3 Easy Brand Maintenance Strategies for Slow Seasons

Peo­ple often pan­ic when a slow sea­son hits. The truth is, every busi­ness has busier times and slow­er times. Know­ing how to max­i­mize each is essen­tial. Believe it or not, there are ben­e­fits to slow­er sea­sons, espe­cial­ly when it comes to build­ing strate­gies. Our minds are less dis­tract­ed and more focused. 

Main­tain­ing your brand can often feel over­whelm­ing. And when you are cre­at­ing con­tent at the speed of a bul­let train, it doesn’t always hap­pen. Using slow sea­sons to recal­i­brate your brand can be a huge help when things pick back up. 

Here are 3 brand main­te­nance strate­gies you can start imple­ment­ing dur­ing your slow seasons:

3 Easy Brand maintenance Strategies for slow seasons 

1. Review Your Brand Strategy

Slow­er sea­sons are a great time to step back and review your brand strat­e­gy and ensure it aligns with your core val­ues, mis­sion state­ment, and long-term objectives. 

If this process feels daunt­ing, try doing it as a brain dump. Jot your ideas down and then go back to refine. We rec­om­mend that you set aside at least an hour in a qui­et place and get to work. 

Some areas you can start with:

• Begin by clear­ly iden­ti­fy­ing your tar­get audi­ence and under­stand­ing their needs. 
• Ana­lyze your com­peti­tors to pin­point your unique sell­ing proposition.
• Review or define your brand’s per­son­al­i­ty traits and tone of voice.
• Eval­u­ate how your cur­rent mar­ket­ing efforts are sup­port­ing your brand strategy.
• Review any brand­ing incon­sis­ten­cies that may shift from how you com­mu­ni­cate about your brand. For example — 
  • Do you keep chang­ing how you describe what you do and who it’s for
  • Are your brand col­ors help­ing you build mean­ing toward your brand

A thought­ful brand audit can be invalu­able. It can help you assess the con­sis­ten­cy of your mes­sag­ing across all plat­forms, from lan­guage to design ele­ments, to ensure they align with your goals. This align­ment rein­forces your brand iden­ti­ty and enhances trust and recog­ni­tion among your audience.

Want more guid­ance with this process? Check our our free Brand Build­ing Starter Guide.

2. Update Branded Templates

The pres­sure to cre­ate new con­tent 24/7 is real. Brand­ed tem­plates help you stream­line your con­tent cre­ation process and work smarter. When you cre­ate brand­ed tem­plates that sup­port your strat­e­gy and mar­ket­ing efforts, you spend less time rein­vent­ing the design wheel and more time focused on your business.

Take a look at your cur­rent tem­plates and make sure that you:

• Estab­lish font con­sis­ten­cy and make sure it is large enough to read on dig­i­tal devices.
• Lever­age brand col­ors for spe­cif­ic call-to-action items to speed up recognition.
• Ensure you have enough con­trast between your text and backgrounds.
• Have diverse images or illus­tra­tions that reflect who your audi­ence iden­ti­fies with.

You can also ded­i­cate time to cre­at­ing more engag­ing con­tent, like an ani­mat­ed post, using Adobe Express. In the video below, we show you how to cre­ate an ani­mat­ed reel for your brand.

Next, con­sid­er your brand out­reach. You may also do speak­ing engage­ments, lead pre­sen­ta­tions, or pitch for fund­ing and will need a brand­ed deck. You can cre­ate engag­ing pre­sen­ta­tions that are on-brand WITHOUT using Pow­er­Point. And once you have these done, you can cut down time and focus on the delivery—not the design. Here’s a great tuto­r­i­al to help you cre­ate a brand­ed pre­sen­ta­tion using Adobe Express.

 Did you enjoy the videos above? We’ve got a fan­tas­tic course that can take your mar­ket­ing efforts to the next lev­el. And the best news? It’s less than 30 min­utes. Head to LinkedIn Learn­ing and watch Adobe Express: Design­ing Mar­ket­ing Materials. 

3. Write Your Content Ahead of Time

When you are in the mid­dle of a busy sea­son, you might find your­self hit­ting pub­lish because you feel like you have to. Con­sis­ten­cy is impor­tant, but half-thought-out social posts or emails rarely per­form well. Slow­er sea­sons offer us some breath­ing room and capac­i­ty to think cre­ative­ly about con­tent creation. 

Think about the year ahead, iden­ti­fy the types of con­tent you need, and get to work draft­ing! It’s even bet­ter if you sched­ule some posts ahead of time. Things can always be moved if need­ed, but you will feel much bet­ter know­ing you have con­tent ready to go when you get busy again. 

We rec­om­mend using an orga­nized project man­age­ment sys­tem and assign­ing cat­e­gories. Notes on your phones can be con­ve­nient but can quick­ly get dis­or­ga­nized. For exam­ple, we’ve cre­at­ed a con­tent buck­et list of over 200 types of posts we can use. We wrote this con­tent over time when we weren’t pres­sur­ing our­selves to write. 

Slow­er sea­sons can be stress­ful for brands, but if you lean in and see the poten­tial, you can use them to your advantage!