The Slow-Season Plan

Why the slow season is the marketing season

Every trade in Northwest Ohio has one, and it is not the same season for each. Heating and cooling goes quiet in the spring and fall shoulder months, between the last furnace call and the first air conditioning one. Plumbing slows in summer once the freeze-and-thaw season is over. Septic and excavating stop when the ground freezes, usually January into March. Garage door work drops off in deep winter and picks up with spring cleaning. Electrical is the steadiest, with a dip in January. During the busy season nobody has time for marketing and it does not matter, because the phone rings on its own, which is exactly why the slow season is when the assets that make next season’s phone ring get built. The shops that treat it as time off are the ones buying leads at a premium six months later.

The ninety days

The list below is sequenced. Each item takes a few hours to a few days and needs nobody from outside.

• Weeks one and two: the four numbers. Sales, marketing spend, cost of marketing, and where the last twenty jobs came from. Everything after this depends on them.
• Weeks three and four: the Google listing. Run the ten-field self-check, fix what is wrong, and add photos from this year’s jobs while the crew still remembers which house was which.
• Weeks five and six: reviews. Go back through the last busy season’s closed jobs and send a request to every customer who was never asked. Most people asked for a review leave one, and a review from four months ago still counts.
• Weeks seven and eight: the website. Run the ten-second test, then write one page for the town that produced the most jobs last season and does not have a page yet.
• Weeks nine and ten: the tracking. A separate phone number for the website and one for the listing, forwarded to the office, so next season’s calls arrive with their source attached.
• Weeks eleven and twelve: the list. Every customer from the last two years, with an email or a mailing address, in one place. That list is the cheapest channel the business will ever own and most shops do not have it.

What not to do in the slow season

Do not sign a new vendor in the slow season because the phone is quiet and it feels like something should be happening, since the quiet is the season and not a problem the vendor will fix. Do not launch anything that needs the phone answered by someone who is not there. Do not spend the busy season’s money on reach that cannot be tracked.

The check at the end

At day ninety, the four numbers exist, the listing is right, the review count moved, one new town page is live, the tracking numbers are ringing, and the customer list exists. If those six are done, the next busy season is already different, and the owner can judge it against a number instead of a feeling.