Boo. Bang. And Ho Ho Ho! What do these three phrases have in common?
They represent seasonal holidays that offer great opportunities for you to boost your marketing activities.
We’ll soon see:
- Halloween – 31st October.
- Guy Fawkes and Bonfire Night – 5th November.
- Black Friday – 24th November.
- The start of winter – December.
- Christmas Day – 25th December.
- New Years Day – 1st January.
But why should you join in?
Reach and engage with wider audiences
Everyone will be trying to capitalise on social media hashtags, but by thinking out-of-the-box and injecting creativity into your seasonal marketing efforts, you can reach new prospects and boost your sales.
For example, consider “spooking” your customers this Halloween by creating content that identifies their pain points and business “fears” that you can provide the solution for.
Or, you could offer your loyal customers a Christmas “present” in the form of a discount.
And, you could combine this with an expiration date to encourage customers to purchase quicker.
Five steps to plan a seasonal marketing campaign
To achieve success it’s crucial to have the right plan in place.
Follow our five simple steps to get your campaign on the right track…
1. Select the right opportunity.
When choosing a holiday or awareness day, ensure you’re being strategic.
Ask yourself:
- Will it engage your customers?
- What is the relationship between your services and the day?
And, it can be useful to review previous, similar campaigns, and use them for inspiration.
Consider:
- What industries jumped on the day?
- The similarities between those and your business.
- How were the campaigns distributed?
As with any campaign, your messaging is incredibly important.
To get it right consider:
- The emotions you want your audience to feel.
- The call-to-action for your customers.
- The story you want to tell.
A brand that got it spot on in its Christmas campaign last year was HotelTonight.
The campaign – “Visit, don’t stay” – played on the idea of families coming together during the holidays – whether they like it or not. And how people often seek to “get away” from the chaos that can occur.
The hotel business chose to take a humorous route, encouraging audiences to share a story of their worst / funniest Christmas family memory on social media, whilst keeping their key message of booking a hotel room front of mind.
3. Create a timing schedule.
It may seem obvious, but with seasonal marketing, timing is everything.
So, you’ll need to plan well in advance of the day, and factor in publishing times to ensure it’s relevant and doesn’t get lost amongst noise.
The media and consumers will be bombarded with seasonal marketing messages, so consider getting ahead of the game and begin promoting yours a week or two before.
And, don’t forget your audience. When is the best time to contact them? When will they be most willing to share the content and engage with the campaign?
An organisation that led the way last year was Asda, with its Do Halloween Your Way campaign, that was released on October 12th – nearly 3 weeks before the big day.
4. Utilise all channels and media forms.
To make the most of your marketing efforts, promote your campaign across all platforms including email, social media, PR, blog and SEO.
Also, consider different format types.
Have you created a long article? Why not push this out in a series of blogs accompanied by an email. The blogs can then be repurposed into PR pieces and an infographic, which can be broken down into social media postcards and GIFs.
5. Review and refine.
To remain agile and improve your next seasonal marketing push, you must review and report on your campaign’s performance.
- Did you meet your objectives?
- Did you increase website traffic?
- Where did the traffic come from?
- What type of content achieved the highest levels of engagement?
This will inform your next seasonal marketing push and help you improve results next year.
To learn how we can help improve your seasonal marketing efforts, contact us here, and find out more about “creating content to get shared” by reading our blog here.
