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reading time: 3 minutes

Whether it’s the hotter temperatures, more vacation time or just a sense of relaxation, businesses seem to put marketing on the back burner when summer comes around. It’s a bad practice, but it happens. Fortunately, there are are a few things that your team can do to create content marketing for summer time without having to work *too* much harder. (It is summer after all…)

Here’s a (semi) lazy guide to keeping marketing simmering this summer.

Take stock immediately.

Summer is a midway point for the calendar year, and may be near the end of the fiscal year in your industry. You’ve published a lot up to this point – or have you? Take stock of your content calendar up until this point. Are you barely covering the bases on your channels? Blog gathering dust? Or have you published a flurry of content without evaluating whether it’s clicking with your audience? Take stock this summer, and then make plans based on what you’ve really done – not what you planned initially.

Create visual interest.

There’s a lot more activity on social media during the summer months – people share photos of vacations, students are typically off for the summer, and in just a few weeks, the whole world will be tuning into the Olympics in Rio. In short, you’ve got some competition, so you need to be eye catching. You can grab attention with something as simple as a Facebook header image change to reflect the season. (We did say this was a *lazy* guide). You can also be eye catching by creating visual social media content – but don’t work too hard! Turn statistics, popular quotes or other quality tidbits of info into visual media.

Keep things “short and breezy.”

Short content performs better on social media, is more engaging and (best of all) can often be created from your existing work. Use this summer as an opportunity to turn quotes from a popular blog post into empowering quotes for social media. Keeping your content “short and breezy” with your tone can help too. Yes – even for B2B marketing. Try out a new tone with your content this summer, and see what you reel in from your readership.

Think “beach read.”

While your latest blog post might not be toted along to the beach, the concept of a “beach read” can apply to your marketing too. No matter what the genre, beach reads have a few basic features in common. They are typically short, engaging and maybe even a little controversial (just tread carefully). Beach reads are often called “page turners” for a reason; readers can’t wait to get to the next part of the story. Your marketing might not be a murder mystery or latest tell-all, but you can infuse this enthusiasm by tackling a new topic in a fresh way. Keep it short, and speak directly to your audience. Make your topic worth reading about and getting to the end – whether it’s a blog post or something even shorter.

With these ideas, you won’t have to break a sweat to keep your marketing simmering in the coming months. Whether you’re marketing to beachcombers or B2B salespeople, you can be a little lazy this summer. We won’t tell. We’ll be by the pool…