EP. 18: GET SET FOR SUMMER - Automate August!
What’s this episode about?
Automating elements of your business so you only have to do them once is a GAME CHANGER! And it won't just help you in August either, once they are set up, they just keep on running.
But with less than 5 weeks until the school holidays, you need to focus on the automations that are going to make the biggest difference to you and your business - and that depends on your goal for the summer.
In this episode I talk through the key automations (and focus areas) for 3 of the most common summer business goals:
1) You want to maintain or drive sales
2) You want to build a warm audience for September
3) You want to stop your business for August
This is a really practical episode so grab a pen and paper and map out your key actions and think about how you can do them little by little over the next few weeks.
BUT
If you are thinking that you really need someone to just sit you down and help you get it done, you are in luck!
I'm going to be running a two hour workshop where I can help you nail your plan and work out what you need to do (and when!).
You're going to finish the session feeling really calm, confident, in control and ready to enjoy summer with your kids, knowing that your business is going to keep going and in September, when you turn your full attention back to work, it is going to be ready for you to start making real progress in it.
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Read the transcript:
NOTE: This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool. Please forgive any typos or errors.
S1E18: Get Set for Summer: Automate August
[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to growing pains. The marketing podcast for parent and baby brands who want to grow and get more consistent sales, but without the overwhelm of feeling like you have to be online 24 7, I'm Sophie, your host, and a Facebook and Instagram ad strategist who specializes in parent and baby brands as well as a mom of two.
Join me each week as I alongside some wonderful guests, she had practical tips and advice about how you can use and combine marketing strategies to get more impact for your effort.
Hello. And welcome to this week's episode. This is the second in the get set for summit series. So if you haven't listened to the first episode, make sure you go back it's episode 17. And that one we're talking all about getting your head around how much time you're going to have, what your non-negotiable work stuff is, and really kind of identifying what a great summer would look like for you.
When it comes to your personal life, as well as business as well. [00:01:00] So go back and listen to that one. If you haven't already. There's also some free downloadables that go with that one? That there is a great workbook. To help you kind of get it all out on paper and really see what you're working with. And then there's also a summer holidays planner.
Which has good overview of the whole six weeks and then a tab for each week. So you can literally plan out what you're doing and how much time you've got with, with the kids, how much time you've got for work. And also how much time you've got for yourself. So go back and listen to that.
This episode is all about automating August. And the reason we're talking about automation is because if you can automate some key things, it will free up your time. It's a great foundation for when you come back in September. Cause once you've automated something, you don't have to automate it. And actually it's going to give you more time back. It's going to mean people can come into your world, join your email sequence and get nurtured.
And get to know you without you doing a thing or being present, you can be doing whatever you want. But the kind of automations that you need to prioritize. Cause I'm [00:02:00] really conscious. We're five weeks out at the point of recording this less than five weeks actually. You're already kind of trying to keep on top of staff, keep on top of life, keep on top of kids and work.
You don't have a huge amount of time to suddenly create these. Huge automations, get new stuff in place. You really are just trying to get through it and get to the summer. So don't want to burden you with loads of stuff that you have to do.
I want you to prioritize the things that are going to make the biggest difference. Now, really the stuff that's going to make. The biggest difference really depends on your goals. If you are really going to go for sales over summer that's gonna look very different to, if you want to warm leads up ready for September.
And again, that's going to look really different if actually your goal is to stop your business for the whole of August. I'm not working at all. All at all. Three are totally possible. It's just a case of prioritizing the right things. So that's what we're talking about in this episode.
What you need to do to either go for sales over summer. Warm up your audience for September or totally stop your business.[00:03:00] So let's start with, you want to either maintain your sales over summer, keep the sales coming in, whatever it is. It's going to depend a little bit on what you offer. So whether it's service-based or e-com.
If you're a summer product, fantastic. Should be definitely be going for sales. If you're something that's needed all year round. Absolutely.
If your clients, maybe aren't working over summer, so maybe you are service based and a lot of your clients are parents. Who are not who have young children and aren't working over summer. I like me, maybe you actually. Maybe sales isn't quite right. And you're going to be looking to warm people up. So I'm going to jump into that next.
So the fundamental funnel that I talk about all the time, where you've got your, if you think of like a V you've got your cold audience at the top, then you're warm, then you're hot. And then people that purchase from you. Okay. You're moving down the funnel. You still need to be moving people down the funnel. They need to come in at the top.
You need to convert them by getting them to sign up to your social media or email list or go on your [00:04:00] website. You need to convince them to buy, give them a reason to buy, and then they need to purchase from you. That funnel is still applicable, whether it's summer or not. What might be different is how you approach the funnel, how you normally would. It might be that your messaging is different. It might be that you do a special offer. It's maybe that you think about it in a slightly different way.
Now in terms of automation, let's go through each of those stages and look at what you could do to kind of bring some automation in and not do everything so manually. So let's look at a cold audience. So bringing new people into your world. Now, this might be one that you dial down a bit over the summer and you might focus on getting sales from your audience. You've already built.
And if you've been doing a lot of audience building already, you might find that that's absolutely fine that you've got plenty of leads in front of you. In your social media audience on your email list from people who visited your website, you might find those plenty of people there, and you don't actually need to bring lots of new people in over summer.
But it's still worth having a think about. So how [00:05:00] could you bring people into your world in a more automated way over summer? I mean the really obvious one is Facebook ads. Now Facebook ads over summer. I'm going to say a little bit hit or miss. Okay. Then they are driven by the weather and that, that is something you can't get around.
The sunny of the weather, the less people are on their phones. The more they're out enjoying themselves. So it might be that you run ads for short periods of time. Maybe you run them through. For a couple of weeks and test them, maybe you only run them over the weekends. If you find your weekend sales are really good,
you got to play around with it a little bit, but definitely think about ads, especially if users. Especially if you've used them before, if you haven't ever run ads before. Then I'm going to say now is not the right time to go through the whole setup process and start testing them. It's unlikely. You're just going to stumble across a meeting results and it's going to take up quite a lot of time and head space.
In these next five weeks. So if you haven't ever danced before, don't worry about it. If you have, and you've got some ads that worked well last year and you can turn them back on. Fantastic. The next thing [00:06:00] is referrals. Now this might not be the most obvious automation technique, but other people referring to you essentially means you don't have to do anything other than build that relationship with them. Again, if you've already got really strong referral system, if you've already got people that refer to you all the time,
Just make sure all in the next few weeks you are touching base with them, making sure they know what's going on, making sure they know you're still looking for sales over summer. Like make sure that you are, they know what you offer. And just basically just building that relationship over the next few weeks, check in with them, make sure that they are good.
The other one and this isn't automated, but I thought it was worth putting in is thinking about any instant collaborations you can do over summer. People are still on Instagram over the summer. It probably will feel like they're not, it will probably the, which will probably DEP him from also the normal.
People will be using Instagram in a different way. They might not want the salesy post quite so much. They might not be looking to buy. But they will still be on Instagram. So thinking about the kind of you know, could you do some kind of collaboration [00:07:00] series every other week, maybe you go live with someone else if you've been meaning to do it, and you haven't quite got round to it summer could be a really good time for you to do that.
Because getting in front of someone else's audience is a brilliant way of bringing new people into your world. And then you'll have the automation set up to convert them into your warm audience. So let's talk about the warm audience. What are we going to do to convert people that are already in our world to getting them to buy from us?
Now your email list is going to be a really obvious one here, especially in terms of automation. The other one is your social media. And again, social media, we can schedule emails. We can schedule. Okay. You've got four and a half weeks. If you did an extra one to two social media posts over the next four and a half weeks. And an additional email. Over the next four weeks. You'd pretty much have all the content you would need to then shed you'll up for over the summer. You need to do a little bit more. So that's a great way of just adding in drip, by drip, by drip, rather than getting into the week before the summer holidays and thinking, oh my gosh, I have got to do. [00:08:00] 20 social media posts and six emails, and this is not going to happen. And I'm just losing the plot. Okay. So think about how you can use the next four weeks. Really well. So converting warm leads.
Thinking about your social media posts and your email, what are you going to say? Do you have a, some offer? Like what, what is it they've already heard from you? And what could you say that slightly different? It might be a summer offer. It might be a new perspective on your product or service for the summer.
It might be that you can give them a, something free with every offer. It might even be that you can get them to sign up to something and then actually deliver in September, whether that's a product or a service, it might be that you can say, Sign up over August and you'll get a discount.
Or sign up now and you'll get X. Benefit or extra product. So whatever it is, like, how can you convince them? To take that next step. And then finally, you've got your hot leads and these are people who are interested. They're looking at the offer. They've got onto your website. They're almost almost ready to buy. You need to make sure that when you are [00:09:00] scheduling your Instagram and your emails, that you including some call to action, direct sales messages. Okay. You can't expect to get sales over summer without doing some really direct sales messaging. Okay. So I'm talking about.
Testimonials. And then with a call to action to buy, I'm talking about case studies I'm talking about answering frequently asked questions. I'm talking about literally laying out what you offer Claire is day and saying, if this looks good to you send me a message or if this is what you want, go onto my website to purchase.
So, whatever it is, you're going to have to make some really clear sales calls. Okay.
So quick summary for you. The or cold audience at the top of your funnel. Consider ads. If you already do them. Referrals. If you've already got those relationships and Instagram collaborations, if it's something you've been meaning to do, and you've got people that you could ask and you think would say yes. Okay.
Those are the three things I think you can automate and start bringing new [00:10:00] people into your world. Over summer without you having to do that much. If that all feels too much, you haven't done ads before you haven't got any referral partners. You don't want to do Instagram collaborations. Then really, you're going to have to focus on converting your warm and hot leads over summer. And that might mean that you're not getting as many sales as if you were bringing new people into your world.
And you might just have to accept that and have a look at how you can then manage that. For warm leads. You're going to do think about offers. You're going to think about ways to get them to commit over summer. You're going to think about Jeweling emails and social media posts. You can schedule emails so that it's an automated sequence and they literally get sent one week after another, or you can schedule them each by week. So they go on the right time and day.
Either way you can get them all set up, ready to go for the whole summer. And leave them to run. One thing I would be talking about as well, especially if your clients or customers are parents, is the fact on your social media over the next few weeks is the fact that you are still going to be open. You are still going to be your products or services are still going to be available.
You'd [00:11:00] really appreciate the support over. Summer. And that sort of thing you you want to make sure that they are really clear, they can still buy from you over summer of sales as your objective. You need to make sure that people know they can buy from you.
So the next goal we're looking at is if you just want to warm people up for September. So you're not necessarily looking to take on any new clients. You're not looking for big sales. You're not looking to onboard anyone or do big orders or anything like that. You just want to warm everyone up for summer. It's a great goal. And I would really encourage you if you're not looking for sales over summer, rather than shutting down your business completely, or even intending to kind of do a bit of ad hoc stuff over summer.
Don't just leave it till summer because it either won't get done or you'll just feel guilty the whole time and distracted. So even if you're not looking for sales, I think there's a really, really good goal to have to warm up your audience . Now for this, there are three things I think you need to think about. The first one really is.
So the first one is your [00:12:00] social media. The second one is emails. And the third one is your website. So social media. I have a think about how many posts and stories would feel good for you each week. Ava summer. Now you need to have a think about.
And by kind of what feels good to you? Partly, I mean, how many posts do you want to create upfront? And partly, I mean, how many do you think it would take for your customers and clients to still kind of know you were there and around? I would suggest two posts would be a good thing to aim for. If you do three, you know, you go out for a really lovely day and you want to kind of post about it and Instagram ad hoc.
Absolutely. But if you shared your in two posts for six weeks, Then, you know, that, that contents there, actually, if you don't want to think about Instagram for two weeks and you've got four posts scheduled to go out. You know, that's fine. Yes. In an ideal world, you'd want to be doing stories as well, and kind of engaging with your audience, keeping them warm, getting them on your email list, kind of sharing what you've been up to and that sort of thing. But in reality,
If [00:13:00] you wanted to take a couple of weeks off and you've already got those posts scheduled, that's fine. I'd definitely be thinking about those kinds of more engagement. Type tools like commenting on other people's posts, using stories, polls, that sort of thing. The last two weeks of summer holidays, when you really need to start to be like engaging people again and warming them up.
But for the first three weeks or so, like two pastes a week. Absolutely fine. Loads of your audience. It probably going to be on holiday as well. Remember. So you don't want to be pushing out so much content. That that no one's really engaging with. So, as I said before, you've got four to five weeks until there's some holidays. If you create one to two extra posts a week, you can schedule in, even if you just schedule them in for the first three to four weeks, knowing that that over summer, you might have time to create a few more, like get that done and give yourself that breathing space.
And also give yourself the opportunity to think strategically about what those pastes might be, you know, is it a great time to get some testimonials up on your grid? Is it a great time to kind of talk through a case study? Be strategic because I find that [00:14:00] often when we do posts that are ad hoc and kind of on the fly.
They're very rarely strategic. They're often like what we're thinking about right. In that moment or what we've done that day or the conversation we've just had with a client all very useful, but we need those underlying strategic ones as well. You know, answer a common question and FAQ. Sharer testimonial, or talk about your services and your products.
And then communicate with customers that you're not taking on any new clients, but if they want to join your email list, the you'll let them know when you're back from your holidays type thing. If you're an econ business, this is slightly different. And then you might not be going for sales. You might be happy just to let it take over over the summer holidays, but you do need to think about.
Whether you're going to be posting things out when you're going to be doing that. You know, do you want to be doing that every couple of days? Are you going to be doing it once a week? are you going to get someone else to do it for you? I'm going to talk a little bit more about that in a minute when the people that want to stop completely, which is totally fine, but just start to think about how do you communicate that with customers, and [00:15:00] that really is where your website comes into it. So when people are going onto your website, is there a bar at the top that tells them, you know, we're only posting things out every Monday or I won't be posting out from between these two dates, but, get your order in.
And as soon as we're back in, okay. Posted. Just make sure you communicate with your customers. Exactly what you're doing and what's right for you. It's your business. You get to decide whether you're working on or what your rules are.
It might be that some customers then don't buy from you, but ultimately it's your business and you decide what you're doing. So final thing to warm up your audience for September and things you can automate is your emails. I know that this won't surprise you because I harp on it all about the time.
Someone joins your email list. Then you can warm them up and kind of help them understand your products and services. You can tell them about yourself. You can share testimonials with them. You can share great. Pull up blog posts with them. There's so much you can share in a welcome sequence. And I would really, really recommend that you go back and listen to.
Episode 16. Which is [00:16:00] the three money-making sequences. Every business should have. I've had so much positive feedback about the episode and it literally walks you through what you need to put in your welcome sequence and how to structure it and everything like that. So I'd really highly recommend that you go back and listen to that. If you do want to set up a welcome sequence.
And at the bite be that if you're going to do your welcome sequence you might want to think about setting up a new lead magnet before summer, so it could be summer related. It could be anything really that you think your clients will be interested in, but if you want to get new people onto your list so that you can warm them up before September, make sure that in your social media posts, you're telling people about your lead magnet and reminding them. It's not enough to say at once.
You need to be reminding them. Over the six weeks that it's there in your emails, you want to be sharing the new lead magnet with your email list already and asking them to forward it on to anyone that they think might be interested. And then just in terms of the email content, just think about again, being strategic. So telling them upfront when you're working, when you're [00:17:00] not, when you'll be posting items when you're not, what do they have to look forward to when you come back? Like how can you help them after summer? Don't underestimate August In terms of embedding beliefs, sharing what you know, and making sure that people are ready to buy from you when September comes.
So the key automations here. Our sheds. Jeweling a minimum number of social media posts, Ava summer, so that, you know, you've got a foundation of posts there and you can really switch off for a few weeks if you need to. The next one is your website. Make sure it's up to date. Make sure you've got like a banner across the top telling people what's going on over summer.
And just go through it and check it all and make sure that it totally makes sense. For the messaging that you're putting on your social media and email. And then email, get that welcome sequence up and running. Make sure that if people are joining your email list, you are nurturing them over summer without having to do a thing.
And finally, the last go we're going to talk about is if you want to stop complete name, Now, the first thing I would flag is do you [00:18:00] want to stop completely or is the business going to stop completely? And that is what is really key in terms of the actions you're going to take. So if the whole business is going to stop.
Then I'm going to talk through in a minute. Exactly what I'd suggest you do to make sure that then in September, you're not going back to kind of starting from scratch and give yourself a bit of an uphill battle. If you're just going to stop over summer. And you want the business to continue.
Then really you've got four weeks to make sure that you get people in place that you can delegate to, that you can outsource to. It might be someone that just packs up orders as they come in. So that you don't have to worry about it over summer. It might be someone who can shed jewel and keep an eye on your social media so that you can actually warm up your audience for September.
It might be someone to write your emails. Everything I've been talking about. It might be someone to do your ads. There were so many things that you can outsource and delegate and yes, it takes budget to do that. But if you are investing in having a summer with your children or not working over summer, it [00:19:00] might be the sales will be high enough to cover their costs.
Or that you want to invest in that, and that's really important to you, and that is totally up to you. So, if you are going to stop the whole business these aren't so much automations, to be honest, these are more actions. I just think you need to take. So in terms of automations, these aren't necessarily quite the same. Just because I think there are some key things, actions that you need to take. The key automation I'd have, if you are going to stop is to make sure that your email list has a really great, welcome sequence on it. So even if people are joining your list and they're getting the welcome sequence,
And you could also schedule some emails if you wanted to. So even if you're not going to be working at all, you could schedule a few emails. If you're not working at all and you totally want to switch off, I actually wouldn't schedule social media posts. You need to kind of be dipping in and out social media.
Engaging with people, replying to comments, popping up stories to really warm your audience up, like putting social media posts out. If you are totally, you know what I'm talking about? Like deleted the app kind of thing. There's just [00:20:00] no point. So I would let social media go. If you're going to stop the business for the month.
I would, I would think about shooting some emails. I do think that would be a good way to keep your audience engaged and kind of doing what you're doing and actually have a look, a Brenae brown paste from it might've been last week or a few weeks ago. If you go onto our Instagram account.
Her and her team are taking it's either three or four months off over summer. They are totally off social media. They're not sending any emails. All their projects are stopped and they're just kind of working internally on their business. And having some time to rest and that's totally fine. So my first point really is.
Tell your customers that tell them that you've got young kids and you're having time off and you won't be available over summer. Like tell them what you're doing and why you're doing it. Like the amount of support Bernay brown had on that post was in sane. I saw it shared everywhere because actually it's quite inspirational.
So know that it is our business. We can stop if we want to, and that you can come back after that. And it's not the end of the world. I mean saying that she obviously is. [00:21:00] And she sells, as I said, I post she's put a huge amount of work. Into her business over the last few years. And she's in a really great place with it.
And she feels like she's confident enough to come back to it. After their break just make sure that you are super clear with customers. I'd also use it to be honest as a bit of a push for more orders for built before the summer. So whether that's signing up clients so that they're, you're ready to start with them in September, whether that is if your e-comm like getting more orders in before you close the website on X date.
Making sure that over the next few weeks you are. Putting that in your emails that you are putting on your social media, I mean, even like to the point of putting it in your email signature now, you know, just so you know, the website will be sharp from X date to X date, or I won't be taking on any new clients from X date.
Make sure you set up an email out of office, and kind of direct people to. You know, blogs on the most common questions, you know, why do you get emails? Like how can you direct people? Like, if you're wondering this click here, if you need to talk about this, you can [00:22:00] go to this person, start to think about like, who else could you refer people on to what resources can you send people to.
So that when they kind of come to you, they're not hitting a dead end. There's at least some kind of kind of conversation with them, even if it's totally automated. And then the big decision that you really need to make, and this is predominantly for Econ businesses. Is, are you going to leave your website open for browsing so people can browse all your products, but they can't buy.
Are you going to leave it totally open to buy, but it's really clear everywhere that the first date you'll be posting anything is X. Or are you just going to close the website completely and have a holding page? It says we're closed for summer. Come back in early September. And I I'd encourage you if you take that option, make sure that you can sign up to an email list on that page. So make sure you sign up to email lists and you'll be the first to know when we come back and you'll get access to our
You know, September sale or whatever it is like maybe doing an incentive for people to come and shop with you again in September.[00:23:00] There isn't a right answer to what you do with your website. It really is depending on whether you feel comfortable having the orders building up over summer and having to like ignore them and not send them out. Whether you feel like it's frustrating for people to go to a website that's open for browsing, but they can't buy, but at least they can see your products and see what you offer and maybe get themselves ready to buy in September.
Or if you close it completely, obviously then you don't have to worry about any orders coming in or anything, but it does mean that no one can see your products or services. So have a think about that. And then really what I'd encourage you to do over the next few weeks is to prepare for your first week back.
So as well as scheduling some emails over summer, think about what that first week back is going to look like. Are you going to have a social media post to like announce that your bag encouraged people to buy? Send emails out, you know, I'd be planning at least two or three emails in that first week, letting people know you're back.
Maybe sharing, either sharing a sale or an offer. If you don't want to do that, you could share like your best sellers, making sure that people know that you're back and you're there. So [00:24:00] really kind of planning that first week, because what you don't want to be is on the back foot.
So those are my August automation tips for you, depending on what your goal is for the summer. I hope they have been really helpful.
I am going to be sending some additional tips and advice to my email list over the next few days/
if you're thinking, well, this all sounds really good, but I feel really quite overwhelmed. And I don't know that I can get it all done in time. Don't worry. I am going to be running a workshop.
It's going to be a two hour workshop where we make a plan for you both what you need to do before the summer holidays start, and then what you're going to do during the summer holidays. You're going to know exactly what you're doing going into summer. You're going to feel really calm, confident in control and ready to enjoy summer with your kids.
Knowing that your business is that it's going to keep going. And in September, when you turn your attention back to your business, It is going to be ready for you to start making real progress in it. So, if you want to [00:25:00] know when that workshop's going to be make sure you go down to the show notes.
And pop your name on the wait list. My I'm going to be announcing the date and time of that Berry Berry soon. And again, if you want to be, and again, my email list will be the first to know about it. So if you're not already on the email list, make sure you sign up. And I will make sure that I add the link to the main email list as well in the show notes.
I hope this has been really helpful as always come over to Instagram and see me and let me know if you've got any questions or feedback and I will see you on Friday.
Thank you so much for joining me this week before you go, make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you can receive new episodes, right when they're released. And if you ever enjoyed these podcast episodes, I'd really love to ask you to leave a review in apple podcasts reviews are one of the major ways that apple ranks their podcasts, and it only takes a few seconds, but really does make a massive difference to new people.
Finding me. [00:26:00] Thank you again for joining me, Sophie, in this episode of growing pains, see you next time.
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