seasonal marketing: prepping for the next wave so you’re always one step ahead

www.marketingsavant.com 888.989.7771 The MarketingSavant Group

The MarketingSavant Group

Marketing Through the Seasons

Your guide to creating a marketing plan for every season!


www.marketingsavant.com

888.989.7771

[email protected]



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Are you recording the webinar?

YES! http://www.marketingsavant.com/resources/

YES! http://www.marketingsavant.com/resources/



Post-Webinar Resources



What You Will Learn

• The benefits of seasonal marketing

• How to pick seasonal themes to base your marketing message around

• Reference Chase’s Calendar of Events for additional promotional opportunities

• How to select seasonal products and services to promote

• How to set up your promotional calendar for the year

• Create a strategy to implement seasonal marketing year round

• Effectively integrate social media into all of your seasonal marketing efforts



Why Seasonal Marketing?

• Tap into increased consumer spending • Take advantage of inherent marketing themes • Heightened consumer awareness and excitement

surrounding the season, holiday or event • Create a sense of urgency with limited, seasonal

promotions • Give customers something to be excited about

leading up to your promotion and a reason to buy during the promotion

• Annual traditions induce emotional buying patterns



Seasonal Marketing by the Numbers • Online spending increased 15% November – December

2001 from the previous year

• During November and December of 2011, US consumers spent $37.2 Billion on online purchases, according to comScore

• In 2011, US consumers spent $1.25 Billion on Cyber Monday alone

• According to B2B Marketing, marketing emails sent in November have the highest open rate, at 12.28%

• Targeted emails sent in November also result in more transactions than any other month

http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2012/1/U.S._Online_Holiday_Shopping_Season_Reaches_Record_37.2_Billion_for_November-December_Period



5 Steps to a Sound Seasonal Marketing Strategy 1. Select marketing themes for each season

a. Seasons b. Holidays c. Events d. Anniversaries e. Sporting Events

2. Align products and services with their respective season, holiday or event

3. Create a seasonal marketing editorial calendar for the entire year

4. Integrate seasonal marketing into your regular marketing strategy

5. Promote your seasonal promotions



Pick Out Your Themes

• Pick out holidays to base themes around

• Reference Chase’s Calendar of Events to find:

– Holidays

– Relevant Dates

– Famous anniversaries

– Major sporting events

http://www.mhprofessional.com/templates/chases/

http://www.mhprofessional.com/templates/chases/



Chase’s Calendar of Events

• A single reference source for calendar dates, and for authoritative and current information about various observances throughout the year

• Includes – Special events – Holidays – Federal and state

observances – Historic anniversaries – Unusual celebratory

traditions



Holidays

• Christmas

• Valentine’s Day

• St. Patrick’s Day



Relevant Dates

• Earth Day

• April Fool’s Day

• Relevant industry dates



Famous Anniversaries

• Abe Lincoln’s birthday

• Columbus Day

• Industry anniversaries

• Watch the Google Doodles



Major Sporting Events

• Olympics

• March Madness

• Super Bowl

• World Series

• PGA Championships

• Stanley Cup

• Major local sporting events

• Involve any teams or leagues that you sponsor



Go for the Gold Summer Ideas!

Even if you can’t sponsor the 2012 Olympics, you can still get your business involved in Olympic-sized promotions! • Offer a 5% discount for every gold

medal your country wins, capped at a certain number.

• Tie discounts to the win of your favorite athlete. If, say, Michael Phelps wins a gold, give customers $10 cash back on that day.

• Advertise Olympics specials: 25% off all athletic gear until Aug. 24 (the last day of the games).

• Selling special products or services, such as a special Olympic-themed mixed drink, especially for the Olympics.



Research Seasonal Consumer Demand

• Look at last year’s trends – Check sales records – Look at your analytics

during that period for top-performing keywords

– What content on your website performed the best?

• Research high volume search terms and keywords – The Google AdWords

Keyword tool is great for this research



Align Your Products/Services with Seasonal Demand

• Consumer demand changes seasonally and it’s important to give them what they want

• Once you have figured out when different products and services will be in high demand, figure out how you’re going to promote them during their respective “peak” seasons



Promoting Your Promotion – Media Outreach A successful seasonal marketing campaign is all about timing and getting the word out!

• Media Outreach – Free publicity

– Large audience

– Must pay attention to different outlet lead times • A monthly magazine publication may require you to

pitch your story 3-6 months in advance

• Daily newspapers may require virtually no lead time so you can pitch your story and have it published the next day



Promoting Your Promotion – Social Media • Social media allows you to meet your customers in their

medium economically and efficiently • Allows for efficient customer conversion with an easy

transition to ecommerce sites • Create a special landing page on your website or Facebook

page specifically for the promotion • Use Facebook ads to get the word out • Leverage the power of blogging to go into more detail

about the promotion • Inform your Twitter Followers and Facebook fans a month

prior and remind them of the promotion several times leading up to it

• Use Pinterest to launch your seasonal product line or feature promotional products or services



Promoting Your Promotion - Email

• Leverage your email list to promote your seasonal campaign to current and previous customers

• Email allows you to reward repeat customers with coupon codes or priority access to “limited supplies”

• Can include links to promotion landing pages for easy conversion



Focus on Benefits

Holiday shoppers are more likely to open emails that have enticing subject lines.

Keep these four characteristics of winning subject lines in mind:

• Useful

• Ultra-Specific

• Unique

• Urgent

For example, Piperlime—an online retailer of shoes, apparel, and accessories for men and women—sent an email with this subject line in the summer of 2011: “Last day! 20% off fall apparel + smokin’ slippers.” This has all the characteristics of a winning subject line:

• Useful – The offer of 20% off is valuable to the email’s recipient.

• Ultra-Specific – The subject line is clear: the recipient can save on fall clothing for one more day.

• Unique – This promotion stands out because instead of offering a discount at the end of the season like most retailers, Piperlime offers it at the beginning. Plus, the reference to “smokin’ slippers” is unusual and catchy.

• Urgent – “Last day!” pushes the recipient to read the full email sooner rather than later.



One Step Ahead

• When to start planning

– Have a seasonal marketing schedule mapped out for the year

– Planning for each promotion should begin 2 months prior to the beginning of the season, holiday or event

• When to launch the promotion

– Your target window to promote is about one month prior

– You don’t want to jump the gun but if you start too late other businesses will have a head start on you



10 Seasonal Social Media Marketing Ideas 1. Write a series of blog posts about your best seasonal products & services

or tips to get through the season or holiday 2. Hold a Facebook contest or sweepstakes in honor of the holiday or event 3. Create a Pinterest board dedicated to your new product line 4. Create a Pinterest board for followers to pin their favorite seasonal items 5. Send a targeted email announcing your seasonal promotion and include

a discount code 6. Launch a series of holiday-themed YouTube videos – entertaining or

informative 7. Offer 20% off or a free drink to all dads who check in at your place of

business on Foursquare on Father’s day 8. Create your own holiday-themed hashtag on Twitter to build a buzz

surrounding your marketing campaign during the weeks leading up to it 9. Have your designer tweak your logo to incorporate the season and use it

as your avatar on the social networks 10. Create a special seasonal/holiday landing page on your Facebook page or

your website



Seasonal Marketing Success Story – Starbucks • Offer popular seasonal

drinks – available for a limited time only!

• Cup Magic Mobile App – Customers can “collect”

seasonal cups

– Allows consumers to send e-gifts to their friends and family

– Informs customers of seasonal specials and promotions



Seasonal Marketing Success Story – OfficeMax • OfficeMax wins the

creativity prize with their customer-created “Elf Yourself” videos

• Customers can transpose pictures of their friends and family onto the heads of elves to create custom holiday dance videos

• Doesn’t have anything to do with office supplies but gets people excited about the season and talking about their campaign



Seasonal Marketing Success Story – Kohl’s

• Kohl’s rode on the viral coat-tails of the YouTube sensation “Friday” by Rebecca Black

• Created a spinoff of the video to promote their Black Friday sale

• Takes advantage of the popularity of the original song

• The video makes people laugh and informs consumers about their biggest sale of the year



Integrate Seasonal Marketing Into Your Regular Marketing Strategy

• Download the Seasonal Marketing infographic and use it to map out seasons, holidays, events, trade shows and historical anniversaries to promote throughout the year

• Incorporate these promotional dates into your editorial calendar

• Work 2 months in advance – look ahead to make sure you are ready to roll out an organized seasonal campaign a month prior to the actual season or event

• Leverage your social networks, email contacts and the media to promote your seasonal marketing campaigns

Seasonal Planning Infographic



Post-Webinar Resources



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www.marketingsavant.com

888.989.7771

[email protected]

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seasonal marketing: prepping for the next wave so you’re always one step ahead

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