Deep summer in B2B tech marketing brings to mind those classic seafaring movies about whaling schooners and man-of-wars that suddenly hit a long patch of hot weather. Perhaps your own company’s summer sales doldrums feels the same way? Like a once-animated ship now sitting listless in a dark blue ocean, white sails hanging lifeless, an impossibly bright sun beating down on the deck. With water running low and the precious rum stores under lock-and-key, the ship’s crew is put under incredible stress. Grumblings from below deck begin to bubble up, hinting at mutiny or the search for a convenient scapegoat (sailors were a superstitious lot). Eventually the ship nears a breaking point. At the brink of the crew’s heat-induced madness, a gust of wind blows life into the topsail, lifting the crew’s spirits and setting the ship back on course.
Okay, maybe your company doesn’t go through such a perilous downturn every summer but the slowdown of summer is real for many smaller tech companies. And many of those companies put their own version of the ship’s stores under lock-and-key. As you enter this summer, I recommend that you avoid the same draconian measures as those memorable sailing movies — the bosun handing out 10 lashes, mutinous crew clapped in irons, etc.
Instead, make a plan to keep your content marketing busy working for you. It’s the equivalent of keeping a bored, listless crew hard at work swabbing the deck, mending the sails and scraping away barnacles.
I’ll post something later this week on how to ensure your content marketing does not go on summer vacation with the rest of the world. After all, you never know when a hot prospect may be lurking in those deep, calm waters waiting to surface and give your company a record haul.
One marketer’s thoughts about the summer doldrums, seafaring movies, and content marketing
