When the OOO Replies Start Rolling In
How to stay in view without draining resources
Last week’s Brief was about the XYZ’s of marketing. The things at the end. The details companies usually do not think much about until they start causing problems. The boring stuff that quietly shapes trust, visibility, and whether a company feels put together before anyone even talks to them. This week is not all that far off from that idea. The checkered flag has dropped, another Indy 500 winner has been wreathed and doused in milk, and around here that means one thing. The out-of-office replies are about to start rolling in. They always do. Because whether people want to admit it or not, summer has its own rhythm. Things do not stop, but they absolutely shift. Response times get longer. Calendars get stranger. People disappear for a week, come back buried, and spend the next ten days pretending they are caught up when they are not. Everybody is still working, but not in the same way they were even a few weeks earlier.
The Summer Visibility Trap
Most companies fall into one of three lanes once summer breaks the normal rhythm. Disappear Go quiet, stop reaching out, and slowly fall out of mind. Push too hard Keep pushing like it is a normal season and become one more thing people put off. Stay present Show up lightly, usefully, and in ways that still feel good to receive. That creates a real problem for companies trying to stay in front of customers, prospects, referral partners, or really anyone they do business with. How do you stay in their purview without draining resources? How do you stay visible without becoming one more thing they are ignoring until after vacation? Because there are really two bad ways to handle summer. The first is to disappear. A company gets quiet, stops reaching out, stops showing up, and basically decides it will pick things back up once everybody gets back into a normal rhythm. The problem is, everybody else is thinking some version of the same thing, and when you disappear, you usually do not come back into view as easily as you think you will. Summer has a way of turning a short pause into a long silence. The second bad move is to push harder. More emails. More asks. More campaigns. More “just checking in” messages that are very obviously not just checking in. That usually does not work either, because now you are trying to force your way into a season where attention is already scattered. You are not helping yourself stay remembered. You are just giving people something else to postpone. So what actually works? Usually something much simpler. You stay present without being demanding. You keep showing up, but lighter. You stop trying to own attention and instead focus on staying familiar. That is a different mindset. It is not about trying to dominate the season. It is about not disappearing inside it. SUMMER TOUCHPOINT BREAKDOWN Handwritten note – YES Slower, yes. But memorable. Short check-in email – Good Idea No long ask. No heavy pitch. Just a clean touchpoint. Useful article or update – Love this! Something easy to scan and easy to keep in mind. Heavy campaign push – Not So Much Usually the wrong energy for a season where attention is already broken up. Unless it is based around an event or something very specific. For companies that work in a service-parallel kind of environment, one of the easiest ideas is also one of the most time-consuming. Write a handwritten letter. Not a printed card. Not a brochure. Not a mailer pretending to be personal. An actual handwritten note. Just checking on them. Just staying in front of them. Just reminding them they were thought of. Old-school? Absolutely. Effective? Also yes. And part of the reason it works is because almost nobody does it anymore. Everything else is digital, instant, automated, and usually trying to get something. A handwritten note feels different because it is different. It does not scream for attention. It lands quietly. It does not feel like a campaign. It feels like a person took a minute and thought enough to reach out. That is really the bigger point here. Summer is not usually the season to be louder. It is the season to be more thoughtful.
What To Do With This
If your company tends to treat every touchpoint like an opportunity to ask for something, summer is a good time to back off that instinct a little. People are still moving, but they are moving with less margin. A lighter touch often travels further this time of year than a heavy one. It is also a good time to think harder about where personal effort actually matters. Not everybody needs a handwritten note. Not every contact deserves the same amount of energy. But high-value relationships, good referral sources, meaningful customers, and long-term prospects are usually worth more thought than a bulk email blast. Summer is a good season to show that you know the difference. It also helps to judge the season correctly. Summer is not always about immediate conversion. Sometimes it is about remaining familiar enough that when people come back into a sharper work rhythm, your company is still in mind. That matters. A lot. And maybe most importantly, do not vanish. You do not have to flood the market to stay relevant. But you also cannot expect to disappear for two months and pick things right back up where you left them. People forget faster than companies like to believe. That is really the point of all of this. The OOO replies are coming either way. The question is whether your company is going to vanish with them, or whether it is going to stay visible in a way that actually fits the season. Because sometimes the smartest marketing move is not pushing harder. It is simply staying in view.
