Beat the Summer Slowdown with these 7 AI Hacks

Summer arrives, and suddenly your revenue streams dwindle like so many ice cream cones in the sun. You’re not alone: The summer slowdown is real, and it affects a wide range of businesses. 

So how can you improve cash flow and keep your profits from turning into a sticky puddle? The secret is to use the extra time in your schedule to reinvest in your marketing. And, with the help of AI marketing tools, you can do it easily and at a massive scale. 

Here are 7 must-know AI marketing hacks to help your business beat the heat.

1. Revamp your social channels with a steady stream of content

During the summer slowdown, upgrade your business’s presence on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, and reap the benefits all year in the form of new leads.

Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT are great at writing social media posts. 

Once you get the hang of it, you can get AI to write weeks’ worth of social media content at a time. Then, schedule the posts in advance with tools like Buffer, Later, or Facebook’s built-in scheduler for businesses.

To try your hand at AI-powered social posts, sign up for a free Durable account. Our AI marketing tools are based on ChatGPT.

In your account, go to Marketing > Create promotion > Facebook post.

Enter a prompt, select a tone of voice, and Durable’s AI marketing software will create a post for you—including an image you can use in your post.

You’re free to edit the post any way you like before saving it, or regenerate a new one from scratch. Here’s our previous prompt, with the tone of voice set on “joyful”:

Experiment and see what works for you. With a little practice, it’s easy to generate dozens of posts in less than half an hour’s work. So, no matter how business seasonality affects your schedule, you’ll maintain a fresh social media presence.

2. Plan a summer social media marketing campaign

Posting on social media with a regular cadence keeps you top-of-mind with followers, but sometimes you need a full-blown marketing campaign to really stand out during the slowest months.

The Durable AI assistant can help you plan a social media marketing campaign at any scale—from days to months.

You can access the assistant anywhere within Durable by typing S.

Here’s what we get when we enter “Write a 7 day social media marketing campaign plan for me”:

The AI generates a seven day plan in seconds.

Here’s some of what we get when we ask for a three month plan:

The account we’re using for these examples is a landscaping business based in Vancouver, and the sample above was generated in the middle of summer. The AI was clever enough to look ahead and recognize that in three months it would be fall in Vancouver, and to suggest seasonal content relevant to homeowners.

3. Run a summer contest

Running a contest is one of the most effective summer promotion ideas to help get customers engaged and spread the word about your business.

Luckily, you don’t need to be a marketing maven to plan a contest that will attract attention. Just ask Durable’s AI assistant for ideas.

Naturally, it’s up to you to put these plans into practice. But you can still get help from AI along the way.

For example, if we want to use the AI assistant’s idea for an outdoor photography contest, we can prompt ChatGPT to write us an announcement email:

It writes the copy for us, so we’re all set to announce our contest to customers on our mailing list.

Your summer contest doesn’t have to be elaborate or expensive—just enough to get past and potential customers interested and engaged. And even if leads aren’t reaching for their wallets now, you’re working to nourish relationships that will pay off in the future.

4. Reactivate customers with an email campaign

If you have contact information for past customers or clients, you also have a list of qualified leads. Take a shot at reactivating some of them—that is, drawing them back to your business and making them active customers again.

Your AI email marketing campaign can take many forms:

• A drip campaign delivering scheduled content over multiple emails
• A quick personalized check-in from you, the business owner
• Weekly or monthly special offers on particular products or services
• Emails sharing your most recent blog and social media content

There are literally dozens of AI email marketing tools available now, and new ones appearing every day. Some handle the basics, like turning your ideas for emails into written marketing copy. Others are more advanced, coordinating multiple campaigns, measuring performance, and allowing you to test different approaches.

For your first foray into reactivating customers through email, use Durable. In your free Durable account, go to Marketing > Promotions > Create Email.

Then, enter your prompt:

The AI will write an email for you in seconds:

If you’d like to take a more hands-on approach, and write your own emails, you can ask the AI assistant to write some outlines for you: 

6. Launch your business’s blog

Maintaining an up-to-date blog for your business comes with major benefits, including improved Google search results ranking and the chance to build trust through your industry expertise.

In the context of summer marketing ideas, blog posts give you something to share with followers on social media and include in email newsletters.

In the past, small businesses couldn’t afford the cost of hiring writers and designers to create content marketing for them. AI marketing tools are changing that. Durable’s Al blog builder creates beautifully designed, fully editable content marketing for your website.

Sign up for a Durable account, have the AI website generator create a website for your business, and then access it via the editor. In the top right corner of the editor, click to add a page to your site:

Choose to add a new page:

The AI will create a list of post ideas for you to choose from:

After that, it takes the blog builder just a few seconds to write and design a new post for you, complete with images:

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It doesn’t take long to create a substantial collection of blog posts for your business:

Investing time now to create a blog and share your content on social media won’t get you instant results, but it will pay off in the long term as you keep top-of-mind with potential customers and work to improve your ranking in search results.

6. Plan your busy season marketing campaign in advance

Experiencing slow periods is just one side of running a business that fluctuates with the seasons. The other side is your busy season—that time of year when you can barely find time to keep up with the demands of customers or clients.

Plan your busy season marketing efforts now, when you have the time and energy to spare, and you’ll save yourself some hassle later on.

Durable’s AI assistant can come up with a list of marketing ideas in seconds:

When one of them catches your eye, ask the assistant to elaborate:

Not all of the AI’s ideas will be perfectly suited for your particular business, and you likely have your own ideas to add to the mix. But getting help from AI marketing software will help you get started—and by planning now, when you’re less pressed for time, you’ll give your future marketing campaign the attention it deserves.

7. Start a side hustle in record time

If your business is one that slows almost to a halt during summer—like a Christmas tree farm farm or a snow removal company—your best bet may be to run a side hustle during the off season.

No, it won’t bring more revenue into your existing business. But it can help you keep afloat and set aside savings when you might otherwise be waiting on the sidelines.

Check out our list of 26 Weird Summer Business Ideas for inspiration to get you started.

When you’re ready, use Durable’s AI assistant to create a business plan for your new company:

You can even use AI to research the new industry you’re exploring. Bing’s AI chat is the best choice—it will provide you with up-to-date information and links to resources:

And when you’re finally ready to launch, use a tool like Looka to generate a logo and brand identity for your new business:

After that, Durable will create a website for you in no time, complete with marketing copy and images:

With AI’s help, it’s faster and easier than ever to turn your side hustle dreams into a reality.

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Ready to break out of the summer slump and start attracting new customers? Sign up for a free Durable account. You’ll get full, unrestricted access to all our AI tools immediately.