June: The Best Time To Sell To Schools

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June: The Best Time To Sell To Schools

Marketers often try to sell to schools year-round, particularly in January as schools look at budgets for the next school year. This is a big mistake, though. While marketing to schools is a great idea and should be practiced every month, companies are encouraged to amp up their efforts once June rolls around. This is the best time to sell to schools.

Extra Money Will Be Lost

When the school year is over, schools often have leftover money that they have not spent yet. The thing is, when schools do not spend the money that they have left in the budget, they lose it. Because of this, they are quick to pick up the things that they can. Often they will use this money to purchase things for teachers or students that they can use the following year.

School Is Out

When students are already out of school it is the perfect time to pitch campaigns to educators. First of all, the students are out of school. This gives educators more time to listen to sales pitches, evaluate products and to determine how they want to spend their money. It’s a great time to unveil new products to old clients.

Reach Out To New Prospects

Because this is buying season, most businesses make the mistake of sticking with their tried and true products and loyal customers. It’s an easy way to sell, but this is where most companies get things wrong. Reaching out to loyal clients is a great idea, but that is not all that businesses should be doing.

Companies that contact new prospects during the buying season increase their potential for those prospects becoming loyal customers. Potential prospects are more likely to buy products during that time, and more likely to turn into repeat customers year after year.

June 30 Is The Deadline

Those that are new to the June deadline will need to remember that the deadline is typically June 30. This gives marketers a narrow gap that needs to be full. Companies want to wait until school is out, or almost out, of the session if they can. Then, they want to give short marketing and outreach campaigns their full attention until June 30, which is often when schools lose money that they have yet to spend.

Develop A Plan

It’s important to take the months before June to develop a plan. This is the time that buying an email list to use for future reference is a good idea. Other ideas to consider before June hits include:

-       Pre-writing emails to send

-       Writing down contacts that will be contacted by phone or in-person

-       Selecting products to showcase that you would like to sell

-       Scheduling meetings (this can be a busy time for those in the education sector, making it critical to schedule these meetings in advance.)

June is the primary month for sales in the education sector, making it vital that marketing teams have a plan of action in place to seize this once a year opportunity.