Prefer to listen, rather than read? Here's the Podcast summary!
The last quarter is just around the corner!
It’s finally the time of the year when warmer days, blossoming Spring flowers, school holidays and Christmas festivities are all happening.
However, despite the bright atmosphere, many Australian businesses typically experience a slowing down period right as we get to the end of the year. While that’s great over New Years (and we ALL deserve that break), you don’t want the slowdown to happen too fast.
If you don’t ramp up your marketing now and fill that pipeline up, then you risk everything going cold until sometime in February or March!
Can your business survive that long without sales?
If “no”, then now is the time to act.
Don’t get caught off guard by the end-of-year slow business period
It sets in really fast.
Your business is booming in June and July, August and September are big months… you stop marketing, thinking all is great and you can sail into Christmas. Then, everything drops off and you have a famine period that can span for weeks (or longer).
Have you heard that saying: “In Australia, business shuts down between Melbourne Cup and doesn’t begin again until February”? It can be a reality for the majority of industries.
Australian businesses see it every single year – and yet many don’t prepare now to protect themselves from that slow period. So, make this year the year you buck this trend and prepare ahead so cash flow and sales don’t suddenly disappear before you realise what has happened.
Don’t let the end-of-year slow business period catch you off-guard again. It’s time to be proactive to protect your business.
Here’s how to start preparing your end-of-year marketing today.
Now is the perfect time to take a look at your business objectives
Based on what you see, are you on track to meet or exceed your goals for the year?
There’s still plenty of time and opportunity now. Clients and customers are still out there looking for you, so there is demand around if you decide to supercharge your marketing for the last sprint of the year.
I know you’re probably thinking, “But, Chris, my marketing budget doesn’t restart until January” or “but my main customers aren’t looking to make decisions now.”
Even so – what if I told you that getting a jump on marketing now could be the key to a faster comeback in the new year? To best capture the spring and summer season sales, you need to make sure your marketing plan is prepared and ready to go well ahead of time.
You can beat the end-of-year slow down. Fill your pipeline up so you’ve got a strong pipeline and strong cash flow, no matter what.
The time to act is now. Let me explain why.
There is a lag time between your marketing and its impact
When you launch any form of marketing, it rarely gives you instant results. Its impact takes time to set in.
Content marketing that generates organic growth is especially a long-term play.
That means that there are no shortcuts and quick fixes. Your content marketing campaigns can take as long as 90 days to start earning results. This means that the longer you wait, the longer it takes for your pipeline growth to set in.
So, the sooner you get started with end-of-year marketing, the sooner you can achieve your goals and protect your business from the slow-down period (and even into the new year).
Now that we’re in the final quarter of the year, here are a few content marketing strategy considerations to think about:
-
If you don’t act now, the new year could be a rough start
I’ve seen many businesses struggle to begin the next year right simply because they’ve failed to leverage their content marketing strategy during the last quarter of the year before.While it’s normal to see a holiday lull during this time, you can use it to your advantage by laying the foundations to earn content marketing results in the new year. If you want to see results right out of the gate, you’ll need to start to plan ahead and create content before then.
-
Be loud when your market is quiet!
Content and copywriting that generates leads is a long-term strategy. It’s about being consistent with content creation and nurturing leads by providing them with valuable videos, marketing materials and more along their buying journey.
But usually, you’re competing against a lot of noise.However, in the final few months of the year, when most of your competitors slow down, you can ramp everything up! By creating and publishing high-quality content when other brands are quiet, you can be out there, staying top of mind amongst your customers. That way, when they’re ready to engage, they think of you first.
-
Typically, people have more time right now
As the end of the year sets in, people tend to start slowing down in anticipation of the upcoming holidays. So, they typically have more time and attention for content as opposed to the more hectic early times in the year. So, how are you doing to be the brand they see and find interesting?
All of these benefits can be achieved when you have a robust content marketing strategy for the last quarter of the year and start taking action now.
6 content marketing tips for the last quarter of the year
It may already be the end of the year, but let’s face it, it’s never too late to implement a final content marketing push to finish the year strong and kickstart the new year even stronger.
Investing time to fully understand where your marketing plan is now and where you want it to go will give you a positive start to hit the ground running for the first quarter.
I’ve listed 6 content marketing tips to help you end the year on a good note:
1. Set your final goals.
The first part of your content marketing strategy is to set realistic and time-bound goals. These should be specific to your business – they’ll likely complement your broader marketing and company goals.
Here are some examples of overarching marketing goals:
- Improve brand awareness
- Boost revenue
- Increase conversions
- Improve brand loyalty
- Increase customer engagement
- Build rapport and trust among prospects and customers
- Attract strategic partners
Setting your version of these goals in the last few months of the year will mean you have a foundation to build upon.
For instance, you may want to double the November sales numbers from last year, or increase your market share by 15% over the Christmas break while competitors are all quiet.
2. Utilise Google trends.
It’s not just about being proactive with your marketing – it’s also knowing what to do that’s going to make an impact on your customers.
As the year draws to a close, pay attention to Google Trends to understand how popular a search term is especially within this unique end-of-year period.
This allows you to see the search frequency of a given term based on country, search volume, and even its relative popularity compared to other terms. What’s great about Google Trends is that it also gives you a relative understanding of trending topics and helps you avoid topics that are losing popularity.
As always, the key to an excellent content marketing strategy is to produce relevant content that will pique the interest of your audience.
3. Create the right social media content.
It’s undeniable that people are on social media for hours a day.
So, it’s always a good channel to reach customers and engage leads. But don’t be posting on there “just because”. The end of the year period offers unique opportunities to post about seasonal themes and topics such as Christmas, school holidays, DIY projects while people have time off and more.
Don’t just be on social media. Be on there in a creative way that will raise brand awareness in a relevant way that your ideal customer would enjoy.
4. Be content consistent.
Brand reliability is critical in content marketing. A consistent message helps solidify a common theme that people will remember. You also want to make sure your content is published regularly so that your audience is exposed to you in an ongoing way.
That’s why I recommend the use of a content calendar.
With a content calendar, you can plan what content to publish and when. A calendar also ensures that you’re more strategic about the content (rather than just randomly posting about topics as they occur to you, which many businesses do!).
Just like your content strategy, your content calendar can be as easy or complex as you need it to be.
5. Diversify your content.
Not all content types are made equal. Therefore, it’s important to determine which type of content would benefit your business goals.
Your content portfolio should reflect the goals of your business. For instance, if your goal is to build brand authority, consider gathering data for reports and whitepapers that will be relevant to your industry.
You can also produce video content for your audience to mix things up or offer a podcast for people who are always on the go. This way, you cater to a wider range of customers and potential clients who have different preferences when it comes to interacting with your brand.
Having a content marketing matrix is a great place to gather ideas for content diversification – this way, you are consistent but never boring.
6. Repurpose and update your existing content.
Want to know how to dramatically improve your content quality and speed up your creation process at the same time?
Also known as “content recycling”, this is when you reuse all or elements of existing content to expand that content’s reach.
To put it simply, you don’t need to write every post, record every podcast, or film every video from scratch every single time. Instead, you can recycle former content and republish it by doing the following:
- Take an existing blog article and apply it to a different buyer persona
- Use a blog as a podcast or video script
- Transcribe a video into an article
- Take an older piece of content and pull out relevant soundbites to share on social media
- Take a piece of content and turn the facts and stats into an infographic
Market your brand strongly at the end of the year
Whether you are looking to wrap up the year with a win, or gain a head start in the new year to come, remember to keep your content marketing efforts strong all year long, including those often overlooked fourth-quarter months.
Here at Melotti Media, we have hundreds of satisfied clients who have achieved overarching success after hiring us to work on their content marketing initiatives. While we’re not the cheapest amongst the many Australian copywriting agencies, our expertise and knowledgeable team of professional marketing copywriters ensure you get the quality you deserve (and what you paid for!).
But don’t just take our word for it.
Investing in professional copywriting services is a time and money-saving way to produce the kind of quality brand messaging and content marketing that sells and builds your online presence – especially during the holiday season.
Be in the right place at the right time by ensuring ongoing, consistent communications with your audience to build and maintain brand recognition – especially during the final months of the year.
Don’t leave the final months of the year to chance. Being proactive with your content means that you’ll continue to gain traction and fight the quiet-time trends that your competitors simply accept.
How can Melotti Media help?
At Melotti Media, we understand that you want to achieve business success – and a powerful way to do this is by implementing content marketing and brand messaging that will drive results.
However, as the year comes to a close, you may find that you’re time-poor and spread thin or you still have a lot of unanswered questions.
You don’t need to worry!
At Melotti Media, we can assist with all your content marketing and copywriting needs while you focus on what matters most to you – growing your business.
Let’s start earning the results your business deserves!
To speak to your trusted message marketers and copywriters, email us at enquire@melottimedia.com.au
We can sharpen your words to achieve your goals today!
The Melotti Media Team
Melotti Media | Copywriting & Message Marketing Bureau
www.melottimedia.com.au
