There is a lot of talk at the moment about being beach ready for the summer, but that isn’t my area of expertise. Growing your business over the summer and beyond is!

It’s fair to say that:

• The summer can see a slump in sales for many businesses.
• Many SME’s close entirely when the owner goes on holiday.
• Many business owners with school age children decrease their hours and focus during the holidays.

So how can you make sure business remains on track over the summer months?

The key to this is planning!

As a small business owner you will be no doubt used to balancing, juggling and multi-tasking. Whether you like doing it, whether you feel you do it well or whether it is a case of needs must, then help is at hand to make sure your marketing and your business doesn’t suffer during the holiday season. Plan your marketing in advance and maintain a presence out there whether you are at your desk or not.

Do you have a marketing plan?

If you do, then this plan will help act as a reminder of what needs doing and when by. A plan helps to focus the mind and act as a checklist to make sure that nothing gets forgotten or missed out. If you don’t have a marketing plan, then it isn’t too late. You can introduce a marketing plan into your business at any time. A plan will make you accountable as well as creating processes to streamline and manage your marketing.

Plan and plan and plan

As I mentioned previously, planning is key. Many of your regular marketing activity and campaigns can be written and designed in advance and then scheduled. This ensures your content is regular and consistent and also not rushed when you panic at the end of term when the holidays are looming.

For example, when you use online tools like Mail Chimp, newsletters and email marketing can be written at any time and then “scheduled”. This makes sure you don’t overwhelm readers in a short period of time with too much information. The concept here is called drip feed marketing.

Social media posts to the likes of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ can also be written and prescheduled using a tool called Hootsuite. These tools are mainly free to use so they are very useful to small businesses.

Recycle and reuse

I am referring to reusing your content. Have you spent hours writing a blog and then posted it once on your blog page and then started dreading the next one to be written? It is all about recycling. There is no need to recreate your content time after time! If the first draft was worthy enough of going on your blog page why not use it on social media, in your newsletter, on your webpage or in your monthly networking pitch? The wording or word count may need tweaking to meet the audience's needs or to fit the spec for the press or character restrictions on social media, but don't let good content go to waste.

There is no right or wrong answer, but these tips will help you get organised.

Note from Buckinghamshire Business First

If you would like to submit your own article to possibly feature on the Buckinghamshire Business First website, please send your article or suggestion to news@bbf.uk.com.