’m sweating like a demon. How do I deal with this because I have no wind blowing at me and I’m just making a big puddle on my, on my living room floor.

Tim (05:58):
In comes Uggs email. You need some Uggs for your indoor cycling .

Robbie (06:02):
Uggs for indoor cycling. But, but seriously, it’s, it’s those things that we can start to understand, okay, this is the ways we can serve our audience in, in a different parallel way. This may not lead to a direct transaction and we have can’t expect that to lead to a transaction, but we want this to be the relationship building that’s gonna be the glue when they are ready to make another transaction. And maybe they are gonna be needing something for that, that we may offer, but we’re not always gonna be working on being so heavy handed about it.

Robbie (06:29):
This is where content really plays that big role in like, Hey, how do we keep the drumbeat going because for our business we want to like ideally minimize those peaks and valleys during the course of the year. And during those off seasons is a time where we can minimize those valleys by maintaining relevance. Maybe not through directly through the products we have, but through like common problems that are gonna be parallel to that audience.

Tim (06:55):
Yeah. I’m thinking like there’s, there’s lots of different ways that this is gonna be in for each business. It’s gonna look a little bit different. ’cause You know, if you do sell, you know, ski apparel and snowboarding gear, winter’s gonna be your peak and summer’s your valley, if you sell paddleboards and kayaks, well then it flips. Or bicycles like you’re gonna have spring, summer is like your crazy time. But thinking about, you know, those brands that sell say stuff for summer will, you know.

Tim (07:24):
In the winter you can communicate to your audience ’cause they’re may be feeling a little bit dreary and down, but you can be sharing like, you know, here’s some great places if you’re planning vacations of, you know, here’s, you know, our top 20 lakes in the US to paddleboard on, you know, this spring or summer and giving them things to be excited. So even though you know, they’re not able to do it now, they haven’t forgot about this thing that they love doing during the season, they can do it. So you’re kind of helping like give them the warm fuzzies and build excitement before that time comes.

Robbie (07:53):
Building excitement before that time comes, helping them mentally plan for it. But also is there anything you wanna teach them during that time? Yeah. I know you mentioned like, Hey, how do I, how do I care for my bike in the winter? Like, that was, I thought you, you mentioned that as an idea Yes. About a brainstorm.

Tim (08:08):
Yeah. Like I, you know, I love riding, but I wouldn’t feel as confident as maybe some other cyclists if like all the things start falling off my bike on a long ride. And during the winter could be a really great time just like, Hey, I got this downtime. I’m not doing as many miles. I should probably learn how to do some of these like, core maintenance things to my bike. So you could offer like a series like teaching your audience how to do something or how to maintain or care for it. And then as you get closer and closer to the season starting, then you can prime them on how to like, how to get this thing ready for it or how to get yourself ready for it. You know, a runner how to, how to get back into like, you know, spring running fitness levels after having a winter where like you cut your mileage in half ’cause it’s just freezing outside or you hate treadmills.

Robbie (08:55):
So yeah. So it’s, it’s a lot of things that you can kinda like help them like mentally live in that space even when they can’t live in that space. Um and what what’s really nice about that is it helps us to really start to take advantage of those times, but we get to again, add value beyond the transaction for our audience and then build, build a certain level of relationship because we’re, we’re adding value. They’re finding, they’re finding better things on the other side of it. And hopefully like during that time we can also have some fun. Yeah. And not all of it has to be like super, like strategic and super. Like for some clients we’re like, Hey, what are the, what are the movies every horse rider needs to see? And like, it’s like 20 a list of 25 movies.

Tim (09:38):
(Fake Cough) Sea Biscuit.

Robbie (09:39):
Sea Biscuit number one. It’s a sea biscuit. Sea biscuit, sea biscuits and Black Beauty. Black beauty . Yeah, I don’t know, I, I can’t say it off the top of my head, but like, it’s what are those, what are the things that they’re gonna be doing?

Robbie (09:51):
Like, hey, this is a holidays. They may, it’s winter, it’s a holidays. They may be like having kids at their, they may have their kids at their house, their kids are not in school. What can we do to be keeping them entertained during that time? Or if it’s summer, like, Hey, what are books they should be, what are the best horse books be reading during the summer?

Tim (10:07):
I’m also thinking that probably during the winter, if they’re not riding at events, they don’t just close the barn and it’s like, well, I’ll see you in six months. Horse and . There’s, there’s care and maintenance and things that they have to do around that passion. So like you shift the communication maybe away from the gear that they personally need for the events to the caring and loving of the animal that allows them to do that.

Tim (10:33):
So again, you may be able to lock them in a barn. I’m not, you know, I, I don’t own a horse, I don’t know, maybe the can self maintain for several months.

Robbie (10:40):
I don’t think they’re cats. Like I don’t, I, horses are not like cats. But I think, I think if you can afford a equestrian most time you can afford boarding them. Yeah. Those people can afford boarding sometimes. But again, that’s a, that’s a sport that is the sport of kings for a reason I guess. Yeah. we’ll not be participating in that anytime soon. But those are the things like yeah. How do, how to take care of your horse in the winter. How to keep your horse warm in the cold. How to, how to have fun with your horse or how to like Yeah. Spend time with your horse even when you can’t ride.

Robbie (11:11):
Those are things that like they’re looking for. Yeah. And if you can help facilitate those moments of connection between them and something they love. Yeah. Like that’s a really big win for a brand. Yeah.

Tim (11:20):
Exercises the rider can do, sorry, my mind’s like going down the rabbit hole of like, I need to create some stuff here. It’s like.

Robbie (11:25):
And like, and like, like stretching. Stretching on the off season. How to stay fit during the off season when you can’t ride. Like what to wear when it’s really cool riding in the cold. Like how to stay safe riding in the cold. Like, and I think with this client, like we’ve, like, again, we both collaborate on like all of those are articles we’ve worked on. ’cause It’s just like those are, those are really great contributors because we want to help support them because they may not be necessarily purchasing all those items right away, but they’re gonna need to make a purchase eventually. And if essentially if we’re maximizing for lifetime value, we just need to maintain that relationship.

Tim (11:57):
Yeah. The communication now is all, all season long, but what do you think about like introducing a sale during your off season? Like is that just ridiculous or hurting the brand or is that something that brands can, can figure a way to do something like that of like, Hey, how do I get people to buy something they don’t necessarily need right now, but get them excited for this moment to be able to buy this item. Like what’s a good way to approach.

Robbie (12:22):
So queue Amazon Prime day, even though prime day this year wasn’t what, what it’s typically lived up to be, but well that’s, that’s another conversation. Yes, I think building a sales peak during a slow season is a relevant, helpful way to do things because you’re gonna be leading into a, a large selling peak.

Robbie (12:43):
You’re gonna be able to sell through items that may be more seasonal. You’re gonna be able to drive a little bit more volume. And especially giving your VIPs and kind of like your kind of the, the audiences you really want to take advantage of or take, take good care and nurture. Like giving them exclusivity in some way is really gonna help them feel warm and fuzzy around it and get excited about it. But building that sales peak also like kind of cushions of blow you, your business may be taking during that time of year. So your sales are probably not gonna be as strong during those off seasons. But if you can build in those sales peaks, you’re gonna hopefully be able to have like a more consistent operating and cruising speed during the rest of the year because you have a strong presence during those peak.

Robbie (13:27):
Like you can, you can cushion a little bit of that blow with a sales peak you can build in, but you’re building that in like in between larger seasons and even when they’re not necessarily super excited about it, they’re ideally gonna be purchasing for things they can use down the road and you’re ideally, again, giving them something that they’re gonna find valuable too. So giving a a little bit more of a sugar high, serotonin rush of a sales peak is a nice way to approach that.

Tim (13:52):
Yeah. And another thought, and we didn’t discuss this one, and this one’s more complex and it goes more into like the business side of things, but you may have your core offering, but if you can somehow figure out how to get a more evergreen product that is replenishable or just something that people can need anytime and you know, the most basic of the things, let’s say socks, you know, something where people are gonna just need them anytime.

Tim (14:19):
And I’m thinking around, like, I joked about Uggs earlier, obviously they started out as like, you know, the fuzzy warm winter boots, but now you can buy shoes and sandals, like they’ve diversified their product world. Like you could probably buy something anytime of the year from them. They’re still very much known for these, you know, sheep, skin, wooly boots, but you can definitely get a pair of like Ugg slippers or you can get a pair of flip flops from them, or I shouldn’t say flip flops, they’re not like the Old Navy $2 flip flops, but, you know, a nicer quality thing. So again, you might have an opportunity within your brand or if you’re in a space that you can create something where you know, thinking of a golf brand that I work with, they haven’t got this, but what if they created just like a training club, like one of those weighted ones that you can use in your living room to practice your swing during the off season.

Tim (15:05):
Now that’s a new thing that you can keep people on and teach ’em how to use it and get them excited, then they go out and play golf. But again, that’s a more business type decision over time, but introducing that new new thing that can be used.

Robbie (15:18):
Yeah, you’re going, you’re going upstream and kind of looking at business strategy as a whole at that point, which is again, new podcast. Yeah. It, it needs to be thought of like, again, if you have one product, like you have a product, you don’t have a, a business necessarily. Yeah. So like thinking about that and like seasonality and like what you’re selling in terms of your product strategy is really super helpful. And also in terms of like content strategy too, like we have an article on mktgrhythm.com on MKTG Rhythm that is around like strategies for Black Friday Cyber Monday.

Robbie (15:50):
That’s gonna drive a lot of, that helps us drive a lot of traffic in like August through through through December. I wish it was like more traffic earlier, like more traffic in July hopefully for those brands. The ones that are, look, if you’re viewing that article in July though, and you’re listening to this like you gold star to you, you are a winner for the day. You, you, you’re a marketer who has their act together and is thinking in the long term, but for everybody else, like that’s gonna be a, that’s gonna be an article that does peak around that time because it’s gonna be super relevant.

Tim (16:22):
November 1st it said like it has traffic levels like what to do on Black Friday.

Robbie (16:26):
What to do on Black Friday? That’s like the kid, the kid that doesn’t study for doesn’t do anything for the whole semester and then finals week they are in the library the entire time with an energy drink. The sense of a heart attack and just ready to go. That’s, it’s painful to watch but you know, it’s gonna happen. Everybody knows that person. There are gonna be quite a few marketers out there who do that. Yeah, but you are not gonna be one of them ’cause you’re listening to this podcast and you are smart. Yeah. And you are intelligent. You are smart, intelligent, you’re a forward thinking marketer.

Tim (16:53):
Yeah. And I was gonna then like kind of pivot from there. So like for SEO whenever you’re thinking about like marketing the off season, you kind of are doing that already. It’s like you should be knowing like time to rank, you’re typically working on stuff that’s going to rank several months out or be at its peak several months out. So like during your, your off season, like you’re creating the articles that are gonna help you win big in the peak season and then you’ll still be doing stuff in the peak season for that.

Tim (17:23):
But you’ll start to work on things that are helping people during off season. So sometimes I find that we’re working on things that seem really random for the time of year that we’re currently in, but it’s that foresight of like, hey, three months from now this is gonna make a ton of sense. And at that stage people are gonna be searching for this and we’d done like a, you know, Tour de France guide for the sake of it. But it was done several months before the Tour de France because I know a lot, lot of people are gonna be creating that type of content and we want to be in the search engine and indexed and early so that whenever the time comes, it’s there and ready to rank, it’s available for going on emails, social, whatever the other things are.

Robbie (18:00):
That snowball’s already going to be rolling down the hill.

Tim (18:02):
So really if you, you’re off season, you know, create content for your peak season and if you find that you’ve got extra bandwidth because you’re maybe not doing as many of the other marketing activities that are just absorbing your time during the peak season, like this is, this is a time to start banking some of that content so that, you know, you’ve got things written and it’s not a scramble to, to create that then like, oh, we’re in the middle of peak season and I have no content ready to go. Versus, Hey, in the off season I doubled down and created twice as much content and I can just release that at a cadence throughout the year.

Robbie (18:37):
And even if it’s not like perfect and polished, then like you have a baseline that you can work out of. Like you have a, like maybe you can have a, a rough draft of a few of these articles that you haven’t really polished. Yeah. Because like you wanna add the contextual relevance to, but you’re in a much better place than if you’re starting from scratch. Mm-Hmm. . And that’s a really intelligent piece to be thinking about is like, hey, how do we look at our yearly marketing calendar as a whole so we can understand where to where we can strategically bank time and bank, bank our marketing activities mm-hmm. . So we’re gonna be able to not have to scramble during our peak seasons.

Tim (19:11):
Yeah. If you’ve got some, some big piece of collateral or if you want a video to go with a piece of content plan on doing that during like that less peak time versus whenever your videographer is absolutely slammed and you’re like, oh, and by the way, I need, you know, five videos to go with these posts, or I need fresh images for the, it’s like work on that during the time when, when there’s more availability to do so and then just bank it up or send it.

Tim (19:37):
And again, with, with SEO some of this stuff you’re gonna be publishing in the off season, you might not be broadcasting it through your social or email then, but you’re getting it into the search engine so that Google can get visibility early. You can start getting links from all their articles on your site over to it and then it’s gonna be working for you. Whenever people all of a sudden start being like, Hey, how to, how to get ready for my first ride of the season or you know, what kit do I need for, you know, first day of spring, should I wear a jacket or not? You know, you’re educating, but that was created back when they weren’t even wanting to get on their bike.

Robbie (20:11):
Yeah. And, and like for that, like you’re creating that content and like you said, that email team, like you need to be taking that, okay, that’s wonderful, let’s sit on that for two months, let’s sit on that for three months and then share it. And then we have this beautiful cycle of like, hey, this is gonna be relevant next year. Mm-Hmm. , this is a great time to recycle it because our audience is gonna be shifting, the timing is gonna be shifting. Not everybody opens all of our emails despite what, what some people think and it’s a really great time that we can recycle.

Tim (20:37):
It’s hard to have a 99.9% open rate.

Robbie (20:39):
Yeah. Yes. Yes. If you’re achieving that, if you’re achieving that, great, you’re hired, great. We know you’re a smart marketer because you’re listening to this already, so you, you already get an advantage there, but yes. Yeah, 99% open rate probably not gonna happen. So again, assuming people are gonna miss stuff, but this is a great way to like refresh and polish a little bit and to recycle that content so it doesn’t, it can be an evergreen piece for you. Mm-hmm. , even though it’s super seasonal, don’t let it just live once and Yeah. Make sure to use the whole buffalo.

Tim (21:09):
Yeah. Or maybe something didn’t perform as well in the season that you’d hoped you’d create a piece of content that went out and it done okay. But you know that it could do more. You talked about going in and refreshing, like that’s the time. Then you can go back and be like, I think this piece can do more. It can be better. I want it to be stronger for next season. I’m gonna go in, I’m gonna add to it, I’m gonna improve it and it’s gonna be a more beefed up robust guide for 2024 because now I know what I need to add to that.

Robbie (21:36):
Yeah. And even like during that year too, like sometimes we’ll share the same article, like how to get ready for like show season for equestrian. We’ll share that twice in the same year and like, like spread that out a month. But like, yes, get a few rounds of that if that’s like a marquee piece for you. Mm-Hmm. . So we’re talking about like, again, understanding the seasonality, understanding how we’re gonna be approaching it. Then we’re talking like we’ve talked about email, we’ve talked about organic, a little bit of social because like, again, I know this is always like something that people can think about, but I know this is a place where it’s hard to, again, the level of attention that’s placed around this space is hard because if they’re not totally in love with it, it’s not as engaging at that moment. But like what are some things brands can do to like experiment, grow and use that time effectively?

Tim (22:23):
Yeah, I think, well I think experiment is kind of the, the main thing to like latch on there is like, if you don’t have as many people engaging with it, you can maybe take a few extra risks during the, the off season of like, oh, does this get more engagement or does that get more engagement?

Tim (22:38):
Like run those experiments, test them. And kinda like the email communication, like it’s a time to be a little bit more warm, fuzzy. You can have some fun with it. It doesn’t have to be just pointing to a sale. You know, just engaging your audience is the big thing. Like communicate, take time to like write messages. I heard recently I thought this was really just a killer move. There’s a brand and it slipped me. It was on another podcast I was listened to, but essentially like after somebody orders, they take the time to DM them in Facebook and thank them for it. And they said that like, it’s basically like, it’s a huge, it’s a huge lift to do, but that personal just reach out of like thanking them with the DM afterwards and you know, using that to give them their tracking link in there as well as through email just gives ’em that different connection point.

Tim (23:30):
So it’s another time to just like follow through. Maybe you’ve got that bandwidth where, you know, you can be like, hey, we’d love to hear what your experience was using it during the season ’cause now they’re in the off season. So maybe you get some really great feedback from, from audience that you can apply to other things. So again, again, take, take some risks, do some different things.

Robbie (23:46):
This is when you can borrow ideas from Taylor Swift and incorporate into your marketing. And like, truthfully, truthfully though, like that, that’s like, but like this is where you can be, you can be taking swinging for the fences. ’cause Like, again, fewer people are gonna see it, fewer people are gonna engage with it. So this is where you can say, okay, if this is working now, this is gonna work really well later. And this is where you can start to fire some bullets before you fire a cannonball and evoking Jim Collins in in the market, in the Content Community Commerce Podcast, but where we can start to borrow ideas from really high performing brands that we wouldn’t be able to otherwise.

Robbie (24:24):
Mm-Hmm. , like I joke about Taylor Swift, but like yeah, I follow Taylor Swift on Instagram because I used to have a, we used to have a weekly meeting where we borrowed, where we said, Hey, everybody has to come with a marketing idea from a different account that we don’t follow that is unique and different that we could borrow later on. And over time you kind of like start to grab these different like, disparate accounts that you’re always learning from and that’s where you can be incorporating some of those new ideas and fresh, fresh perspectives on things into what you’re doing. Because we don’t wanna get too, we don’t wanna be too industry specific or too like just wrapped up in what everybody else is doing or what our competition’s doing. Yeah. We wanna be able, ideally like borrowing ideas from the best marketers as opposed to just the people in our industry.

Tim (25:08):
Yeah, I love that. I think that that’s, it’s just, it’s really wise. Like if you just have like the, you know, the blinders on and you’re only looking in your space, you’re missing out on so many other ways. And frankly, you know, you say Taylor Swift, the girl can communicate like she does.

Robbie (25:24):
She, she is a gangster marketer.

Tim (25:25):
She is, she can communicate, she can get fans excited and it doesn’t take, you know, a lot for her to do that. It can be one post to a large audience and straight away, like people are just losing their minds over, you know, something that’s about to come or a tour that’s about to open. And, you know, she hasn’t pushed that tour for like, you know, 50 different posts in a row. It’s just one drop, but great engagement. Yeah. Prior to that she, she,

Robbie (25:51):
She gives before she asks in a lot of those ways. And, and I’m not just saying this because I I’m trying to avoid the wrath of the swifties mm-hmm. which will come down harsh and violently on us if we do them off. . But, but it’s a really, it’s really, it’s, she’s a really good marketer and like again, respect good work and borrow from it. ’cause That’s where you can learn how to again, approach from a different lens. And when you can grab, like, like we look at women’s cosmetics brands all the time. It’s like, oh, this is so good. This is such good marketing. It would borrow those ideas and take those and make them your own during those times. And this, that’s the times where you can really take advantage of it. So if we were to unpack three ideas that marketers could take from this and implement on their, in their marketing, what are those gonna be?

Tim (26:41):
Don’t go cold turkey on your audience. You gotta like, you gotta talk to ’em. If you ghost ’em, they will ghost you when it’s time to sell.

Robbie (26:48):
Yes, yes. Don’t, don’t, don’t go radio silent. Maintain that relationship. And again, drumbeat, drumbeat, drumbeat. Don’t publish because you have something exciting or perfect publish because it’s Tuesday and that’s when you publish. And that’s, again, holding your feet to the fire during those slow times is gonna be a really impactful time, impactful way to get better and work that process through, over and over and over. The other one I was saying is like, find that parallel path. Finding that parallel path is gonna help you understand what is other things that you can be sharing that are gonna be relevant during those slow times. And finding ways that you can connect with your audience that aren’t going to be necessarily specific to your product offering, but gonna be helpful in kind of educating, informing and empowering your audience during those slower times.

Tim (27:38):
Yeah. And then I would probably wrap and say, not to squander your time, it’s like this is not a time for you to hibernate or just kinda sit back in your chair and be like, well there’s nothing to do. Work for your peak season. Like you’ve got more bandwidth in your marketing team. They’re not doing as much leverage that create things that you’re going to use throughout the year, throughout other times. And that way you’re not gonna be pulling your hair out the week before. Prime day being like, we need all of the assets for our emails and we need this and what are we actually selling? What are we doing? It’s like this is your plan, execute, prep stage, get everything ready to go so that for those p times you’re ready to roll.

Robbie (28:13):
Yeah. And it’s easy to get, it’s easy to get complacent sometimes because you, it isn’t always on, it isn’t always on atmosphere and it isn’t always on environment. But you guys, that’s what you stand up for being a marketer. So like, be used to it. Be and take advantage of those times when you have them. When it’s slower, that’s when you need to be really getting dialed in, defined and people aren’t gonna be bugging you all the time. You’re not gonna have to be like solving like the different problems as many fires to put out. Yeah, yeah. You’re not, you’re not beholden to the tyranny of the day during a slow season. So let’s take advantage of it. Yeah.

Tim (28:48):
Robbie, I like it.

Robbie (28:50):
Okay. Thank you all for the, the wonderful podcast. If you guys have any questions or any follow ups or is there’s anything we missed, if you can poke some holes, poke some holes, we would love your feedback shamelessly. Leave a five star review. If you’re a swifty out there, like we come in peace, we don’t wanna hurt, we don’t, but, but seriously, we we love everybody’s feedback.

Robbie (29:11):
We love, we love getting to do this. So let us know if you guys have questions. We love Talking Shop on marketing. And I guess before we go, probably wanna give a shout out to Jim Mann, full Man Productions for making this thing happen Edvina and Carese for actually being the, the blood, sweat, and tears behind this. And we’ll, we’ll see you guys next time.

Tim (29:31):
See you. Robbie.

[Outro]