Seasonality is an Excuse

Vail Tournament 2005, Photo Copyright Melissa Dafni, Blue Kitten Photography

I hear a lot of people say their product is seasonal and I see a lot of companies treat their products as such. But in many cases, is your product really seasonal? Or are you simply using that as an excuse?

I won’t deny it, some products are definitely seasonal. Most people don’t shop for Easter candy in June or Christmas trees in September, but outside of holiday specific products, is it truly seasonal?

Take for instance the sport of lacrosse. It has a definite seasonality, right?  After all,  lacrosse isn’t played year round. The National Lacrosse League plays from January through May. Major League Lacrosse plays from May to August.  High school and college have two seasons with girls playing in the fall and boys in the spring. Many cities and organizations hold summer tournaments.

Wait a second. That looks like lacrosse is played year round, doesn’t it? So why is it treated seasonal? Because that’s how those involved treat it. If it’s not NLL season, teams don’t tweet or update their Facebook pages and news is virtually nil outside of major events like draft day.

Does that mean fans quit looking for relevant products? In some cases, yes. You will always have a group of customers who also view your product as seasonal, either because they’re ready to move on to other things, or because they’ve been conditioned to view it that way.

Others find themselves frustrated because a product they want is no longer available. Many lacrosse blogs and news sites go dormant for the season, gear becomes hard to find unless you are lucky enough to have a lacrosse specific store nearby or shop online. Sometimes even that doesn’t help. Just ask a lacrosse playing girl whose gear, to save valuable real estate may only be stocked ahead of the season and cleared out immediately after.

Do you really believe anyone heavily involved in the sport quits thinking about it simply because it’s not lacrosse season? A lot of opportunity exists but is overlooked because lacrosse is seasonal.

So now, is your product really seasonal? Or is it only seasonal because you view and treat it as such?

What Opportunities are You Overlooking?

Toronto Rock Blackout Jersey

Twitter is often cited as a great new marketing tool that truly brings one-to-one marketing to the forefront.

But truly, what good is this tool if you don’t really use it?

A few months ago I was looking into getting a new cellular phone, and as there were so many fantastic new options, I really wasn’t sure what I wanted to get.  Knowing what a fantastic resource Twitter can be, I asked my network what phones they had and what they liked or disliked about them.  As I already have two iPods, my only requirement was no iPhones.

As expected, I got lots of terrific feedback from a wide variety of people.  But guess who I didn’t hear a word from?  A single person in the mobile industry.

This would have been a great opportunity for Palm and Sprint to jump into the conversation if not to put their two cents in, than to thank their customers who were speaking so highly of their products.  Or for T-Mobile to jump in to keep me as a customer, or Verizon to try and steal me away as I was no longer under contract.

Plenty of opportunities presented themselves all the way from the store level to the mobile brand to the cellular carrier, but not a single person took advantage of them.  Needless to say after three days of conversations on Twitter, I made my choice which I’m happy with.

Twitter Conversation

Recently I was surprised to actually have a company do on Twitter exactly what too few companies take the time to do.

The Toronto Rock saw my tweet regarding a specific product of theirs I thought I was out of luck on and responded with a direct link to it on their website.

(Well, at least the closest thing to it as the specific item I was lamenting was a game worn jersey auctioned off for charity.)

The result?  They made a sale.

It doesn’t matter how niche or mainstream your product is, plenty of opportunities exist if you’re genuinely willing to take the time to not only search them out, but respond to them individually in a way that shows you actually are paying attention and not just searching specific keywords regardless of context.

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