The pool season is coming to a close, but that does not mean your work is slowing down. Even as you are closing up your customers' pools and handling repairs that need to be made, it is also time to consider taking some steps to help you retain their business in the coming year.
There's no promise that your customers will return to you next year, even if you think you have a good relationship with them. In many ways, what you do now in the off-season will play a significant role in what occurs in the coming months. Off-season marketing is a must for the pool and spa industry. If you are a maintenance company or a retail business, you can do several key things to remain engaged with your clients throughout the winter months, so they think of you during the first few weeks of summer. Here are some strategies.
1. Stay Active on Social Media
Social media is one of the essential tools for achieving success with your clients throughout the year. That does not change during the winter months. Learn to leverage social media as a way to stay in touch and continue to build your brand. You can do that in various ways, such as providing answers to common questions, encouraging people to plan, and gathering insight into the care packages you offer. The key here is to stay in front of people.
2. Email Marketing
Email marketing is another core way to promote your pool business. It lets you stay in touch with your clients through emails that offer them valuable information, insights, and tips. For example, your clients may not be using their pool right now, but they may need repairs or construction on it for the spring. They may want some insight into what that means. You can send a few emails about early bird pricing or just communicate the value of having a pool. Talk to people who may be moving or those thinking about upgrading to an all-season spa.
3. Mailers & Postcards
While you may wish to wait until early spring to send out a lot of materials, there are some great reasons to get started now. First, it will take some time to plan out the scope of this type of campaign, so you want to work with your designer and team to create a winning campaign. You may want to try something new this year that could help you to get more responses. If you do product marketing, you may want to invest more heavily in the process, such as getting better images and creating a more elaborate or thorough mailer.
The importance here is to get ready for pool season. As early as March in many areas, you can begin to mail these off. That means in January and February, you need to be planning your campaign so that it is ready to launch. Doing some work during the early winter months to create a plan to attract customers is vital.
4. Brush Up on Your Marketing
Next, dive deeper into your marketing. If you want to increase your business later, you must invest the time now. Consider the buyer’s journey and how you can connect with and support your customers through it. This may also be an excellent time to reach out to a marketing team that can help you. While you are not in the busy season, you may have a few more minutes to focus on growing your company. Explore a few ways to do that.
5. Try Something New
There are a lot of marketing tips out there that could help you to build your business. The key here is to define your brand and find ways to let others know about it. For example, you may want to start an Instagram and create some videos for it. That’s a great way to help people through their pool problems and build up your company’s brand. You may wish to work on updating and modernizing your website to help provide better resources for your clients.ç
Even the biggest companies engage in marketing during the fall and winter months because it is critical to growing the business and staying top of mind with customers.
