The Mayans may well be wrong.

It seems as if its part of human nature to try and look into the future and 2012 has gathered more attention than most years.

Nostradamus and the Mayans both took a particularly gloomy view but I for one am betting they’re wrong.

Working on the assumption that the world won’t be coming to an end, that the Olympics and the Diamond Jubilee will be going ahead, then it’s time to brush off the Winter cobwebs and get ready to make the most of whatever the year does bring.

The nights are getting shorter, days are getting longer.

Believe it or not, in 2 months time it will officially be Spring. 2012 is about to burst into life and we want to plant a few ideas with you to help you make the most of it.

Of course, for all of us in the industry, the first sign of Spring is SPATEX. More than 100 exhibitors making their way to Brighton is a far surer sign of the new season than the odd bulb in your garden.

I’d like to give you a few 2012 predictions of my own, and here is the first.

At SPATEX 2012 we will be presenting the full results of our survey, ‘The State of the Wet Leisure Industry’, which was conducted last year. All the information we gathered along with comments and insights will be made available, free of charge, to everyone and hard copies are available on our stand.

In a sense it’s a way for everyone to make his or her own predictions because the best way of knowing what the future holds is by knowing exactly where our industry stands.

SPATEX is the highlight of the wet leisure industry year and we will be in Brighton with a great deal to show and talk about.

Our 2012 Product Catalogue and Spares List (I bet your copies will be in the post to you right now.) will contain over 55 new products. They represent fresh and innovative developments that have come from working in partnership with the trade to help everyone grow their businesses and profits.

You can also visit the Golden Coast stand to see some of the product highlights and pick up additional copies of the catalogues.

Predicting the future of wet leisure marketing.

This will be the 16th year that we have exhibited at SPATEX and that shows just how strongly we believe in meeting people face to face and showing new products however, we have also been working much harder to engage with our customers online.

We have invested heavily in new websites over the past 18 months and overhauled our approach to marketing.

As part of our presence at SPATEX, Aren Grimshaw, will be giving a number of exclusive lectures at the show on Social Media Marketing. He will also be on hand to help you sign up to social media platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, and demonstrating our new sites so that you can become involved in posting information on them, engaging with potential customers and generating valuable business leads.

Aren will be on our stand throughout SPATEX if there is anything in particular that you would like to ask his advice on.

Beyond Brighton.

SPATEX is obviously the focus at this time of year but you shouldn’t lose sight of the bigger picture.

Now, while things are still quiet, is the time to get your business plan mapped out for the next 12 months and with it, your annual marketing plan drawn up.

Are you lined up for the county show? Are your radio and press adverts designed and booked and have you picked a date for your open day?

There’s a host of tips and advice on our WetLeisure site about all of this. Just follow this link.

If you are going to have a spring-clean of your showroom don’t forget to call our sales team about all the point-of-sale items that we have available.

We can produce customised posters for your showroom or you could take one of our new display stands for pool equipment. They come complete with hooks, shelves, brackets and a customised header board to compliment a professional presentation and help boost sales.

Saunas are an area of the market that is continuing to grow so now may well be a good time to consider a displaying a sauna too. I can predict that we’d be happy to help you with that.

If you need training before the season gets going on new products or any existing lines then just let one of our sales team know and we will get it arranged. We will be happy to put together sessions tailored to the needs of your staff on a range of products or focus on just one and sessions can be arranged for either your sales team or your engineers.

Open season.

No one can predict the weather – not even Nostradamus tried that – but if this coming Spring is anything like the last few years it will be a busy time for all of us.

Your customers are going to want their pools opened and, if you think and plan ahead, you can get more out of that than just opening a pool.

Why not incentivise your engineers to look for products that need replacing or could be upgraded? That point of contact with your customer could be the opportunity you need to sell them something like the water-saving MultiCyclone or one of the new, retro-fit Badu counter-current units.

In other words, my final prediction is that 2012 will be what you make of it.

So, don’t forget to get yourself registered on WetLeisure.co because all of our Golden Coast customers will have their information displayed, without any cost, on each of our consumer sites – YourPool, YourSpa and YourSauna.

And if you have any thoughts you’d like to share about any issues raised in this newsletter then please use the comment box below.