One frustrating thing about owning your own dog training business is dealing with the inevitable ebb and flow of clients.  One day you’re drumming your fingers, waiting for clients to call, the next you’re booked out six weeks in advance and then just when you least expect it — here’s another dry spell.

The key to reducing the stress of those hills and valleys is to pay attention to them and be proactive.

Timing is often overlooked by many organisations and businesses, especially those with small teams and even smaller budgets. Many business owners fail to see the importance of marketing for specific times of the year, instead deciding they should just push their marketing efforts throughout the entire year, and while this can work in some instances, it can also lead to little ROI for their efforts.

Targeting specific times of the year allows businesses to appeal to an audience at a time when they are paying the most attention, increasing engagement, leads and sales. Knowing when a slow time is coming and increasing your marketing before then evens out the flow of clients and keeps you busy.

An obvioius example of how important timing is to marketing is Christmas! An ad for the most in-demand toy of the year isn’t going to be as effective in February as it is in November and December.

Getting the timing of marketing can be difficult, especially for businesses that can’t latch onto more typical times of the year such as Halloween, Christmas or Easter. However there’s no reason they should miss out, there’s plenty of opportunities out there, from days of the year, seasonal events, industry-specific days and even changes in aspects of popular culture.

But how do businesses owners and marketers take advantage of timing?

1. Watch Your Data

make sure you’re set up for business social media accounts, not personal. Business accounts provide performance insights and data that your personal accounts don’t. Having access to the data in your email and social media accounts allows you to review the performance and make strategic decisions.

choose a starting point based on what you think will work for your target customer. You’ll need to test your email delivery and social media posting for a while to see what’s best for your business.

If you’ve had a website or blog for a while and you’ve set up Google Analytics, you can find out which days you get the most traffic. You can also find out what time of day is best for your audience through GA.If Tuesday morning is the most active time for you, then send your email or make your social post on Tuesday morning and see how it performs. Next time, use another favorite day/time combo for your send and compare against the first email/post’s performance to see which was better.tracking performance, testing, and re-testing. If you want to find the best time to share your message with your audience, you’re going to need to test different days and times to see what the performance is like.

2. Know your customer

What do they need from you and how can you help make their life easier? . What do they do for a living? What’s their typical day like? While you won’t know for sure, you can likely draw some conclusions based on the available information.  Are they parents, driven by the school day and school vacation calendar? Professionals who commute to an office during the week but with free time on the weekends?

Miles Davis once said, “Time isn’t the main thing. It’s the only thing.”