Having grown up in Palm Springs and having worked in a seasonal restaurant in San Diego, I have witnessed firsthand the difference in turnover between “seasonal” and “off-season.” Great winter weather drives tourism in the area. Thousands of people flock to the desert to play golf, enjoy world-renowned restaurants, and generally just relax and soak up the sun. But Palm Springs turns into a ghost town during the summer. One hundred and twenty degree temperatures make golfing pretty unfathomable. Outdoor dining is completely out of the question. Many businesses close completely from mid-June to early October. While not that extreme, business at the restaurant I worked at was heavily influenced by the warm weather. Outdoor dining was our draw, which meant our summers were extremely busy, but business was hit and miss from October to May. While not identical, both situations present business owners with the same basic challenge: how do they improve their bottom line during the off-season?

While various marketing strategies can benefit seasonal businesses, Mobile Media fits the model very well. The first thing Mobile Media is able to do is harness the power of the season by helping a business owner build a database of mobile phone numbers. A hotel, for example, can be booked solid during the season. This is an opportunity for the hotel to promote its mobile offer to its guests. When a tourist checks in, the person handling the reservation can offer the guest a free night or a discounted rate if they simply text a keyword, usually the name of the hotel, to a recognizable short code, such as ” 90210″. The guest will receive a confirmation text message to show to the hotel employee to redeem their discount. Almost everyone is willing to get a discount for a good or service that they were already planning to pay full price for anyway.

By sending that simple text message to receive a discount, the customer is now logged into that hotel’s database that can be accessed through a mobile office on the Internet. When the season ends the hotel is practically empty. Now the hotel can use the information it collected during its peak business season and engage its former guests through a simple text message. Even in bad weather, people who are stressed from their daily lives would love an excuse to get away from it all for a weekend. Receiving a great and urgent offer via text message can be an offer they can’t refuse. Why can’t you do the same with an email? Statistics show that a text message is six times more likely to be opened compared to an email, with most being opened within an hour. So if you send the text on Thursday, the potential guest will see it in time to make a reservation for Friday. A similar strategy can be implemented for a golf course or other businesses that may be affected by seasonal volume. Similar strategies can also be used for a restaurant simply looking to increase sales between lunch and dinner.

Mobile media can harness the power of peak season volume and redirect it to help create upsells during slow times. The basic strategy itself is nothing new: offer phenomenal deals at times when people are not normally willing to patronize your business. The difference is that mobile media is the fastest and most effective method for a company to get those offers to their current and potential customers.