Lowest CTRs and Sales - Strange Time of Year?

[The Oilman]

I've been kind of bummed.

I am not making much money these days.

My CTRs have gone down rather dramatically, along with my traffic and sales.

IS it something to do with the end of summer?

Is anyone else in this pit of lousy sales?

[JamesFrancisIM]

Yeah, there's usually a 'summer slump' most years when everyone is away on vacation and spending time with their family, etc.

But you know what? It just means you need to try harder

- James.

[steveweber]

Hey James, I clicked to answer and there you are!

But yes, our sales are slow this time of year.....vacations and schools starting.

[ksmike]

Always happened this same time of year with direct mail. January kind of sucked too!

[The Oilman]

Its depressing.

[ksmike]

Hey, if you have your health, that's the most important thing, right?

[oneplusone]

It is a fact that certain times of the year are slower, many experienced marketers time their promotions deliberately mindful of this.

My past data shows June/July/August are nearly always the most difficult months, you need to market better, increase your backend sales during this period to sustain your income/sales/revenue level.

During September things usually pick up and October starts the 7 month "golden period"

The best golden months are October all the way through to April my previous records show.

In May things slow down as the summer starts and the difficult months are June/July/August, when I used to work in Direct Response offline they were known as the "danger months" when conversions would often drop substantially.

I've made plenty of money during these 3 months, BUT you have to market much, much harder to get the same results.

It isn't an often discussed subject, but I believe my own past data and discussions with other people on this topic is conclusive enough.

The guru's don't usually talk about this issue, but if you pay attention you'll see many of their launches are far more aggressive during the 3 summer danger months and a lot of their stuff doesn't sell out as it usually does.

Many of the marketing classic books talk about the 3 danger months, although they often have different names for this period.

The good news is these 3 months are nearly over!

[JamesFrancisIM]

Originally Posted by oneplusone

It is a fact that certain times of the year are slower, many experienced marketers time their promotions deliberately mindful of this.

My past data shows June/July/August are nearly always the most difficult months, you need to market better, increase your backend sales during this period to sustain your income/sales/revenue level.

During September things usually pick up and October starts the 7 month "golden period"

The best golden months are October all the way through to April my previous records show.

In May things slow down as the summer starts and the difficult months are June/July/August, when I used to work in Direct Response offline they were known as the "danger months" when conversions would often drop substantially.

I've made plenty of money during these 3 months, BUT you have to market much, much harder to get the same results.

It isn't an often discussed subject, but I believe my own past data and discussions with other people on this topic is conclusive enough.

The guru's don't usually talk about this issue, but if you pay attention you'll see many of their launches are far more aggressive during the 3 summer danger months and a lot of their stuff doesn't sell out as it usually does.

Many of the marketing classic books talk about the 3 danger months, although they often have different names for this period.

The good news is these 3 months are nearly over!

Good advice. Couldn't have said it better myself

- James.

[Sydp]

If this is true (that this is a slow period) then things are looking good for me. I've had the best month ever on Amazon and made a few other sales as well. (Don't be too riled up by best month ever, what I have to compare it to is minimal).

How exciting to think that things will get even better shortly. Whoo!

[InternetMarketingIQ]

I'm up a bit over last month already. Amazon seems to be doing fine for me. Adsense is up. I'm seeing a drop in certain niches where I promote individual products. For me so far it's a pretty typical month... so I'd say it's pretty average. Overall I'm down for the year compared to last, but I attribute that to the economy as a whole.

One one side you have the Government PR Machine feeding the press BS about how the Economy is recovering, then the Unemployment Stats are released and people are still losing jobs. There is a huge difference between the unemployment rate slowing and recovery.

Then just yesterday reports all over the place about how the Government Deficit will rise 9 Trillion over the next decade.

If the economy is ever going to fully recover someone in Washington has got to realize that you can not just keep spending, and taxing the working class into poverty is not going to solve anything.

Consumers have to spend, and they can't spend because there wheels of commerce are being clogged by the Government.

This is effecting us all. And while there will always be people who are successful in a down economy, overall the trend is not on our side.

The real scary thing for Internet Marketing is the recent push by State Government to Tax Internet Transactions. Taxing Internet Transactions is going to really mess things up.

[peter gibson]

Actually this is the first time that Summer/back to school didn't bum me out. Summer '07 and '08 made me want to commit ritual seppuku, but this year I'm getting some solid figures. Hope that keeps up for the good months around the corner!!