In the recent issues of Scribbles, my email newsletter, we talked about whether or not you should give your marketing a summer holiday. It’s tempting to sit back, enjoy the sunshine and not have to worry about doing any more marketing until September, isn’t it? But is that really a good idea?

I don’t think it is, so I wrote about an example of why planning ahead is so important for your business. Here it is, in case you don’t receive Scribbles. (You can sign up here for future issues!)

You’ve probably heard me talking about how many small businesses struggle with ‘feast and famine’ – too much work and no time to do any marketing one month, followed by no work and no money to invest in marketing the next month. It’s hard work and it’s stressful. It is also avoidable.

If you plan ahead with your marketing, you can make sure that you don’t get stuck on the feast and famine rollercoaster, and that instead, you have a steady flow of clients and cash. So while it can be tempting to take a break over the summer, taking too much time away from marketing your business can actually be a dangerous thing – both for your business and your health!

Towards the end of 2015 I had the idea of turning my book, Magnetic Marketing, into a nine week email course. The book is a nine stage process that will help you to attract a steady flow of perfect clients to your business. So why not make it accessible in nine easy to follow emails? The mechanics of setting it up has taken a while and we’re getting ready to launch the course on 15 September with a free webinar. Click here to reserve your place and we’ll send you the booking link. (Places are limited to 100.)

We’ve also been planning the marketing for many months. We started by setting the launch date some time ago and have been working backwards from it, to make sure we do enough of the right marketing. Here are just a few of the details of the integrated Marketing Plan that we’re working to – we have it on a flip chart on the wall of the office!

There are quite a few more marketing activities on the schedule on the office wall. The course isn’t just for Coaches – it’s also ideal for Consultants and Trainers – so we will work on different marketing for those targets. This is just a selection of the marketing tools we’re using, to show you how much can be involved in promoting a service and how you need to plan ahead. For us to launch the new course in September means we’ll be working away over the summer, to make sure everything is ready in time.

If you’re a coach and you’d like to take part in the survey mentioned above in our plan, just click here to answer nine questions. We’ll give you a free place on the webinar on 15 September to say thank you!

So if you’re worrying about work going quiet over the summer, use the time you have to ramp up your marketing, in order to ensure a steady flow of business once your marketing efforts take effect. Do enjoy the sunshine over the summer, and perhaps a holiday, but don’t let your marketing take a holiday!