themselves surprised when Christmas is only four days away. I can tell you that, for my 38 years on this planet, Christmas has always been on Dec. 25. Not once has it changed. So, why it sneaks up on people is a mystery to me. Don’t allow your slow season to sneak up on you without a plan to at least try to make it better. Before I conclude this article, I want to give you an alternative to planning more sales and marketing for the slow season. This is not an alternative I would advise, but one I know that a few people subscribe to. You could, as some business owners do, simply accept the slow period and do nothing. The reasoning for this is typically that they don’t want to push and spend money when no one is paying attention. Depending on your business model, this might very well make sense. But make sure you fully analyze your situation before resorting to this approach, or you may be missing out on your next big marketing success. Regardless of which direction you go, don’t let the slow season sneak up on you. If you’re going to work hard and grow through it, make the plans now. If you’re going to not stress about it and take a vacation, then make those plans. Either way, make sure you have a plan.
about how much that helps sales during one of the slowest times of the year for Mickey.
understand their customers. In the end, they always seem to crash and burn. Brown and Ellis see growth as a marathon, not a sprint. This perspective is sobering, but it isn’t exactly fresh in the world of business advice. The real wisdom “Hacking Growth” has to offer is how to run smarter, not faster. Ellis illustrates this right at the beginning of the book. As a marketing manager of a small game studio competing with the likes of Sony and Microsoft, he had to do more with less. His winning strategy was to rethink how the studio collected and interpreted sales data. While this process has been one of trial and error throughout Ellis’s carrier, the underlying philosophy has remained the same: Understand your customers. “Hacking Growth” embraces all the tools of our digital age, but it sees them as a lens to create laser-focused campaigns. Rather than spam your message out to the masses, you want to engage For example, we always try to go during the slowest times of the year. One of those times happens to be January, which is the perfect time to not be in Boise. This year, we went a bit earlier than normal due to my travel plans. When we arrived, we quickly discovered that the week after New Year’s is Disney World’s marathon week. You see, Disney realized that the week after New Year’s is super slow, so they set out to change things. They did an incredibly smart thing by finding a group of people who are fanatical about their sport and created an amazing experience that these individuals would love to be a part of. Ultimately, Disney had 25,000 people register to run anywhere from a 5K up to 43 miles through all four parks. The marathon only went on for a few days, but you know what? Those 25,000 racers didn’t just run the marathon and go home. No, they brought family and friends and stayed both before and after the event to ride the rides and meet princesses and princes. They shopped in the gift shops and stayed in the hotels. They bought food and drinks and gifts. They added park-hopper tickets and so much more. I was able to get an estimate that more than 75,000 additional people were in the park on the days before, during, and after the marathon. Think
One of the primary keys to the success of this promotion is that Disney went after another group of crazy-passionate people and didn’t simply run a promotion. By targeting marathoners, they were able to get more than 75,000 extra people in the park without discounting them. In fact, the 25,000 marathon runners actually paid extra to run the marathon. When you think about the genius behind this promotion, not only did they get tons of extra revenue and room nights in a slow season, but they did it without a discount. As a bonus, they also got many of those 75,000 people to not attend during a busy season, because they were just there for the marathon. What is your slow season? Do you typically discount or just accept that it is the slow season, or do you have a plan? Can you create an event that people want to come to? Can you offer a bonus item during the slow season instead of a discount? Is it possible to find a way to get people to buy your products or services and spend additional money with you like Mickey did? So many of us simply don’t plan for the slow season. Instead, we let the season happen to us each year. It’s kind of like those people who find
Have You Heard the Good News?
in a dialogue with consumers, building a loyal fan base that snowballs over time. This humanist approach to the world of data-driven marketing is a refreshing read and extremely effective advice for entrepreneurs who are serious about growing their business.
Philippians 3:13-14 – “Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” II Corinthians 12:9-11 – “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
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