How to make the most of seasonal events
Emily Redman - 27 November 2019
Seasons are more than just different times of the year; they’re marketing opportunities that can be utilised to drive a lot of traffic to your website. We recommend incorporating seasonal events in your marketing strategy and planning for 2020 and here’s how…
What is seasonal marketing?
Seasonal marketing involves focusing your marketing efforts on annual seasonal events and targeting national holidays. This consists of identifying appropriate opportunities that are relevant to your business and using these to your advantage. Capitalising on these opportunities helps to attract customers to your products or services, increasing website traffic and driving sales.
Is seasonal marketing suitable for my business?
Seasonal events present different marketing opportunities for different industries. For many businesses, seasonal events are some of the most commercially important times of each year, but seasonal marketing isn’t for everyone.
It’s most suited for a business to consumer (B2C) company and particularly an e-commerce business. In comparison, applying seasonal marketing to business to business (B2B) companies tends to be more of a challenge and the marketing campaign created may appear forced and inconsistent with the brand’s image.
So, where to start? Take a look at our guide to making the most of seasonal events as part of your 2020 marketing campaign.
Research
Any good marketing campaign starts with research followed by a plan. Do your research to discover a whole host of seasonal occasions and create a list of each event and the date. Then, pick out the events that are most relevant to your businesses’ products and services for which you can focus your marketing efforts. Consider what USPs can be utilised across different seasons and get a plan in place.
Also research your current customers as they are who you should be focusing your seasonal marketing campaign on so it’s critical that you know them well. Consider the spending habits of your customers and look at purchasing patterns.
National Days
Remember that National Days can be just as useful as seasonal events in your marketing strategy. Take a look at the National Day Calendar for inspiration, you’re likely to come across some you may not have even heard of.
Be creative
Put your creative talents to good use and think outside the box. You’ll want your seasonal marketing strategy to be innovative and engaging, to make sure that you stand out from your competitors.
Create your own calendar
Now that you have a sizable collection of seasonal events and national days to play with, it’s time to schedule. Where seasonal events are concerned, timing is critical.
You also need to think about your audience when creating your calendar. When is the best time to target them with your seasonal marketing campaign? Consider this, would your marketing efforts be successful if you launched a Christmas campaign 2 days before Christmas? Probably not. But would your Christmas campaign engage more traction 2 months before Christmas? Absolutely.
With this in mind, consider and perfect your marketing campaign well before the actual event by identifying when it will be most appealing to your customers.
Make room for seasonal budgets
Once you have created your own seasonal calendar, you should start to consider seasonal budgets as part of your bigger business plan.
Take a look at your customer’s purchasing patterns over the previous years and identify peak season preferences. It’s most advantageous to spend the bulk of your marketing budgets during or prior to these peak seasons as this is when your customers are looking to buy and are most willing to make a purchase.
Remember to also consider the lead time for your seasonal marketing. For instance, if your business is a florist and you’ve identified that your peak seasonal event is Valentine’s Day, you will want to start your marketing campaign a few weeks prior to the event. Marketing your florist on the 14th February itself would be ineffective. Adjust your seasonal budgets accordingly, depending on lead time.
Keep in mind that not all businesses benefit from the same peak seasons. Tune into when sales are at their highest for your business and base your seasonal marketing budget around this.
Create anticipation
When creating your seasonal calendar, consider ways that you can build anticipation in your customers, perhaps by having a countdown to different events. Not only will this spark up excitement surrounding the event, but it will also create a sense of urgency. In turn, this will help to drive sales in the build up to the event your campaign is based around.
Blog opportunities
With new seasonal events comes fantastic opportunities to create new blog content. Here are some annual events that we would especially focus on:
- Valentine’s Day
- Easter
- Mother’s Day and Father’s Day
- Halloween
- Black Friday and Cyber Monday
- Christmas
- New Year
Top tip: Remember to promote your seasonal blog content on your social media accounts for extra engagement.
Looking for help in planning your marketing strategy for 2020 and would like further guidance in incorporating seasonal events into your campaigns? Our expert team here at Wagada are happy to help. Find out more about the digital marketing services we have to offer and get in touch today.
