South West eCommerce

One of our issues in the internet marketing area is that we are facing seasonal matters.  One of our very positive performers is pretty much a summer product.  There’s use for the product in all weathers and I’ll continue to use mine, but it’s clearly driven by the summer.

As the summer begins to dwindle, we would expect to see our sales dwindle too.  There are a couple of things to say about this.  First thing is that we don’t want to be too intuitive.  There are tools around which take the guesswork out of this.  We use Market Samurai and it tells us a few things.  One of the things we’ve found from it is that we are kind of right, the activity on our product’s keywords is kind of related to the summer.  Interestingly though, it fires up earlier than we’d thought by about two months, and drops off by the time we had expected it to be peaking.  What do we do with that info?  Well it shows us that we can expect some activity over the cooler months but we’re in a low period already that peaks in about October/ November.  When we look at our stats for February,  we will now be a bit more relaxed if our numbers haven’t grown.  In fact since we’re hitting the low ebb of the year holding steady is a step forward.  This allows us to refine our practice, but there’s something else we should be doing.

The earth is a fantastic thing, and it’s round.  When one side spins toward the sun, another side spins away.  While our weather is (allegedly) getting cooler, the northern hemisphere is heading out of their cold months.  We’re actually in the run up to the time when their sunshine peaks, and so will their need for the summer product, so one way to review the downturn in our summer is to think about it being the run up to their hot period.  We’ve thought this through and we are figuring a way to access the northern hemisphere.  Trick is business has to include clients, and we’re discussing it with vendors now, trying to get ourselves in the right place.

Some of our other products are dependent on cultural seasons.  There are certain days and celebrations when these products are more commonly used.  No worries really, the target for these things has to be to understand the seasons, and plan accordingly.  In the run up to a big day or week, it’s probably worth doing a little more promotion.  If the web site you’re using is going to convert more effectively just before your target date, that might be the only time it’s worth paying more for pay per click traffic.  Similarly, if you’ve got a product that works well in August, the obvious thing is to balance it with a product that works well in February.  Clearly some stores in Australia have figured that out - barbecue season falters in the winter, but it’s the exact right time to be selling home heating.  We just have to be as smart as them.

The trick to it all is knowledge.  Work out how your product cycles and take account of it.  We use Market Samurai to understand what our market is doing, and at a technical level that’s really helping us, but in the absence of the paid product, a little common sense and careful analysis of what your own site does in terms of traffic and conversion will pay dividends.  This game is not for the thoughtless, what seasonal issues should you be taking into account?