“It ain’t over ‘til it’s over,” the late great Yogi Berra once said. True enough, plus Shakespeare offered the slightly fancier sounding, “All’s well that ends well.” Either way, that means these last two months still give you time to finish 2022 on the right note. So, before you slide into next year, make sure you’ve got all bases covered.

What does your marketing picture look like right now? And what do you need to do with your remaining time? Check these areas:

Review your marketing plan. Have you done what you said you were going to do? Did these actions get the results you had hoped (or that were better or worse than anticipated)? Take note of weak spots. Not enough leads generated? Or leads generated but not closed? Or sales closed but customers not retained?

Get a picture of anything that went wrong that you needed to go right so you can get an idea of what needs to be adjusted. This is important to know next month as you create your 2023 plan.

Prepare your next Direct Mail campaign. What’s your next big push? Through mid-December, you have time for another Direct Response offer. Remember to make it easy to buy – employing rebates, financing offers and other risk-reducers that sweeten the deal. Also, go after low-hanging fruit. Follow up on any unclosed sales or estimates that didn’t convert. Stats show that 60% of unsold prospects will buy within 45 days.

How’s that SEO going? Take a look at your website analytics. Are you generating traffic to your pages? Keep updating your website with valuable, keyword-rich content – blogs, videos, reports – to secure a top spot in search engine results. Plus, make sure you’ve claimed your local listing to improve results. And balance your SEO strategies with pay-per-click marketing to earn traffic from both paid and non-paid efforts.

Prepare your Social Media posts. Be a friendly advisor. Wintertime and the holiday season will give you several natural openings to communicate with customers on how to prepare their household systems for cold weather and consistent comfort. Be engaging, upbeat and helpful.

Raise your level of customer service (assuming you’ve got a wee bit of room for improvement). Being awesome, keeping promises and over-delivering is how you get satisfied customers, repeat business and referrals – which is just the sort of thing marketers like to have. Plus, building this good image improves your reputation in your market, which smooths the way for acquiring customers.

Excellent service is critical, as almost every person in your market starts to feel stress due to the impending fast-paced, family-gathering, over-eating, shelling-out-big-bucks holiday season. So be responsive to their calls for clogged drains, no heat or electrical overloads as the celebrations start to impact household systems. And speaking of holidays…

Make sure you’ve ordered your Holiday Cards. Sending out low-cost cards to your customer base with a message of appreciation is a high point of this season. This is how you let customers know that you value their business, which helps you solidify your relationship and keep them coming back next year. Send your appreciation to your entire customer base. We have several versions for you to choose from. If you haven’t already, contact us quickly to put in your order and get these in your customers’ hands. Plus, look for other easy ways to…

Spread holiday cheer. Take opportunities to build goodwill in your community by participating in toy drives, food drives or other local events. “On hold” messages, emails, and radio time can also be in the holiday spirit.