5 Marketing Strategies to Prepare For Your Fourth Quarter

After almost four years of running an independent consulting business, I’ve started to notice some quarterly trends in business activity. For example, the first quarter of a new year has shown a similar amount of interest in our consulting services with a predictable change in the second and third quarters.

However, many business owners look forward to a flurry of business activity in the fourth quarter to boost profits. One of the many ways to prepare for the fourth quarter is to understand what happened in the previous three quarters. Assessing previous quarterly business activity can reveal quite a lot and can help you make more informed decisions as you create your plan for the fourth quarter.

One of the areas of your independent consulting business you will want to ramp up is your sales and marketing strategies. Let’s review some of the specific metrics and tactics you may want to review as you refine your sales and marketing strategies on your way to meeting your annual profit goals.

Set Sales Targets

One of my favorite quotes about goals is “Without goals and plans to reach them, you are like a ship that has set sail with no destination.” 

Setting your sales targets for the fourth quarter will increase the chance you will reach or even exceed them. There is even a possibility that you will blow past your goals because you identified a way to ramp up service delivery by escaping from the 1:1 service model.  

Lead Generation

According to HubSpot, lead generation is the process of attracting prospects to your business and increasing their interest through nurturing. Do you currently have a lead generation process in place? If you do, does it need to be enhanced for 4Q?

I must admit that until early this year I relied on a one-dimensional approach to generate leads. However, when my business coach showed me how much money I was leaving on the table by relying too much on that approach, I took the steps to put a new multi-tiered process in place and now we are, thankfully, getting (almost) more leads than we can currently handle.

Lead Nurturing

Lead nurturing is the process of growing relationships with your potential customers. This is one of the easiest definitions and one used by top CRM company, Salesforce. One of the more popular ways to nurture relationships with potential customers is email marketing, more specifically, developing an email funnel intended to nurture your leads.

If you don’t have a lead nurturing method in place, having one created in time for 4Q is another good first step to lead to your sales goals.

Referrals

Now’s the time to craft that perfect email asking your past or current clients for referrals. Why not? You built the relationship and delivered excellent services and the relationship capital will go a long way when they refer you to a prospect.

Live Events

Live events such as hosting webinars or in person training and speaking engagements are a great way to increase your sales goals. We do this at Grants Works and each time we are able to reach new prospects that, in some instances, lead to future client engagements.

The three methods above are not the only steps to take to maximize your 4Q goals so look at what helps you land clients for your specific business, find ways to strengthen them, set your goals, and then develop and implement your plan.

If you’re ready to take the first step toward adding structure and systems to your consulting business, get started with The Ultimate Consultant’s Starter Kit. The kit has several email templates, legal templates, over 30 business tools you can use to build your consulting business, and more. 

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