At some point or another in your business, you will have a slow spot. You can either fall into a funk, or you can get ahead of the pack by implementing some easy things that will help you make more sales later. These ideas can also be used to steady seasonal or cyclical work.
- Clean up your list. What’s your list? It’s all the people you currently sell to and people who have indicated they want to hear from you. (Do people still read emails? YES). Review recent hard and soft bounces and see if they need taken off your list. This is also a good time to comb through the tags you’ve used in the past and reorganize as needed.
- Start a list if idea #1 stumped you. Here’s how- consolidate the email addresses you have for clients or past customers and let them know you’re starting a regular email list. Invite them (with a link) and high quality content to opt in to your email list. You can put this ask out on your social media channels, too, directing people to your opt-in link. A lead magnet will sweeten the deal even more. Read #10 for what a lead magnet is).
- Touch base with your list, providing content that is super relevant to what’s going on in their lives right now.
- Review past email campaigns to see which ones performed the best and what you can learn about your list. Take a look at sent time, subject line, and content to find your best performers. (Best performing would mean opens, primarily, but also link clicks).
- Revise your general outgoing email template to freshen up the look.
- Revise old blog posts by touching up outdated content and add new internal links to relevant posts you’ve written since that post went live.
- Make sure your business is up to date on the primary directories for your industry.
- Review Google My Business to ensure info is accurate and add recent photos.
- Turn your blog posts into video content and share across platforms.
- Take some time to think through and write down all the frequently asked questions you’ve gotten over the last few months or year. Answer them and use that content for blog posts and social media posts down the road.
- Take all of your FAQs and put them in a nice pdf to use as a lead magnet. Canva has great templates for such things. (A lead magnet is content of value to your ideal customer that they exchange their contact info for the download. You would offer this on your website, with the call-to-action being “Subscribe for Free Resource” and those email addresses would dump to your email provider such as MailChimp or Active Campaign).
- Learn something new. Have you been meaning to figure out how to use Canva? Or how to take your service business online? Take a course. Udemy and Teachable have tons of low cost, high value courses that can help you with this.
- Round up testimonials and client success stories to share across platforms. Write case studies for your website and ask clients to leave you positive reviews on Google and Facebook. (Can a negative review be deleted? No, but there are things you can do to minimize the visibility).
- Brainstorm ways to repackage your services. How else can you do what you do, but in a different way? Are there smaller chunks of value you offer that can create a new entry point for prospects? Are there new services you offer that your current clients aren’t familiar with? Look for ways to package those services as upsell opportunities.
- Brainstorm potential collaborations. Is there someone that’s been on your radar? Connect with them and talk it through. Something brilliant could come together as a result.
What are some other things you could be doing when business is slow? Hit us up with some ideas!