Days are shorter, there’s a new crispness in the air (for most parts of the country), and it’s a great time for small businesses to take a fresh look at their marketing efforts for the rest of 2015.

Start by reexamining various marketing objectives you implemented earlier in the year. Have sales been steadily growing or have they plateaued? Which of your products or services are underperforming thus far? Has a focus on acquiring new customers come at the expense of neglecting the customers you already have? 

Autumn is a good time to analyze year-to-date sales and customer behavior data in order to refine your strategies for the remainder of the year.

Think “Seasonality”

Thanksgiving and Christmas are just around the corner. Your business may or may not have a direct connection to these holidays, but that won’t stop your savvy competitors from adopting a “seasonality” approach to marketing.

Obviously, if you own a restaurant, there’s a direct link between your business and Thanksgiving. Though by broadening your outlook, it’s possible to identify indirect connections that offer new ways to boost brand awareness.

Client relations specialist Beth Coleman advises taking advantage of “this family and food-centric holiday with discounts, giveaways—and perhaps even some sort of ‘leftovers’ clearance’,” depending on your product or service.

Assume most of your target audience has an emotional tie with this quintessential American holiday. All that remains is uncovering the ways in which your marketing efforts can tap into it.

Reassess Your Website and Business Content

When’s the last time you evaluated the performance of your small-business website? This is a good opportunity to double check its performance and ease of navigation, and then think about ways to improve Web traffic and the user experience in advance of the busy holidays.

“By understanding the traffic patterns of your owned properties you’ll know where the focus should be with new content and areas of new focus,” notes communications expert Jason Ouellette. 

Speaking of content — if you haven’t already done so, stop what you’re doing and put together a content calendar for the rest of the year. This will get you thinking about what type of seasonal-related content you can create now that will have significant impact in the days and weeks to come.

Marketing writer Rachel Winstead recommends making use of “Snapchat, meme generators, and gif generators to create seasonally relevant ‘snippets.’” Short, punchy content is ideal for letting customers know about holiday-themed sales and promotions, or even for just sharing an uplifting thought around the holidays.

Interactive content is another great way to boost brand awareness. Put together “an autumn-themed quiz with a surprise discount code at the end for an even better fall impact,” Winstead adds.

Regardless of the subject matter, make sure that your new fall focus centers on quality, rather than quantity. If reader engagement with your articles and blogs has been sluggish up to now, think about new subject matter that genuinely improves your relationship with online followers. What kind of holiday-related information can you share that enhances your followers’ business efforts or meets a challenge in their daily lives?

Whether you own an online enterprise or brick-and-mortar business, your customers’ focus and behavior change with the seasons. As we move at warp speed into the holidays, look at realigning your marketing strategy and campaigns before the final push of 2015.

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