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    How To Market With The Seasons

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    Photo by Chris Lawton on Unsplash

    I don’t know if it’s because I’m a stationery nerd, but Septembers always feel more like new starts than Januarys.

    It probably is the stationery thing, you know. On my first date with my husband, we spent about half an hour bonding over the Staples catalogue. (Yes. I am aware of how sad that makes us sound, but we’re very happy so we don’t care!)

    Having moved my task management system online over the summer, this is the first year since I was, ooh 11, that I haven’t swanned around WHSmith or Paperchase picking out my school year planner. It’s only the 2nd of September, and I’m already debating buying one anyway, just for the new paper smell.

    This is when my new year starts, when I gear up for change and re-imagine what my life looks like. It’s in September when I’m feeling energized, optimistic, and fresh. January, when I’ve spent all my money on Christmas and it’s all dark and gloomy outside, is not my time.

    But wait, this is a blog about copywriting and marketing, let’s not get too hung up on me, shall we? I promise, there is a point to this post and it will help your business.

    “What is it?” I hear you cry in exasperation as you scroll through new productivity planners on Amazon.

    Well, just like me, your customers think seasonally. And so should you.

    Why should you think seasonally?

    There are two reasons why thinking seasonally in your business is a helpful tool:

    Youthworker insight alert!

    As human beings, we like rituals and rhythms, new starts and seasons. As a species whose lives revolved around when you could farm, when you could fish, when you needed to store food, and when you needed to scrape the ice off of the top of your basket and get gathering again, we are biologically tuned into the idea that things change on a cycle. We like to set moments in our year where we can reflect, plan, remember, or celebrate. And our thoughts and emotions (read: buying habits) are massively affected by this.

    In times gone by, most cultures had set moments in their calendar where the changing of the seasons was noted. A harvest celebration, a feast to mark the end of Winter, the first flowers budding. And almost all cultures had rituals involving the passing of time in people’s lives. Initiation ceremonies, first communions, marriages, funerals, all of these mark the passing of the seasons (of life and the year). 

    In many western cultures, we have fewer and fewer of these universally accepted rituals as time goes on. A lot of the religious rituals have been swapped for secular ones (Easter being a prime example, there are definitely more Instagram posts about egg baskets than there are about crucifixes) and this is fairly normal for a more multi-cultural society. But, because of the way we are wired, we still need some kind of marker.

    Now, back to business

    From a more traditional marketing perspective, as a business owner, your sales and successes will fluctuate throughout the year. Depending on your specific area – the things you sell and the space you occupy – you may do better in the summer, or in the run-up to Christmas. For example, if you sell garden machinery, you’ll probably be a bit quieter in January when most of us are hiding indoors and not thinking about our lawns. But July is going to be manic!

    Tapping into these two reasons for seasonal behaviour can give you insight into the way your customers think and how best to market to them at different points in the year. 

    How can you make the seasons work for you?

    Sure, you can stick to the traditional supermarket cycle of Valentine’s Day, Easter, Summer holidays, Back to school, Halloween, Christmas. But, let’s face it, you’re not going to stand out in a crowded marketplace when everyone else is doing the same thing. And, frankly, it’s boring. 

    Let’s be a bit more creative, shall we?

    Research

    The best way to develop a seasons approach to your marketing is to do our favourite thing: research! Consider these questions as a start:

    • What seasons do your customers most engage with?
    • What stages, in their life and in their year, are they talking about on social media and message boards?
    • What seasons (in life or the calendar year) do your products most fit with?
    • What seasons do you get most excited about?

    Brainstorm

    There are so many different seasons that you can tie into your messaging.

    Sit down, grab a pen and paper, and think through the year. What events and periods spring to mind?

    • Spring cleaning, 
    • Tax deadlines,
    • Summer holidays,
    • Back to school (even if your customers haven’t been at school for a while now)
    • Christmas.

    Then think about life seasons; things that might be concerning your customers right now and affecting the way they think and purchase.

    • A new baby
    • Coming out of the pandemic
    • Finally having an empty nest now the kids have gone to Uni
    • Ending a relationship
    • Getting married
    • Buying their first house.

    Tying it all together

    So, you’ve got a better idea about the seasons that chime with your audience, now you need to make the connections between your products or services and the seasons you’ve decided to focus on. 

    Now, a word of warning: shoehorning a “back to school” call to action into every one of your emails, web pages, and social media posts through August and September won’t work (unless you actually are WHSmith, in which case “Hi, thanks for dropping by!”. 

    Nope, you want to tap into people’s emotions around the different seasons, but you don’t want to hammer it too much. 

    Think about it this way: If you sell soft home furnishings – cosy throws, inviting cushions, chic bedspreads – then you probably want to connect with the warm cosy feelings that your customers will have around Christmas holidays. Encourage them to fill their homes with tactile fabrics to snuggle up under whilst drinking their mulled wine. Paint a picture of how visiting family won’t be shivering up in the guest room if they have a couple of your bedspreads ready in the airing cupboard. 

    Alternatively, in September, you might talk about how a little piece of home can help student halls feel less lonely. Thus encouraging every mum of an 18-year-old to buy one of your blankets to pack on top of the IKEA crockery set.

    The possibilities are endless. 

    And, you know, if you’re struggling you could always spend some time talking with an expert…

    I promise I don’t bite…especially when I’m feeling all optimistic this time of year!

    Get in touch!

    Carry on reading

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    How to Direct – and get more sales!

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    You‘ve been with me for the last few weeks as I’ve explored how my youth work superpowers can boost your business (in what we’re definitely NOT calling my copywriting philosophy).

    We started with how making your audience feel listened to can build loyalty.

    Then we moved on to the power of empathy in building a connection with your customers.

    Now we’re at number 3 on my list: directing.

    Now, fair warning, this one is the hardest to get right and the easiest to get terribly wrong (both in youth work and in marketing).

    While the first 2 superpowers involve putting your target audience in the driving seat, you’re in charge of the wheel for this last one. So, strap in, check your mirrors, and pay attention to your blind spot. Let’s go!

    What is a Critical Friend?

    In my youth work training, one of the most interesting things I learnt about (aside from the fact that a teenager’s brain is literally rewiring itself while they deal with Math and English lessons) was the concept of the critical friend.

    A lot of youth workers want to be friends with the young people they work with. We want to be seen as cool, hip, with it, accepted. Sometimes that stems from not being accepted as a teen themselves, and sometimes it stems from a well-meaning wish to make life lovely for everyone.

    The thing is, young people have enough friends. And they’d rather hang out with someone their own age and talk about video games/politics/how annoying Mr Stevens is than listen to you try and make a conversation about Fortnite as if you’re one of them. 

    The one thing young people are short on, however, is someone to fill the middle ground between their friends and their parents. They don’t want someone to tell them what to do, and they sometimes need more than a mate who will just agree with them. 

    A critical friend is someone who cares about the person, and asks provocative questions or introduces new information to help them see things from a slightly different perspective. 

    Let me give you an example: 

    Owen is trying to decide which A Levels he wants to do next year. 

    His parents want him to be a doctor – respectable, honest, well-paid profession. So: physics, chemistry, biology, maybe maths. He thinks that he might be really good at developing video games. So: graphic design, art, IT. Home is currently full of massive arguments over ambition and “wasting your life” and “you don’t understand me”.

    As a youth worker, it’s not my job to tell Owen that he should listen to his parents because they know what’s best for him (as much as his parents would like me to!). It’s also not my job to go “sure, whatever you want”. My job is to help him look at the situation from a different perspective, and to make sure he has all the information. Has he researched game developer career paths, why is he sure this is the job for him? Has he discounted medicine just because it’s what his parents want? I can help him research all these things, and maybe point him in the direction of game developers and doctors so he can make his own decision.

    How to be a critical friend to your customers

    As business owners, sometimes it can be too easy to focus on trying to get everyone to like you (literally when it comes to social media engagement) or on constantly selling your stuff. But if you only use social media to try and sell (or for “behind the scenes” photos of your dog) then you’re missing a trick. 

    Teenagers don’t want to be told what to do. It makes them instantly feel like doing the opposite. They can’t help it, it’s wired into their brains. But they are open to learning from someone else’s perspective.

    Your customers are the same. They don’t want the hard sell, but they are open to being convinced that what you sell can improve their lives. They want to be directed, to be shown a different path.

    You do this by gently leading them to helpful sources of information or a different perspective. This can make all the difference in the world between being a business that is just trying to get their money, and a brand they connect with.

    Blog posts and emails play a big part in authentic directing. Use them to tell your audience about you and your brand, sure. But also use the opportunity to widen their perspective on relevant issues, to expand their knowledge on topics related to your product or service, and to introduce them to interesting people. 

    Hazards on the road

    (It would appear that I’m sticking with the driving metaphor…which is weird, considering I could have gone the whole orchestra conductor route…but here we are, I’m not rewriting it all now, I have a baby to put to bed!)

    As great as “telling people what to do” might sound to you (“you need to buy this…”) it’s important to remember what directing is NOT:

    • Bullying your audience. Just because you’ve positioned yourself as an expert, doesn’t mean you get to harangue them.
    • Using your influence over your audience to manipulate them (the “friend” part is important: you should care about their wellbeing).
    • Making your audience feel “less than” if they don’t buy from you (all these new subscriber pop-ups that say “Subscribe” vs “I don’t want to hear about cool stuff” are not kind, and will not build a community. They’ll just piss people off. 

    It’s a journey

    There’s a reason that directing is superpower number 3. It has to come on the back of superpowers 1 and 2. In order to direct in a way that is authentic, empowering, and ethical, you need to have listened to your customers and spent time empathising with their situations. When you’re directing you’re showing them how their lives could be better in some way if they worked with you. But you won’t know if that is true unless you’ve done the first 2 things. 

    If you want to build a deeper relationship with your customers, to increase their loyalty to your brand, and to make them your biggest advocates (walking Facebook ads that you don’t have to pay for), then you need every step in the process.

    And if you’re struggling then I’d love to help, because I want more authentic businesses out there, connecting with their audiences and enriching their lives.

    Why not come and chat over on Instagram – I have kitten photos!

    Carry on reading

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    How to Empathise – and build relationships

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    Last week we took a deep dive (see, marketing speak, I can’t even help myself. I’ve been listening to too many American podcasts) into how listening to your target audience can boost your business.

    This week, we’re moving onto my youth work superpower #2: Empathising

    Now, let’s get the important things out of the way before we get started: I am British, so unless I am writing for an American business (which I do frequently) my empathising happens with an “s” and not a “z”. If this offends you then may I politely (and very British-ly) ask you to have a quiet word with yourself. 

    Excellent, you’re back! Doesn’t that feel better?

    The dictionary definition of empathy is…not going to help us here. Sorry. Empathy isn’t about dictionary definitions. It’s not about your head, it’s about your heart. You need to make an emotional connection. Here are some ways of building that connection:

    Don’t make assumptions

    Everyone is different. Just because you think one way doesn’t mean everyone else will too. This also means that the business tool of creating your perfect customer avatar will only take you so far.

    It also means that the way you think about your product or service isn’t the way anyone else thinks about it. Seriously, no- one in the world thinks about it as you do. You can’t assume that when they look at your offer they’ll understand exactly how much it can benefit them. You can’t assume that they will care about the particularly beautiful colour green that you spent 3 days combing the Pantone website for. 

    You need to start from where they are in relation to what you’re selling. Because your perspective isn’t helpful: you’ve poured your heart and soul into your business for countless hours. They’ve scanned a Facebook ad and have ended up on your landing page. You need to do a lot more work to convince them it’s what they need.

    Pay attention to feedback

    We talked about the power of listening last week, but listening is no good unless you’re paying attention. One of the most powerful things you can give another human being is validation that their pain matters. It might seem a little trivial to apply this to copywriting. After all, surely I’m just trying to sell people stuff? 

    Well, not really. As businesses we try to solve people’s problems. We listen to their pain, and we acknowledge that it matters, and then we show them a solution (if we have it). That’s not trivial at all. 

    So, if your customers have given you feedback (or given someone else feedback about you) then you can’t just brush it off. Their experience, their pain matters. And it should make a difference to your products and your messaging.

    Put yourself in their shoes

    Oh my goodness this phrase has been overused. “Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes before you judge them…” blah, blah, blah. The problem with that is that you’re a mile away and they have no shoes!

    I jest, and I’m pretty sure I’ve unwittingly stolen that from some comedian, but it makes a good point!

    If you’re putting yourself in someone else’s shoes then you’re still you. So, as a youth worker I learnt that this is more than working out how you would feel in a situation. You have to work out how they feel in that situation. And to do that you need to know them. You have to put yourself in their brain (which is not quite as compelling, or family-friendly an image now I come to think of it).

    Understand them

    While you need to remember that each of your customers is an individual, and not a generic avatar, you need to try to get to know them as much as you can. Figure out their wants and needs. Work out what they’re seeing as they go about their lives and who they’re listening to. Discover their pain points, their motivations, and what they care about.

    Research is your best friend in this situation (and you can find out more about how to do it effectively here), an educated guess isn’t going to cut it. If you’re going to bother at all, then you need to reach out to your audience in an authentic way. Empathy doesn’t work if you’re phoning it in. No one wants to tell their problems to someone who is half-listening while making notes and wondering what clever name to give their customer avatar when they get back to the office.  

    Serve, solve and then sell

    If you want to build an authentic relationship with your audience, one that creates loyal customers and loud advocates who trust you and your expertise, then you’ll be pleased to know that I have an easy-to-remember formula. And you need to check them off in the right order.

    The first thing you should aim to do is to serve. When you’re beginning the relationship you need to offer something helpful, something useful. Focus on helping your customer. Whether you do this by pointing them in the direction of useful resources, giving them real value in your lead magnet, or offering them a community of like-minded people is up to you. But your first thought should be to give.

    Your second thought? Solve. How can you help them solve the problems that you have discovered and validated? Maybe it’s your product or service? Or maybe its a tip that you used to solve a similar problem in the past. 

    Only when you’ve thought about serving your customers and solving their problems should you be moving on to selling them something. Unless the cheesy used-car salesman thing is what you’re going for, these previous two steps establish trust and your own expertise, as well as reassuring them that you aren’t trying to take them for a ride. You care about them as a person, not just as a credit card with legs.

    And there we come to the root of why empathy is such a genius ingredient in business:

    It’s about being human and recognising someone else’s humanity.

    …and I’m going to spell recognising with an s too, so you’ll need to make your peace with that. 

    Carry on reading

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    Cancel the Time Management Gurus!

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    I started my business when Erica was 8 months old, and 8-year-old Ethan was homeschooling because of the pandemic.

    As it often does for mothers I’ve discovered, my copywriting journey began by starting my own blog about the trials and tribulations of motherhood. In my case, I started the blog (http://www.secondtimearound.blog it’s pretty good, you should totally check it out) to talk about the weirdness of my situation: widowed with a 2-year-old son at 31, now remarried and expecting another child. A friend reached out and asked if I’d like to write some blogs for her sustainable fitness brand about keeping fit and being a mum. She paid me £40 and I was pretty chuffed that someone else wanted to read what I’d written. 

    How I found copywriting

    Before Erica was born I was balancing 10 hours a week of bookkeeping from home (that I was terrible at) with the part-time position of Chief Exam Invigilator at a local secondary school (which I was awesome at, but wasn’t exactly inspiring). Neither of these were going to work once Erica was born, especially when Covid hit and finding childcare was an impossibility. I was going to have to think of something else.

    Nick was listening to a business podcast and heard about this thing called Upwork, where freelancers could find paid writing opportunities. It suddenly dawned on me that I could actually get paid to write things. 

    This is a pretty familiar story on the copywriting podcasts. People who have always found writing easy, through school, college, and work. People who get asked by their friends all the time to “just take a look over my CV”, or “what do you think of the wording in this essay paragraph”, don’t necessarily think this is a skill that others will pay for. Surely everyone finds writing fairly easy? 

    It seems not. It seems that I had a marketable skill just sitting there, only pulled out for heartfelt messages in birthday cards and wedding speeches. So in I jumped, going from zero in September 2020 to July 2021 and my first $2k month. I’m incredibly proud of my progress so far, but I’m not going to pretend it’s been easy.

    Why time management tips don’t work for parents

    I’m an all-or-nothing kind of girl. When I decide to do something new I want to find out everything I can about it. I’ll read all the books and scour all the websites until I know all there is to know. These days it’s all about the podcasts. Partly because they’re so very in right now, and partly because I haven’t had the time to crack a book since January 2020 (can’t think why).

    There are about a million (at a conservative estimate) podcasts about running a business, and a million more about copywriting and digital marketing. I’ve been binging them all on the school run and in my earbuds while I feed the baby to sleep, clean the kitchen, make dinner and sort the washing. 

    As you’d expect, among the common topics of conversation, time management features quite heavily. For a lot of freelancers, or solopreneurs, their business starts of as a “side hustle” that they fit in to their evenings and weekends, once they’ve got home from their regular jobs. So time is a factor. 

    But not all busyness is fixable.

    I was listening to one particular podcast the other day, where a time management guru asked the listeners whether they valued entertainment or learning more. And challenged them to look at whether the way they spent their time reflected this. Basically, if you say you value learning, but you spend 3 hours every evening watching Netflix instead of working through the digital marketing course you bought or starting your novel, then you’re kidding yourself. 

    As I drove along the road from school I realized why this particular podcast episode was making me cross. It was because I’d consistently heard from business guru after business guru that we all have time to do the things we want to do (workout, learn a skill, start a business); we’re just not looking hard enough. 

    Trust me. I’m looking pretty hard. And, unless you want me to stage my client calls at 3 in the morning while I’m breastfeeding a baby, I’m a little confused as to where all these magic pockets of time in my day are. Because I do actually value learning. But the last time i sat down to look through the digital marketing course I bought I realized that there were two loads of washing to put away, one to put in the machine, and the breakfast things still hadn’t made it to the dishwasher. 

    2 weeks ago I downloaded a 14 day bootcamp from a very well-known copywriting business that rhymes with snottypackers. Now I appreciate a no-nonsense tone as much as the next impatient person. But Day 1 focused on setting up your workspace, and argued that unless you had a specific area that was just for you to work in, with a door you could close, and scheduled times that you coud go and do that work with no distractions, then basically you were playing at this whole business thing and no-one would take you seriously.

    Life doesn’t work like that if you have kids, especially small ones. 

    Copywriting and kids – the reality

    This blog post for example. I was meant to write it after Erica went down for her afternoon nap. But she didn’t. After I’d spent 45 minutes trying to get her to drift off. So it was written in 3 minute blasts between getting her food, getting her to eat the food and not throw it all over the dining room, changing her nappy, explaining to her that eating chalk was not sensible, and finally giving in and finishing it off later in the evening.

    But I am a freelance copywriter. I have regular clients who pay me for work and give me glowing testimonials. My earnings pay bills. And I’m serious about growing my business. So where does that leave me in this story?

    Maybe there are a whole bunch of people sat on their bottoms watching Schitt’s Creek who just need to be told to get up and work towards their goal. But I reckon that (especially during the pandemic) there are even more people who are trying to follow their dream of a small business or a freelance career whilst teaching their daughter long division, battling zoom parents evenings, and bouncing toddlers who suddenly decide sleep is for losers at 18 months old.

    I want time management and business tips from people who are making it work while balancing a baby on one hip. I want to hear their top tips for how to deal with a pile of client work when they were up every hour the night before. 

    I really don’t want to hear fresh-faced and groomed women on Instagram lives talking about how getting up an hour before their children has been the best thing they could ever do for their business, as now they can get their workout/meditation/journalling/scheduling of social posts done before they embrace their cherubs over breakfast.

    I want to hear from the parents typing blogs one-handed (not that I’m doing that right now, obviously….) whilst holding a poorly preschooler, hoping little hands don’t lean over and delete the last paragraph. I want to hear from the business owners who arrive at school 15 minutes early for pick up so they can answer emails while the baby is contained in the car seat.

    And most of all, I want to hear from them because I’ve spent the last year struggling with my brand voice and communications. I didn’t want to post about the realities of running a business as a Stay at Home Mum, because I was worried clients (and potential clients) would think I wasn’t a professional. I didn’t want them to think I was half-assing my work. 

    But, if anything, I work harder because of my limitations. Just because a blog post might be concepted while I cook spaghetti bolognese doesn’t mean it’s any less of an effective marketing tool. Just because I might be answering their email at 2am while I’m feeding Erica doesn’t mean I’m “phoning it in”. Just because I’m not at my desk (or in a hipster coffee shop) from 10 till 4 doesn’t mean I’m not a credible business woman. I’m just slightly more covered in humus than business women tend to be. 

    So, podcast hosts: bring on the mess and the honesty, and lead me to the women (and men) who I know are knocking it out of the park while literally holding the baby!

    And if you need a copywriter with great time management and multitasking skills (who may or may not be covered in humus) to give your website a polish, your emails the relatable touch, or to inject new blood into your blogs, then give me a call!

    EDIT: You can now find my 8 Tips for Entrepreneur Parenting here. And listen to me talking about all this with the Filthy Rich Writer team on their podcast here.

    Carry on reading