Photo: Contributed

When the dog days of summer begin and your business starts to be affected by clients’ holidays, it’s a great opportunity to develop your fall marketing plan.

There are two great times of the year to do planning and the one that is most often overlooked is summer.
In August, conduct a review of the first part of the year and set forth a plan for the fall to finish the year with a bang.

Develop a top 10 list of things to accomplish in August that will help you through the summer doldrums and accelerate your business through the fall. If you wait till mid September to start you won’t be ready until Thanksgiving.

Start now with 10 summer business development ideas:

1. Deepen your relationships. Catch up with that client or business associate and ask “how ya doin’? It will pay off in the fall when you need to leverage the relationship to assist you with your project or new venture.

2. Build your sales team. Think about the ideal person to help you with your business and spend the summer interviewing people for the busy fall months. Use the summer to train part-time staff for the fall.

3. Time-line for your fall marketing strategy. You can think about things like the dates that you will host your major event or the dates for your press release.

4. New product launch. Put the final touches on you new product launch. By September 15th the kids are back in school and most people are back into full business mode and more receptive to your call or product push.

5. Work on your video strategy. Plan and shoot the videos you’ll need for your September marketing launch. It’s perfect weather to capture the video (or line up the testimonies) that will enable you to recruit new clients to your business.

6. Clean up your database. Whether you’re using Outlook, Act or any number of contact management software, review that pile of business cards you’ve collected and add them to your data base and then import them to your newsletter database.

7. Update your website. This is something we have done for the last 5 years in a row. In fact the new Floodlight site will be launched shortly. A new or updated website will ensure that all of your information is current.

8. Create your blog. It always amazes me how many people have not added this simple technique to their marketing arsenal. A blog enables you to speak directly to all of your clients past, present and future, providing them with relevant information and ideas.

9. Develop your Social Media Strategy. The big 3, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Learn to use these tools and add their Icons to your website which will encourage your followers to share your content with their personal networks

10. Plan some Rest and Relaxation. We get so wrapped up in the daily running of our business that we often forget to take time off for ourselves to recharge our batteries.

Summer means renewing old friendships, meeting with long time business associates, taking care of you and preparing to Build Your Business in the fall.