Does your business experience cycles?

Every business has cycles or seasons where demands for goods and services change over the year. In fact many businesses have different cycles of different lengths and even have several cycles running together. A holiday camp would have peaks bookings during the school holidays, and their greatest demand during the long Christmas and New Year period. Bars have more demand during the warm part of the year where people stay out later, and their weekends will be busier over the week days. Real Estate companies are their busiest around the summers months as that is when most people prefer to move house. Even us at Copy Express, a printing company, has cycles. We for instance have the largest volume each month around businesses’ ‘20th of the month’ billing cycles. Over the year the November and December months are the busiest while January is the quietest. The question is do you know what your business’s cycles are and are you effectively using your marketing to manage it?
With these cycle aspect in mind, you as a business must ask yourself two questions. One: when is our busiest time in our industry and how do we make sure that we have people coming to us during this period instead of of our competition. Two: Why do people not use us during the quiet periods and what can we do to bring them to us. Let us use an example of a beauty salon that also offers in home appointments.

• On a weekly cycle
  • Salon – Most active afternoons Thursday and Friday. All day Saturday. This is due people go out the most on those days. Monday-Wednesday are much quieter as most people don’t go out those nights.  People also use it for lunch time ‘relaxation’ breaks on weekdays.
  • In Home – Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Most of the business is for events like weddings and balls.

• On a monthly cycle
  • Salon – steady clientele throughout the year with only a small seasonal variation.
  • In Home – very active during the around the warmer months when there is more outdoor events like weddings. Winter months are very quiet.

From this situation we can see distinct patterns emerging based on their clients demands.The end of the week is the peak time for both sides for the business on a weekly cycle. For the in home services it’s mainly driven by formal events like weddings which tend to happen more in the summer months and not on customers personal needs for pampering. The beginning of the week and the winter months are the worse time for their business. From this we can formulate the following plan:

• Salon will be split into three types of marketing promotion. For Monday to Wednesday, offer discounts or combo offers to increase client bookings for that period. For the latter half of the week only offer a loyalty program. Also offer discounts if booked in quieter times during the week, so staff hours that are being paid for anyway are being put to use.
• For in home, drive more of the promotion with incentives for booking weekdays and winter months. Look at also doing ‘party’ style events where several customers can book together to make a more cost effective. During the summer months when formal events happen look at targeting associated business like event locations and wedding dress suppliers to carry your advertising or even offer a ‘recommender’ rewards for sending on clients.
• Final offer is a loyalty program based on money spent on both salon and in home services for rewards. This would be tailored that the salon can list exclusions for some promotions and peak load times if desired. Also help drive more work to the quieter times by offering bonus rewards or points for booking in off peak times.

So you can see that having think about when the cycles of the business for our fictional salon I was able to formulate a plan that better targets their marketing, to both insure that they are driving more business to them when they are quiet and to also ensure they are not missing out during the busy times. The same two simple questions can help your business too when you work out the answers for them. 

Not sure how to work out when your peak times of business are. Need to know when you’re not making the most of your staff and resources. Then see us here at Copy Express, and our sister company Business Express, and we can help you figure out it for you.