Stopping or accelerating this December?
September is well under way, and we don’t have a long time till it’s Christmas season.
I love Christmas season for a variety of reasons. Family hangouts, catching up with friends, the parties and even buying gifts that destroy my bank account.
But when that season comes, work and productivity across multiple industries slows down. Sales and marketing efforts come to a stop in most places, and it’s valid. Most companies have been running since the year turned.
If you’re running your own show like I am, we have a decision to make.
Are we slowing down in December, or are we picking up the pace?
Everyone’s always surprised when I say these because of how extreme both options are. What about just doing the same thing you’ve been doing all year?
That’s because it will not get you the results you want at the end of the year.
Most markets slow down in Christmastime, while others pick up. And so depending on your company’s capacity and your goals, you have to decide if you’re taking your foot off the gas or doubling down one more time.
My plan
The year is ending and for our business is on the way to hitting out revenue target for the year. It’s all reliant on the projects we close in the next two weeks.
About 3 new qualified leads came through over the past few weeks and talks have been had.
If we close all of them, we have a profitable month.
If we don’t close them, we end the year behind on our goal, and I really don’t want that to happen.
So for our revenue goal, we can afford to take our foot off the gas (marketing) getting to the end of the year for all the work we’ve done so far.
But there are other aspects of the business that have slacked off (typical, right?)
One goal was to have this email list cross 1,500 active subscribers by the end of the year. I’m currently sitting around 800-850.
This is my radical plan on how I’m going to do this.
1: Launch a new lead magnet before September ends.
The fastest way to grow an email list is to offer something of value in return for their email. The greater the value, the easier it is to run the campaign.
This newsletter never launched with freebies or lead magnets. I simply asked you on socials for your emails, so I can send you emails, and 800+ of you decided to sign up. It’s been a passive endeavour for the whole year. Why? I was more focused on getting into the habit of writing on a regular. But now I’m about halfway from my goal and I know to have any chance of hitting that target, I need to be radical.
2: Promote aggressively.
The lead magnet is not naturally going to attract you guys. I need to set up a time period for this campaign and lineup the content I will be creating to promote this lead magnet. It will probably look something like this
Lead magnet campaign, 2024
Production: 11th September - 20th September
Publishing: 21st September - 15th October
5 carousels on IG
5 carousels on LinkedIn
3 reels on IG
3 IG lives
I’d block time out of my week to batch create some of this stuff. And then line them up during the production period so that during the publishing period I can just do some maintenance work and keep everything running smoothly.
3: Using automations
I use Manychat for all my Instagram automations. You know the posts that I typically ask you to comment a certain word or dm me a certain word?
Yeah, that is all set up by me for things like this.
And it can get really complex sometimes, but I like to keep my automations fresh and time bound.
So they end when the campaign is done, and I can review to see how well they did.
I love them so much because they help me set campaigns up and just let it run on autopilot.
That way, I can stay present for my clients and for my personal health as well.
If you’re considering checking it out, here’s a link to grab a 30-day free trial from Manychat. I can’t recommend them enough.
This is my full marketing plan for this newsletter for the next couple months. Let me know if you enjoyed this and want to see more breakdowns like this.
If you also have questions or suggestions for what I should create as a lead magnet, my dms and email inbox is always open, just hit “reply” and let’s talk.
Till next time