Getting ahead of the season: when to launch your campaigns

In almost every trade, demand has seasons, and your competitors all launch their campaigns at the same moment: when demand explodes. The result: bids rise at the exact moment everyone is buying. The smart margin is elsewhere: before the wave.

Advertising sows, the season harvests

A project is not born on the day the customer calls you. The heat pump installed in September was considered in the spring; the kitchen fitted before the holidays was compared from the summer; the insurance policy changed in January ripens in November. When you launch your campaign at the peak of the season, you arrive just as decisions are being signed: decisions that were prepared with those who advertised earlier.

The practical rule: launch your campaigns one to two months before your peak in demand. You pay less for attention (fewer competitors bidding), and you are already “the known name” when the decision is made.

Read your own seasonality, not the generalities

You already know your seasons: they are in your invoices. Take your last two years and note, month by month, the requests received and the quotes signed. Three things almost always come out:

• the main peak, often the one you would have named off the top of your head;
• a quieter second peak that intuition forgets (back-to-school September is one in many service trades);
• the trough, which is not a time to cut: it is a time to change the message.

The trough is worked differently, not just endured

Cutting all advertising in the trough means starting from zero every season: the ad networks’ algorithm relearns, and your name is forgotten. During the trough:

• reduce the budget rather than cancelling it;
• change the angle: off season, you do not sell urgency, you sell planning ahead: “do it now, before the rush and in peace”;
• highlight your counter-seasonal service if you have one: boiler servicing sells in spring, air conditioning is prepared in winter;
• it is also the best time to gather reviews and reach out to your contact list again: you are preparing the next season.

The calendar is built once, then it runs

Put your twelve months on a sheet: peaks, troughs, launch dates (peak minus six weeks), messages per period. With that calendar done, every campaign leaves on time instead of in a panic, and your annual budget is spread over decisions, not emergencies. To size each campaign in the calendar, the work-backwards method applies period by period.