Episode 6: Seasonality

Also Listen To Us Here!

• Amazon
• Spotify

---

Quote of the Episode

That’s going to be something they’re already interested in. Some of you may not be able to provide. But you give that insight and understanding that helps make their lives easier

Tim Lowry

---

Transcript

Tim 0:00
Robbie, you mean to tell me there’s seasonality in marketing?

Robbie 0:04
Okay, there’s seasonality, but the only two things you need to think about are Pumpkin Spice Latte season and Black Friday Cyber Monday. And that’s it.

Tim 0:14
That’s it!

Robbie 0:15
That’s it!

Tim 0:15
Let’s do this!

Robbie 0:16
This is all you need to know.

[Intro]

Robbie 0:27
This is Tim and Robbie, with the Content Community Commerce Podcast, we are coming to you live from the top of Rockefeller Center. Maybe not. But we talk about topics at the convergence of content, community and commerce. And today Tim, we’re going to talk about diving into the seasonality of a lot of your marketing, and why seasonality and understanding the seasonality of your customers. And connecting that with the right content at the right time is super important.

Tim 0:56
This is something I love because I feel like when it’s done well. It’s just really fun to watch, especially, you know, selfishly on the organic side of things, like seeing those spikes at certain times of the year that are really relevant to to your client is fun. And it’s knowing how to time that how to plan it, how to make it happen. And I know an email, like done well, you basically have like a printer at the Fed. You’re just printing money for your clients.

Robbie 1:24
Yeah, let’s make it happen. Let’s make it happen. But kind of the the high level view, like what does seasonality mean? Or like, how do you think about seasonality?

Tim 1:34
Well, I think the, the one that everybody’s gonna assume is like, you know, you’ve got each season spring, summer, fall, winter, and there’s a holiday or a period that’s in that and that’s, you know, that’s my seasonal promotion, which, yeah, 100%, you want to lean into those. But then there’s also brand seasonality for some brands. Summer is like that is their time to make hay.

Tim 1:57
Like if they don’t do it during the summer, they’ve got crickets the rest of the year, nobody’s buying swim trunks, in, you know, Minnesota in December, like, that’s just not happening. So like, all their seasonality like Black Friday might be okay. But they need to focus on like those big summer holidays. And then for another brand, like if you’re a snowboarding company, yeah, you’re ramping up like end of summer, like you’re pushing hard and your season is, is right before winter hits, and then throughout the winter, then some of that, so again, there’s gonna be brand seasonality that you have to consider too. And in your audience, they got they got their own seasons of things happening. And you’ve you’ve talked before with like the Walmart calendar.

Robbie 2:35
The Walmart mind of mom calendar. This is. I always love this example, because it really illustrates things well. Like, yeah, back in the day, formerly living and living and working in Northwest Arkansas, got to work with a lot of like, again, kind of in the Walmart ecosystem. But essentially following that calendar, they really follow like what’s on the mind of mom at different times of the year, if that’s the decision maker for a household, basically, what is on the mind of mom, so we can connect the right content with the right context for what she’s looking for, and what she needs at the time.

Robbie 3:10
And for the business. That’s like, “New Year New You”, getting ready for spring break, maybe getting ready for summer, getting ready for kids going to camps. And then again, going into fall is back to school, getting into the holidays is like getting ramped up for the holidays. And then eventually, like the Christmas, the Christmas holiday season too, all of those things are accounted for and understood, there’s a lot more nuance to it too.

Robbie 3:33
But basically thinking with a really empathetic lens of like, what is my customer need, at this given time. So I can connect the content, the content, being the content, marketing, the products, or the items with the context of what they’re looking for, to get the right message, the right products, the right person at the right time.

Tim 3:51
And I think right time, like I’m just gonna lean on that for a moment, because something’s feel too soon. So the other day, I went to one of the big box hardware stores, and it was split in the middle, it was like half Halloween and half Christmas. So it’s like they had like, you know, a skeleton for your front yard standing next to a Christmas tree. And I’m like, too soon, like, get one thing out.

Tim 4:16
So I feel like timing as well. It’s like, you don’t want to blend to opportunities like that. Because it’s like, you want to have that concentrated push effort sale on a thing. And for content. I can’t write a post on you know, how to get your home ready for Halloween and Christmas it’s like two different audiences to get excited about two different things. So you have to build to the audience what they want for that time.

Robbie 4:42
Yeah. And understanding that audience and what they need at what given time is really important. And this was kind of what kind of to think we wanted to help everyone out there starting to think about in terms of like, how do I structure my marketing like, how do I get inside the mind of that person to understand what’s going to be valuable to them? It works well with a lot of brands who have like outdoor brands who are like the seasonality really plays a large role for like your riding, you’re riding your bike in the winter versus the summer, you’re going to need completely different things.

Robbie 5:13
And those seasonal changes and inflection points are really where the content plays a large role to educate, inform, and empower, to help them understand what they need to be thinking about it during those given times, which is kind of unique and different. I always, but also, for the, for the example of the hardware store, I always think yeah, I started saying this in 2020. Like, “if it makes you happy, you do you”. If it makes you happy. If Christmas lights in March make you happy, you do it.

Tim 5:44
Yeah, hey, it’s making some people happy. And I’m sure they’ve researched behind why they’re doing that. But it’s still it was like, what what do I need to buy at this stage, it was a very mixed batch of things with this position in the store. But anyhow, for the general e-commerce. Like, I think even in B2B, there’s some seasonality. And seasonality typically, in B2B like, you’re going to see dips in traffic in the summer as I think around organic. So you know, it’s not freaking out, whenever your traffic goes down during the month of July, it’s just knowing your audience travels, it’s knowing that they take one to two weeks off around Christmas, where they just don’t want to do stuff.

Tim 6:23
So like seasonality in B2B is a little different in traffic trends. Whereas you see that reverse, and e-commerce because now those people that are at home, they’re ready to spend, and they want to spend on the fun thing. So it’s like that audience, you know, the business? The business people, the employers, employees, they’re now shopping. And that’s where ecommerce sees those spikes.

Robbie 6:44
Yeah, they’re suddenly people. And that’s where you, you have to understand what those people want and need. So from the context of your business, accounting for, what, what are they thinking about? What do they need? What are they doing? And also, how are you going to promote your business and your products in a way that is going to tee those up for success? Because, again, you want the content to connect with. We can we talked about content, community commerce, like you want the content to drive commerce.

Robbie 7:10
And that’s what you want to be doing and thinking about when you’re planning this out. So if I’m thinking about, again, the SEO side, organic side, it doesn’t happen overnight. Now, when do I need to be thinking about planning for, say, if I’m getting something ready for or if I want to have something ready for the holidays? When do I need to be thinking about releasing that or introducing that.

Tim 7:31
So there’s, there’s the variable of like, how authoritative your website is, and your domain. And odds are, if you’re a highly authoritative site, you’ve probably got some of this already kind of buttoned up. But if you’re, if you’re a normal, average, ecomm site with regular authority, you gotta be thinking a few months out, and don’t have that like, well, we kind of put a post up about winter, when it’s October, you can, like I said, there’s literally bookstores that are putting those two things out right now.

Tim 8:00
So there’s no reason you can’t and people don’t typically just click into your site and click on the blog tab, and then look at the order of how your posts are. So you’re putting that post in there. And I literally just published one yesterday, you know, care guide for your horse during the winter. And that’s something that, you know, we’re we’re months in advance, but I’m giving that time for Google to find it, to index it, people to link to it so that whenever we get into those chilly months, that content is ranking, we’re driving traffic. And I just recently planned like a full 12 month calendar for an auto client looking ahead to the upcoming year.

Tim 8:41
And usually, we’re, we’re picking topics, just a couple of months to three months out from when somebody might potentially need it. So you know, cycling in, you know, high temperatures in the middle of the summer, what gear do you need to ride for those seasons? And the same way that like, what do you need to ride? In the winter? You mentioned that earlier? What do you how do you get your bike, you know, prepared for that? What do you need to add on? Do you change tires? Do you put on mud guards? Do you need lights on your bike? What should you be aware of? You know, so you’re building those things, months in advance and creating them and publishing and you’re linking them.

Tim 9:21
And over time, the more of these you do each season, then you have that ability to go back and link from older resources to the newer ones from the newer ones back to the older ones. So then you start to build these nice little authoritative hubs in your site of content that is seasonal. So you’re answering all those questions that potential buyer could have or a shopper as they’re, they’re getting ready where they’re like, you know, I figured myself the other morning taking that first ride to the office when it dipped down, you know, into the mid 30s. It’s like, what’s a little brisk this morning?

Tim 9:56
The next morning I’m like in the closet like breaking out like my winter riding gear, it’s like, I need my gloves. I need my beanie. I need my coat that comes up over like a gator over the bottom of my face. It’s like, what are the things that I need? So I’m not freezing. And there’s going to be that audience where they go to their closet and they look at it like, man, this gear is looking a little bit dingy, what should I be looking for? So they’re back and searching, and you’re getting them early in the season. But all through the season as people want to refresh, we get those new things.

Robbie 10:27
You’re kind of priming that behavior, you’re kind of thinking, hey, with that, with that curation? How do I think what’s going to be on their mind next? And how do I kind of prime that behavior? In some ways?

Tim 10:37
Oh, 100% yeah, it’s like what are they? What are they going to look for themselves? Or what is it that they care about? And they want to protect during that time? So again, the question example, you know, caring for your horse in the winter, somebody that is in the writing and owns a horse, they’re not just going to lock it in the barn for the next, you know, three, four months and be like, it’ll be, it’ll be fine in the springtime, when you want to bring it back out.

Tim 11:00
It’s not a, you know, it’s not like a casual cyclist that can put their bike in the garage, and then break it out in the springtime, again, it’s like for them, they deeply care about this living thing. So that’s your audience. And if they care about it, you care about it. So you’re going to tell them, here’s all the things that we know, as experts in this space. And this is how we take care of our own horses. And if you’re in really cold areas, you know, have these things in place and buy food ahead of time.

Tim 11:27
So you have the hay or make sure they’re watered, like, you’re thinking through all those things. And then as you’re offering those insights, you’re building trust, and then there’s the opportunity. And by the way, as the rider, when you do take your horse out for a ride in the winter, it’s a bit chillier, you might need some winter breeches, some waterproof boots, here’s some things and you link them over to them winter guides for them. So it’s like, here’s the stuff to care for this. And here’s the stuff to carefor you. And we’re covering both.

Robbie 11:54
Yeah, and that’s just really helpful for them to know that information at the get the right information at the right time. So they can make decisions, and they can make the best decisions. And hopefully, like you can streamline and make their life easier. Yeah, in so many ways, which is, I mean, a win for everybody. And you get to show off your expertise. And these are probably conversations that your business would be having anyways. Yeah, you’re just having them in a digital space. And that’s, that’s part of getting it

Tim 12:21
That’s part of the community. So like when we talk about like content, community, commerce, like that’s the community component, like if you’re in community with somebody, like you care about what’s important to that person like you, you think about how can I make their life better? What is it that’s frustrating them right now? How can I be a better friend to this person.

Tim 12:40
And if you’re authentic and how you do that, that’s where that community builds. And that’s what we’re trying to do. It’s like, yes, we want to sell something, because we’re a business. And that’s how businesses stay alive by selling product. However, we can be really human and really nice to our audience. And we know a lot of this stuff, because we’ve been doing it for x number of years, we’re going to save you some time, headache hassle, we’re going to make your life easier.

Tim 13:05
And you’re building those relationships by providing that value. And that’s where I feel like the email side then just allows that to be done at like that next level, because you’re bringing that to the existing audience. So like, we’re not trying to generate demand to that, you’re putting that in the inbox, and you’re starting to prime things down on your side for whatever that seasonal ask is that’s coming up.

Robbie 13:29
Yeah, and again, this is why we talk about kind of like that, that that SEO plus email is like a one plus one equals four relationship just being there’s so much great stuff that can come from, again, great empathetic content helps add value beyond the transaction, and teeing that up, as with email as a distribution channel, to make sure we get in front of the right audience at the right time.

Robbie 13:54
It really is just like fishing with dynamite in some cases, because it’s, it’s really easy, because you’re adding value, you’re adding value consistently. And then you give yourself a reason to actually, you give yourself a reason to reach out. And so many businesses, like their email strategy revolves around like, hey, week number one 10% off, week number two 15% off. We always get questions about like, Hey, what should I send? What should I send? Thinking about? Like, what should you send, like, send something that’s going to be valuable and helpful to your audience, and do that consistently.

Robbie 14:24
And that’s really where some of this magic can happen? Because, yes, I can certainly help. Hey, you’re probably going to be seeing this pretty soon. This is what you need to prepare for. This is when you need to be, again, getting ready to bundle up your horse or this is when you need to be able to start busting out your gloves or make sure your winter riding gear is still up to up to par. What do you need to be thinking about? And oh, yeah, the Trojan horse of, yes, you’re engaged with this content.

Robbie 14:51
Also, we actually by the way, we sell this and this. This could be helpful if you need more, but it adds value over time and then it builds trust and credibility. When you’re doing it the right time and the right with the right person, you really make a bigger and bigger impact. And by that time, hopefully, they’re coming back to your site to read the article. And once they’re on your site, they may browse, and then your email automations should do a lot of work to hopefully pull them back in, but also kind of walk them through that barrier and journey. You want them to go through that point.

Tim 15:20
Yeah. Are you talking about like the mind of mom, and I feel like this is, this is it like if you can, if you know that mom’s going to be thinking about back to school in late July, for the sake of it, beginning of August, again, depending on where you you live in the country, the dates are gonna go a bit different. But if you know that, that’s what they’re going to be thinking of.

Tim 15:40
And you, you sell backpacks, like, why wouldn’t you want to be present in that, but rather than just showing up the day off and like, hey, 20% off all backpacks? Yeah, that’s, that’s great. She will appreciate that. But what if you start sending out guides ahead of time on, you know, here’s better ways to, you know, pack the backpack. What about your kids back as they get older, like, I remember hauling so many textbooks. And even now, like, for my son, he’s got his Chromebook in there, and his lunch bag and folders.

Tim 16:14
And it’s like, you know, he’s, he’s not gonna have 10 years old. And it’s like, he’s saddled down with so much stuff. So like, what if you talk about, like, you know, kids posture back, things like that, how to make sure that they wear their backpack correctly. Things that mom cares about.

Robbie 16:30
I mean, like, when we were like, when I was in elementary school, like we didn’t carry a Chromebook, like even just carrying something like that, like, how do you help your kid protect their valuable piece of equipment?

Tim 16:39
Yeah. And that’s, that’s the school’s equipment. So if you damage that, then you you owe the school a couple of 100 bucks. It’s like, Hey, we’re loaning you this during the school year. So you know, what, what can you do? What can you you know, further educate your child around, you know, even safety with those kinds of things. So again, you’re not talking directly about backpacks at that stage.

Tim 16:39
But maybe you’re talking about, you know, hey, if your kid likes to go into their bedroom in the evening and use their Chromebook, to remind them, there’s a camera and that thing, like, close it before, it’s time to put your PJs on, you know, just learn good web habits, and a mom’s gonna appreciate that you’re, you’re thinking and speaking about what she cares about. And then when you come along on that day, and tell them like, hey, week before back to school, we’re offering this you’ve already built like, trust with Mom, you’ve shown her that you care about the things that she cares for.

Tim 17:29
And now you’re showing up with an offer to make her life easier. And by the way, we’re going to throw in you know, a pencil case or a lunch bag with your or like just something that just she’s like, Oh, my word you just saved me like one extra stop at Target or wherever it is to get this.

Tim 17:45
Yeah, just making their lives easier. And being thoughtful around that. And you make a good point, you’re not necessarily playing just in your lane, great if they do have product, if it is something that doesn’t directly impact your product, or their or like how they’re purchasing your products, you step into a parallel lane, which again, serves them as an audience, not necessarily in a way that’s going to drive a transaction, but you’re serving them in a unique way. That’s going to be something they’re already interested in. Some of you may not be able to provide. But you giving that insight and understanding their helps make their lives easier, too.

Tim 18:22
It’s something I work with clients on a lot, because a lot of times when people are new to content, and maybe even stakeholders in your company, like well, why are we writing about this topic? Because it’s important to our audience, like you may be second to last stage in their funnel, if something are right at the very bottom of that funnel. And if you just spend all of your time like writing around that, you’re going to miss all of that research opportunity that they’ve done on all the other things that they need.

Tim 18:51
But if you’re there speaking to them along that journey, and meeting them at all, or at intersections of their life, whether you capture them in organic, or repurpose that, again, through email, share through social, whatever that might look like, you’re starting to build that trust months and months and months in advance. And for you know, even B2B like this is like if you can be in that parallel lane, like the decision before you, if you can be helping them make the right decision so that then you’re the correct fit for what their decision was, then that’s better versus they make this decision. And that disqualifies you because you can’t work with whatever that previous decision was

Robbie 19:30
there locked into a bad system that they can’t get out of.

Tim 19:33
They’ve picked something in your API doesn’t plug into their whatever it might be. It’s like, you want to be in the different stages of their journey, and you’re not trying to sell something. You’re just trying to educate them. Like, what does this look like? We’ve worked with customers all the way through that journey. And it’s the same with e-commerce is like, Hey, we’re mums and dads too.

Tim 19:52
We have kids, we own bikes, we own horse, whatever it might be, like you’re sharing those insights that here To the pain points that we’ve come across, and we’re pretty sure you have to. And here’s some things to just make your life easier. Oh, and by the way, we sell X, Y, and Z. And we’re about to tell you about that. And now it doesn’t feel weird or pushy, like, you’re always just being transactional with somebody. And that’s, that’s the best, the best way to do it. Even in retail you walk in, and so I’m just like ranting on here, but like, you’re going to retail.

Robbie 20:23
This is your Rain Man moment.

Tim 20:24
This is my Rain Man moment! You go into retail store and somebody just like holds up a pair of jeans and like forces them on you, you’re not going to buy it. But if that person takes the time to like, tell you, like, Hey, these are actually better. Here’s a reason why they last longer they watch bill they, you know, they look good

Robbie 20:42
Are you’re gonna wear these where you’re riding a bike, or you can wear these to work.

Tim 20:45
Yeah, it’s got a reinforced, you know, if you’re riding a bike, it’s reinforced in the right areas where you’re not blowing out like your jeans every couple of months. If somebody takes that time to walk you through that, you’re probably going to feel more inclined to buy something. And you’re just taking that same in person real life interaction that you would get many times in high touch stores where like people have been trained to do that kind of thing. And just translating that into your content and your email and timing it in the right way.

Robbie 21:13
Tim, you’re you’re saying businesses should, should give before they ask for something.

Tim 21:21
I know it might seem shocking. But yes.

Robbie 21:24
We’ve cracked the code. But it’s it’s so true. And it’s all areas where, again, it’s really important to be thinking empathetically about your customer what they need, and what their needs are. And even for, for, again, so much. So much of the stuff we talk about. This seasonality also offers other opportunities too, like a slow season, everybody has those times a year where again, their customers are super in love with this category of super in love with their business.

Robbie 21:51
And then it drops working in higher ed, we spent time like in during the summer. Nobody cares about a university universities are not the top of everyone’s mind. And so that’s the time of year when we know Hey, this is when we really need to start experimenting, exploring, like what’s going to work and what’s going to perform well. Because this is a time of year, we can take the biggest risks and to experiment because, again, it may be slower for seasonality, our audience may be less engaged so we can get a good understanding of like, what’s going to work.

Robbie 22:21
Because if we can engage them during that time and be creative enough to do that, then we’re learning and growing really quickly. So understanding the down seasonality of your business, that may be a time where you migrate your website over or you change make a large code change on your site. So all of these things for E commerce businesses,

Tim 22:40
You don’t do that on like the Wednesday before Thanksgiving? It’s like we’re going to push a new update,

Robbie 22:46
Push a new whole new site migration over the day, the Wednesday of Thanksgiving,

Tim 22:52
We will take it off Thanksgiving Day. And we’ll be back in on Monday. And we’ll see how

Robbie 22:55
Just see how it works. Roll with it. Let it roll. It’s a absolute could be an absolute disaster. Yes. Please, disclaimer, not. Don’t take that advice. No, sorry. It will be an absolute disaster. Yeah, so. So that’s where you need to be thinking about those things in a lot of different angles from your business. And that gives you a lot of power and a lot of opportunity.

Robbie 23:18
Even from the ads perspective, you don’t want to be again, doing you know the holidays, in September, in August, you need to be thinking about ramping up your ad spend, because you don’t want to be working to acquire customers in November, when that’s the most expensive time of the year. So you want to or Black Friday Cyber Monday, you want to have an active audience by the time you’re going in there. So you’re not just paying, like, again, paying out your eyeballs, because that’s the most expensive time for ads.

Robbie 23:47
And that’s the most again, difficult time to reach an audience because there’s so many, so many points. Their attention is on Black Friday, we have clients that we have teed up for three separate emails on Black Friday, because we know there’s gonna be so much noise in their inbox that we need to be reaching them at different times of the day. Because yes, they’re probably going to miss one, if not two of those emails. So we need to be again reaching out multiple times.

Tim 24:12
Yeah. And again, 100%. It’s like, on a day like that, like who’s your audience if it’s, if you’re trying to reach mom, and mom’s hosting Thanksgiving this year, she’s not checking her inbox through the morning and lunchtime like she is she’s in the trenches of like making sure this turkey is on point. So like, you need something that lands a little later in the day.

Tim 24:34
Because there’s going to be all this other noise, it’s pushed that email or the first email so far down in their inbox, and by the time they get to it, it’s like they’ve already spent whatever their budget was on whatever they were thinking. So I love that that’s that’s a great insight of just like dripping a few throughout the day to like hit that timing.

Robbie 24:53
Yeah. So you know, you’re going to like, again, seasonality, you know what the, you know what the context of the situation is, and you know, it’s going to be it again, it’s a lot more competitive. So you’ve got to be able to understand, hey, how do I can change things very thing. So I can get attention during that time because it is such a hard, it’s such a hard time to gain attention.

Robbie 25:12
And like to do that in that window is really important for so many businesses that they need to be thinking strategically about that probably long before. So we talked about like SEO being, you need to be thinking about this months in advance email, like for the holiday planning, like we always recommend, like you’re starting to think about holiday planning in August and September, because it takes months to build all of this. And you don’t want to be shooting from the hip.

Robbie 25:36
By the time you get to Black Friday Cyber Monday, because you need to have a lot of that foundation built. So you can kind of press play on your plan, and then start to be creative and move things around if you need to. But if you don’t have that good foundation, it’s really hard to think strategically and you’re going to miss opportunities that will present themselves that you could act, act dynamically or change something around so you can make room for something else to fit to drive a little bit more revenue.

Tim 26:04
And obviously like Black Friday Cyber Monday, like that’s, for a lot of businesses like that is the big moment. But if your season looks different, you need to be thinking this way where you know, if Fourth of July weekend, is is your big time or right before that, because people are heading off, like I said to the beach, or whatever it is, and you’re trying to push your surfboard swimming apparel, whatever it might be. That’s when you’re planning your big push. And you need to be planning that in advance not planning. Yeah, the week before, like, well, what are we going to offer? And how should we do this,

Robbie 26:37
And it’s even a business strategy component like you want to be if the Fourth of July we can is your big weekend, you probably want to have something like that a week to two weeks out. So when they’re getting all their stuff ready, or even longer than that. So when they’re getting all their things ready. They know, hey, I’ve got this prepared. I’ve got this ordered.

Tim 26:54
I’ve been planning a big vacation is like when are they planning that? You want to be in that planning moment of the big vacations?

Robbie 27:01
So that’s where again, reverse engineering those things to make sure that you’re going to be hitting that right timing, and the right context. So we talked about a bunch of different directions. And we want to round this out.

Tim 27:11
Yeah, like what what are the things that that we should be thinking about? Like what? So listeners and even ourselves, what do we need to be thinking about?

Robbie 27:18
And we talked about breaking this down into like three things to think about. And we always kind of like try and we’ve been trying, we’ve been a little bit better about like breaking these down at the end of these episodes to try to like, make these actionable make these make these achievable? But what are the three things to think about? Number one, like what is your customers needs? What are their needs at different times of the year? And what are they thinking about? What are their pain points? And how can you help solve them? At different times of the year?

Robbie 27:46
Yeah. And then number two, how will you help prime that behavior you want to see? So how will you help to kind of introduce, introduce something early on, so they need to be thinking about it, like, we joke like we got the Amazon Prime Holiday Gift Guide, or the Amazon holiday gift catalog this year. And it’s it’s you get it in early October, because they want they’re priming that behavior, they’re priming that

Tim 28:12
They have primed my kids, they have been flipping out over this thing usually like if you are starting their shopping, and it’s like, are you buying this for yourself? Or why are you like, you know, saving all this stuff to your browser.

Robbie 28:23
Anybody with children, they know how this feels like they have our children have been manipulated by Amazon. It is hilarious. But they do a great job of like, hey, you need to start thinking about this this early on. Because these are probably for parents like these are probably going to sell out, you may need to get these early. And also for kids like Hey, start thinking about this stuff.

Robbie 28:42
So you can start bugging your parents months in advance. But priming the behavior you want to see. And then how do you back into your plans? From a timing perspective? Do you have this content laying around that you need to you can recycle or reuse? Or do you need to build it from scratch? How do you do that. And again, from your perspective on the SEO side.

Tim 29:02
I’m a big advocate for building a content calendar, build the full year, so that way you can see it top level view of like, here’s our roadmap for the year, what we want to cover. And then if you need to organize things, as you see it laying out, you might be like, oh, we need to back this post up two more months, because we want to make sure that it definitely ranks this time of year.

Tim 29:22
But you have all of your topics and ideas. And then you organize that. And so you really like I said, You’re backing into it, but you’re doing it from a holistic perspective of the year. You’re not just looking at a quarter at a time for the sake of because that way, you’re just you’re too close to things.

Robbie 29:37
Yeah, you’re not in you’re working on the content not in the content. Yeah. And there’s so many advantages to that. Just thinking strategically about how do I back into this, that gives you the power to start thinking about that year as a holistic strategy. And then again.

Tim 29:52
I feel like you’re you’re talking to clients, I hear you on conversations like six months ahead of time, like, you know, this event is coming and it’s like but it’s it’s a ways away, but like you’re, you’re getting them ready for what’s ahead.

Robbie 30:03
Yeah, we know, we know it’s going to take a lot of time to build a lot of that infrastructure. So we need to be thinking about that early, because we don’t want to be, again kept playing catch up, because that’s when mistakes happen. And, again, trying to try to build this into your system where this is part of your operating system, and not necessarily just a one off, you’re doing this as part of the yearly this is your drumbeat, you don’t publish, you don’t just suddenly start emailing people, because it’s leading into the holidays, you email people, because, yes, it’s leading into the holidays. But this is part of your consistent cadence too.

Tim 30:34
So usually my unsubscribes where I get that email that I haven’t received since that time last year, and it’s like, oh, yeah, I bought something that was a gift. And I’ve never used it since unsubscribe, because you’ve been silent until the day before the sale or the day of the sale.

Robbie 30:48
Yeah, it’s like, it’s like a friend reaching out, like, Hey, I haven’t seen you in five years. But hey, I saw you on Facebook. And I thought we should I thought you’d want to buy this. No, it’s not. It’s just, it’s bad strategy and understanding. Even like, before the holidays, I probably if I’m going to be sending a lot of emails in a small window, I probably need to ramp up my cadence a little bit there too.

Robbie 31:07
So that’s even some seasonality that where you need to be thinking about how do I start to, again, I trained my audience to be used to see receiving more emails from me, and more communication. And this goes across all of your channels too. So if this work, again, SEO, this is going to help but also it’s going to translate into what you’re doing in email what you’re doing across your other marketing channels, like social and just content in general.

Tim 31:35
So all right, so I think we covered that there actually is seasonality in marketing. So what we landed on,

Robbie 31:40
So beyond Pumpkin Spice Lattes and Black Friday Cyber Monday, maybe McRib season too.

Tim 31:47
That’s a good one.

Robbie 31:49
McRib season! Today’s show brought to you by.

Tim 31:52
McRib.

Robbie 31:52
McRib. It comes out once a year

Tim 31:56
And gives you indigestion and all the other good things that come with the McRib.

Robbie 32:01
Fine meat present to unique shape. Sold once a year.

Tim 32:05
Get now.

Robbie 32:07
Okay, but Tim, this was a treat. Again, I feel like hopefully, everybody’s able to take away some good things and some good insights. If you haven’t received the Amazon holiday calendar, keep it away from our children. It is deadly. And I guess this is Tim and Robbie with Content, Community, Commerce podcast. We will see you all next time.

[Outro]