Slow season marketing for moving companies
In the slow season, stop waiting for the phone and go to the people most likely to book: past customers and businesses. One moving company we work with emailed 589 past customers three times over 25 days and booked about 30 jobs. Use the rest of the quiet months to fix your website and Google profile so they're ranking when peak season starts.
Start with the people who already hired you
A past customer knows your crew, trusts your price, and knows other people who are moving. Most movers never contact them again.
For one moving company, we pulled 589 past customers from its records and sent a sequence of three emails: one on day 1, one on day 5, and one on day 25. That sequence booked about 30 jobs. It cost nothing but the time to write it.
If you have never emailed your past customers, do this before anything else on this page.
Go after work that doesn't follow the season
Families move in summer because of school. Businesses don't. Offices, property managers, event companies and designers book movers all year, and their jobs are usually larger.
The same company won a five-figure commercial job that started with one cold email to a decision maker. The job doubled in scope once it began.
A realistic winter target: pick 20 businesses in your area that move things regularly, find the person who books it, and send each one a short, specific note.
Fix the foundation while it's quiet
Search rankings take a couple of months to move. Work done in January shows up in March and April, right as the phones pick up. Winter is the time to:
- Rebuild or repair the website. See moving company SEO.
- Complete your Google Business Profile. See Google Business Profile for movers.
- Reply to every review you never answered.
- Write the service pages you've been putting off.
What not to do
Don't cut all marketing in the slow months. That is when competitors go quiet, which makes it the cheapest time to gain ground. And don't lean on deep discounts to fill the calendar. Customers you win on price alone leave on price too.
Common questions
What is the busiest month for moving companies?
Peak season runs roughly from May through September, with summer the busiest stretch, because families move between school years. Late fall and winter are the slow season in most markets.
How do moving companies get work in the winter?
By emailing past customers, reaching out to businesses that move year round such as offices and property managers, and using the quiet weeks to improve their website and Google profile so they rank by spring.
Should I discount in the slow season?
A modest off-season rate is fine and common. Deep discounts tend to attract customers who only care about price and won't come back at your normal rate.
Keep reading
- How to market a moving companyThe six places moving jobs come from, the order we work them in, and the numbers from doing it for a real moving company.
- Moving company SEO: how one mover went from page 3 to page 1The five steps that moved a moving company from page 3 to page 1 on Google in about 60 days with no ad spend, and what SEO costs.
- Google Business Profile for movers: the setup that gets callsWhich Google Business Profile settings actually affect where a moving company ranks in Maps, which don't, and the address rules movers get wrong.
- How to get your moving company recommended by ChatGPT and Google AIWhat AI tools read when someone asks for the best mover in town, what we did to get a moving company named in the answer, and the tricks that don't work.
- Buying moving leads vs building your own marketingAn honest comparison of buying moving leads and building your own website, rankings and reviews: speed, cost, who owns what, and when each makes sense.
- How much does moving company marketing cost?Published agency prices for moving company marketing in 2026, what you should get at each level, and the questions to ask before you sign.
- What's changing in moving company marketingPlain-spoken articles for moving company owners on how customers find movers now, why old marketing stopped working, and what to do this year.