An Ultimate Seasonal Marketing Guide For Businesses

Seasonality is one of the evolving trends. 

It doesn’t matter if your business is not seasonal related, but the costumes have particular reactions that can be used to your advantage. 

According to Bigcommerce, 40% of online sales increased in online sales within the last three months i.e. October, November, and December. 

With the holiday season is around the corner, marketers are looking for how to start with their seasonal marketing campaigns.  

You can plan the champion either of the complete seasons or choose days like Black Friday, Christmas, and New Year. 

Drafting seasonal marketing requires to consider different aspects. You need to understand the latest trends, ideas, and strategies to plan your season marketing. 

For this season, here is how you can create your best campaign for your small business. 

Steps For Crafting Seasonal Marketing Campaign For The Small Business 

According to a study by Statista recorded that During valentine’s days in 2013 in the US, the money spends on seasonal chocolate was $244.9 Million due to seasonal marketing campaigns. 

Accenture claims that around 55% of consumers decide to visit the store during Cyber Monday and Black Friday. 

The seasonal marketing campaign is effective and one of the Opportunities for every bsuiness owner to take the best advantage from it. 

To plan such campaigns, you are going to need to follow some basic steps.  

Step 1: Start With Goals & Message 

Similar to any campaigns, Seasonal marketing start with the goal. 

Focus on defining the goals and what do you want to gain after the campaign ends. With this, start brainstorming the ideas that can help you to achieve it. 

Now look for the message that you want to connect with the audience. The message should be clear, so no matter what social media platform you choose. It should be the same tone and same message. 

 When you are considering it, here are some points to focus on as well. 

Storytelling To Empower 

The common thing between all hit campaigns that ever designed is the storytelling.  

Image source:Medium

No matter if you consider Coco cola‘s the Christmas tree or Starbucks’s red cups. They all had strong storytelling backing up their products. 

Storytelling is an important part. 92% of consumers look for brand ads that make them feel like a story. 

With the help of the story, you make your campaign remember what your ad is all about. 

Tie It Up With Brand 

The emotional tie-up with the message to your brand is important to show the powerful impact. 

After you set up your goal, make sure to use the messaging and campaign idea to connect with the overall brand. 

Add CTA 

Call to action is important so your customers know where to go and what to do. Encourage your customer to take action. 

Add the different CTA so people can take fast decisions. Make sure your ad is strong enough to connect with your audience throughout their customer journey. 

Step 2: Make a strategy & Plans 

Start with considering the channel where you want to feature the seasonal campaign. There are different options and ideas to consider. 

Make your strategies and plan all the campaigns according to that. Different platforms can give you much more reach to your customer and suitable for your campaign as well. 

Step 3: Choose The Timing 

Deciding the timing here can be tricky. There are lots of points to consider, whereas the seasonal is for once per year. 

The best thing you can do here is to research. Consider the different aspects where your research can help you. 

Make sure to understand the buying pattern, ideas, trends, and other different things that your customers do.

Also, it’s important to pay attention to timing and when to launch your campaigns. 

Step 4: Put It In Draft 

When you end up collecting all the info you wanted, It’s time to make a draft. 

You need to start with images, copy, and other titles for the seasonal campaign. 

Also, make sure to focus on the dimension of your channel. Before you post, keep the drafts proofread and revise everything to not make mistakes. 

Review them twice to make sure you are not doing any errors.

Step 5: Make It Live 

Now you are completed with the final, it’s time to make your ads live for the audience. 

Whenever you post your ads, make sure to check it. It will give you some time to correct before the customers get any mistakes. 

Ensure that there are no mistakes and errors to have any kind of problems in the future. 

Seasonal Marketing Ideas To Consider For Your Business 

It doesn’t matter if you have a business online, or your own retail store or have a B2B company. Seasonal marketing is beneficial for everyone if you know what to offer. 

Such opportunities are nothing less than winning a jackpot. You can market your services or product in different ways to your customers.

Also, it doesn’t require lots of finance as well. You can plan your marketing without investing too much. 

Here are some ideas that you can try for this seasonal marketing campaign. 

1. Sell Solution 

Selling a solution to your customer in seasonal months is one of the best ideas.

Show them how your product can solve their problems and how it’s beneficial for their use. For example, during such seasons, cleaning became one of the hectic jobs. 

If your business is selling a cleaning product, it can do direct help. If not, or you have business-related snacks or coffee, you can use it as a ‘recharging’ tool. 

Promote your products as a helping hand to solve the problem directly or indirectly. 

Pro Tip: create tutorial content instead of telling people. Use the content to show how your product is helpful and demonstrate it. It will help in building trust but also people will convince them to try it out. 

2. Theme Based Promotions

Holiday seasons have lots of themes, you can pick Halloween, Christmas, or new year to promote your products. 

Image source: Cedcommerce

You can customize your product according to the theme. Make sure you are focused on the visuals including the websites and products.  

For example, restaurants share their holiday based recipes. Gyms boost the new year resolution to stay fit in the new year. Salon gives ideas to try new hairstyles. 

The possibilities are endless. You can pick whatever fits your product and approach your customers.

Pro Tip: Visual of your products are helpful as it keeps your customers feeling more festive. For example, during Halloween, you can change the visual to spooky, create ads to boost the conversion. 

3. Partner With Brands 

Brand collaboration is another most successful idea in seasonal marketing. Different marketing ideas revolve around reaching out to the brands and connecting with a new audience. 

Lots of businesses look for collaborating with brands to increase their revenue. 

Partnering with other brands helps you to cross-promote your brand and products. Also, it creates more buzz since its holiday season. 

It will boost profit and customer engagement as well. 

4. Special Message On Special Day 

Mother’s day or father’s Day is a huge retail holiday. 

People look for special items or things to buy for their important ones. You can offer the customer to share the message with the person. 

Ask them to join your social media or website. You can ask your staff to share their special ones along with their photos on the websites. 

It will encourage more people to join you. Also, it creates user-generated content that boosts the brand engagement too. 

Feature the messages on your social media along with thanking them. You can also offer discounts to participants to encourage more entries. 

5. Giveaways & Contest 

Image source:wordstream

There are a number of giveaways and contests that happen around the festival season. 

For example, if you are looking forward to offering a contest during thanksgiving, you can ask your customers to submit by following certain steps.

 Not just you will get user-generated content but it will keep the buzz about your products too.

Use the spirit of the season to boost the engagement and make the comets special for the participants. 

Also, highlight the winners and let them enjoy the winning experience. 

Pro tip: Make sure to focus on what you are offering to winners. Your promotion for the contest should be exciting and include the festive touch too. 

6. Easter Egg Hunt 

You can start your own easter egg hunt on your website or in the product. Ask your customers to look for the hints and follow the patterns to find the hidden easter eggs. 

Image source:extremecreations

Run the contest based on this and let them get into the whole mystery of hunting eggs. 

Such ideas can help you in getting a more engaged audience on your website and social media. Also, people enjoy such treasure hunts like games. 

However to make it more interesting, offer a prize that can encourage your audience to participate and stick to the end. 

7. Combination Of Products In One 

A combination of products can be in bundles or seasonal hampers. It’s not just exciting but during seasonal months, you can use it for hyping up the whole festive feelings. 

Start with including three or five products of yours, offer a discount, or use combo promotions. 

Such offers give customers a chance to try different products together. But also it gives value for the money. 

For example, you can offer a mystery box at a certain price for a specific holiday or festival. Make sure you are adding the products that can be helpful for your customers and interesting at the same time. 

8. Google Seasonal Ad Campaigns

Google ads are also known as Adwords. No matter what you do, it’s an ideal place to create your own seasonal ad. 

You can create your google ads campaign targeting your holiday buyers.

Image source: Googlesupport

If you sell clothes, you can create ads for sweaters for Christmas or holidays. Based on that design landing pages for ads to show the incentives that buyers will get shopping from you during seasonal months.

When you are creating the ads, make sure to remember these tips 

• Use words for season ads. Add phrases like Holiday or trending words for getting attention. 
• Highlight the offers and deals especially for holidays.
• Create an urgency to get more people 
• Keep it relevant to buyers 
• Keep the ad scheduling
• Get an extension for ads. 

9. Seasonal Photo Contest 

Ask your customers to share their photos. Make this contest interesting and creative. Let them show their excitement for the holiday seasons. 

You can do theme-based contests like Halloween costume photos, Christmas photo contests, etc. 

Also, you can ask them to share their holiday photo with something creative. The winner will receive the prize. Make sure it should be something encouraging and inviting enough to attract more submits. 

10. Attend and Invite People To Events 

Festivals and holidays are times people love to get an invite to shows or concerts. You can host such things. 

Or you can attend the local market celebrations, parades or events. It will help you in getting in touch with more people. Along with attracting local markets and people for your business. 

Pro Tip: You can host discounts or offers for such events to increase more engagement with your business. 

11. Focus On Content Marketing 

Content can help you in offering relevant and attractive attention from your audience. You can use the ideas for getting more constant traffic to your business. 

You can create a small post or video content to increase awareness about your brand in festival seasons.

12. Newsletter For Holiday 

Image source: Pinterest 

Take leverage from email marketing, get the best of the season marketing to more sign-ups. 

Make your newsletter look festive ready. Ofer promotional newsletter directly to your customer emails. 

Keep your newsletter interesting and creative. If you are choosing Christmas, focus on visuals to give the Christmas vibes. 

Pro Tip: To make the promotional newsletter more interesting and make people act fast, you can offer limited sales or offer. Add promotional code with time limits to build the emergency. 

13. Loyalty Programs 

Loyalty programs in seasonal months can be an ideal choice to reward your loyal customers. 

With this, you can attract more people along with rewarding your old customers. You can ask them to refer a friend or invite in-store experiments. 

You can get more people to redeem their points and engage them in buying more from you.

 If you are choosing to refer a friend, either you can choose a fixed amount of percentage to discount. Or you can add certificates or gift cards. 

14. Offer Shipping For Free

According to the research, 9 out of 10 people choose online shopping if they get free shipping. You can offer free shipping to get more audience to your business. 

Image source:venngage

If you don’t do free shipping, you can exclusively make it for festival seasons. Not your customers will be excited to ship from you but it will increase the urgency for those who want to enjoy the free shipping.

15. Holiday Hashtags 

Seasonal hashtags can help you in boosting the awareness of your brand among people. You can ask your customers to come with something to create ideas or ask them to share their posts along with hashtags. 

This will give you organic reach for your brand. Along with this, it will boost the user-generated content for your website and social media for the holiday season as well.

Encourage your people to use the hashtags and offer additional perks to boost the numbers. 

Make sure to target your loyal customers as they will promote your hashtag and brand reputation more originally. 

16. Flash Holiday Sales 

There are lots of brands that offer flash sales for festivals like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Image source: Societal

These special two festivals become an integral part of the shopping extravaganza. The sales numbers are boosting up every year which makes such holidays favorite of the owners.

Pro Tip:  Hype up the flash sales using your social media and stories. 

Well, make sure to keep in mind that flash sales are a time-sensitive period. It can be good for a few hours. You can do it for a few more days during the festival seasons. 

17.Holiday Theme Packaging 

Give something extra to your customers to enjoy their time with your brand. 

For the festival seasons, you can do theme packaging. It will help you in boosting up brand awareness and also make your people understand that you care.

Pro Tip: Holiday packaging is especially best for December. You can create something memorable with this. 

Also to promote it, you can ask your customer to share their experience on social media. 

Customizing your product according to theme-based will help you in getting more loyal buyers in the future. 

18.Help Your Customers Resolutions 

Every new year, people come with their resolutions. Some want to stay fit and some want to manage their work. 

You can help your customers to fulfill their new year’s resolution.

 For example, if you run a snack store, you can offer healthy snacks to stay fit for those who want to follow a healthy lifestyle this year. 

If you have an apparel store, you can offer discounts or offers to help your customs to revive their wardrobe for the new year. 

People look for such options during seasons, give them more reasons to buy it from you.

19.Gift For Special One 

Days like Valentine’s day is one of the important days for business owners. You can target more people to buy something unique or exciting to them. 

Lots of brands offer special valentine editions for the special ones. Not just it attracts more people but people do fast purchases too. 

You can ask your buyers to share their special gifts with their loved ones. And post it on social media. In return either, they can get promotional offers or you can create your community with this. 

20. Instagram Contest Ads

Image source:Wordstream

During festive seasons, you can connect more with your customers with the help of Instagram. 

Make your seasonal marketing campaign shine with Instagram ads. Use the place to share posts, selfies, and interesting photos to give more festive vibes. 

You can engine your customers by sharing ugly sweaters, decorations, or use creativity to make it fun.

21. Holiday Giveaway 

You can run holiday-specific giveaways on your source media. Make sure to use most of your Twitter, Snapchat, and Facebook like platforms. This will help you in getting more visitors and attention.

Offering giveaways will attract people who like to enjoy the free stuff. Make sure your giveaway entry is not complicated or has lots of steps. Keep it easy and simple. 

Ask your followers to comment on a post or share it on their social media. Keep the giveaway interested and relevant to the holiday. 

22. Play Smart With Remarketing 

Remarketing can help you in getting more sales. 

With the help of remarketing you can connect with the people who have previously interacted with your brand or products. Stargrclly position the ads to them for reminding. 

It does not just boost brand awareness but during festive seasons, people spend money without thinking too much. You can use this opportunity to remind them what they saved for later in their cart. 

Pro tip: Use different platforms where your customers interact with you, for example, Google, Instagram, Facebook, etc. 

23. Holiday Themed Webinar 

The webinar is one of the trending ideas for lots of business. 

You can use it for festival seasons as well. There are lots of businesses who sent an invitation to their customers. Your customer might have 10 to 20 such invitations in their inbox too. 

In such a situation, the customers sometimes either forget to check the inbox or such invitations go unnoticed. 

But hosting a webinar with a holiday theme can be an eyecatcher for your audience. You can add fun elements to make it interesting and get more engagement with your target audience.

For example, HubSpot is using the webinar idea for a long time. They often promote their seasonal webinars within tested ideas and something to offer that the audience won’t turn down.

Pro Tip: To make more audience attend your webinar. You can add free gifts like holiday free shipping or discount code. 

24. Use Creativity With The Ads

Message videos are one of the highest engaging ways of communication. People connect much faster with the ads than any other form of communication. 

For festive seasons, you can use videos to get more attention from your audience. 

For example, if you are sending invitations to your customer for events or webinars, use videos to make it look fun and exciting. 

You can use your creativity to make it look cheerful and festive to promote better. 

25. Festival Displays 

The festive displays are one of the ways to attract more eyes to your store. If you are an online business, focus on display ads. 

With the help of the festival, images can help you in creating a cheerful environment. 

You can create something funny and easy to attract eye ads that can get your customer’s attention. 

Festival displays should be relatable and relevant to the customers. Make sure you are not

26. Offer Holiday Based Personalized Gifts 

It’s the holiday season and everyone likes getting gifts. To show your appreciation and attitude toward your customers. You can add the touch of personalization. 

Use the opportunity to thank your customers. You can send homemade cookies or thank you cards so your customer can feel warm about your brand too. 

Pro Tip: Ask your colleagues to participate in this, let your customers know about your business more than just a product. 

27. Use Amazon 

For those small retail businesses, Amazon ads can be beneficial for getting more sales in this festival season. 

Amazon is one of the biggest names when it comes to online shopping, During festivals, lots of people visit the site to shop,

With such an opportunity, invest your money on amazon ads to create space for your business too. Make sure to know more about the guidelines of amazon before you start.

28. The New Me Concept 

In every new year, people go with the idea of the new me concept. You can take advantage of the opportunity to reboot your products too. 

You can promote your products with a new look and new ideas. Also, offer your customers to try it and share the experiences. 

Use the new year product strategy to get effective results for your brand. 

Pro Tip: You can invite your customers to create the new tagline or choose the new look for the products. 

29. Promote Ahead Of The Festivals 

Lots of people prefer to shop before the festive season starts. Not just products have a better price but they get benefits like the availability of products, shipping on time, etc. 

For example, If people are purchasing from your store for Halloween, encourage them to shop for Christmas too. 

Make sure to highlight the specials and offers for those who are purchasing early from you. 

30. Invite People To Name The Product 

Take leverage of festival seasons and use it for re-engaging more people with your brand. 

Ask them to come up with creative names for your products. 

You can temporarily change it for the seasons or holidays to make it relevant.

Make sure you are focusing on the headlines of your seasonal marketing campaigns. Such small details are noticed by the audience and they decide if they want to participate or not. 

31. Promote Seasonal Products 

One of the effective ways to make your customer journey smooth is to avail things that your customer is looking for easily. 

One of the options you can try is to make a category especially for the seasonal products you have. Gather everything and promote the page to your customers. 

For example, Take Offer did a similar approach during mother’s day. 

They selected all their products which might their customers want to gift their mother. Also, they made a pop up for promoting the page and making it easier for the visitor to visit. 

In addition, they worked on the text to evoke the feelings and to promote their visitors to click faster. 

32. Get The Testimonials Based On Seasons 

Customer testimonials can help you in boosting up your sales.

Customers these days taking the testimonials more seriously so they can understand what the brand is promoting and the quality of the products. 

Add testimonials to your webpage and make sure to keep it seasonal specific. The testimonial should be focused on the product for the specific seasons like Thanksgiving, Halloween, etc.

This will make things easier for those visitors who are looking for specific products for the season or festival. With the help of a review, they understand if it’s good and what else they can get.

33. Customize The Product Guides

Product guides are helpful for those who wanted to know what to buy. Also helping your customers is one of the ways to build trust and drive sales. 

Image source: sleeknote

You can create product guides based on festivals, and help your audience to find the products that they might like to buy, 

For example, if you have an apparel site, you can use the pop-ups to guide your visitors to buy the perfect dress for Christmas or New Year. 

34. Donate For The Cause 

You can encourage your audience to do a donation for the causes. No matter what business you do, you can make it a nation or international awareness by sharing event links.  

Use such ideas on awareness days. 

For example, Benetton Clothing did a campaign for International Women’s Day. They started the #UnitedByHalf campaign in which they highlighted the issues like equal pay in India among women and men. 

The brand spread awareness but also contributed by supporting the workers in factories.

You can promote the cause and take the initiative to support such issues. By this, not just you are doing good deeds but also encouraging people to do the same. 

35. Personalized Gifts 

Festive seasons are the time when people buy most of the gifts for their loved ones. It can be for Valentine’s days or for Christmas. 

People look for gifts for family, relatives and even for their special ones. You can offer personalized options to the products, so they can gift someone close to them. 

Make the product easy to customize and add extra like cards or notes to make it look like a gift. 

Inspiring Examples Of Seasonal Marketing Ideas By Brands 

Every year there are more numbers in brands, coming with different ideas for seasonal marketing for their business. 

There are campaigns everywhere, it can be on tv ads, social media posts, or holiday emails. 

Some brands certainly made an impact on their campaigns. Well for a small business seasonal marketing can boost serious numbers in their sales and customer engagement. 

To learn how to do it right, here are some of the inspiring examples and correctly done seasonal campaigns by brands. 

Coca-Cola Canada 

Coca-Cola Canada did a campaign called peace on earth or at least in the mall. 

Shopping malls are divided when it comes to people shopping during holiday seasons. Some people don’t like the decor or some stay away from it. 

Coca-cola Canada came up with a campaign for the mall during the holidays. They focused on bringing the people together. The company launched the videos on their social media. 

In the video, two people are shown fighting over the jacket. And they come up with a solution by enjoying the coca-cola together.  

The ad was not just focusing on the issue but also showing the piece with the product. 

Dollar Shave Club 

Dollar shave club comes up with snarky marketing for their holiday shave set. 

It was fun and entertaining.  

Well, in the video, they showed the snowman in the sweater feeling jealous of the holiday shave set.

The idea was to use the cheesiness of holiday tradition and use the ugly sweaters along with the brand to spice up the holiday season. 

Hinge 

Hinge used email marketing for approaching their customers. They send emails asking the question of what you are thankful for?

Image source:sevenatoms

The dating app used the opportunity to show its recent subsequent growth and rebrand. They used it for showing their gratitude as well.

The timing of marketing was a smart move. During holiday seasons, people are more sentimental than usual. It’s much easier to evoke sentiments and feelings. 

Hinge used the chance to redirect their user’s attention toward the app, so they can find meaningful relationships and people. 

UNICEF 

UNICEF is running a charity for kids. Where lots of people October 31st means eating lots of sweets. However, UNICEF used the opportunity by including the youngest generation and encouraging them to make difference. 

Image source: Toronto 

For seven decades, they are promoting the Trick Or Treat For UNICEF fundraising program. 

In this, Millions of children with UNICEF collection boxes visit people and go house to house for asking the donations. Instead of sweet treats, they do the donations for others.

Well in 2019 Halloween, UNICEF came up with something different but reusing the same idea they create a campaign. It’s called Halloween heroes that included four characters. 

They made a journey where children were encouraged to take a step for those kids who are lacking basic rights like water, food, security, and education. 

With this, the campaign was not just successful but also appreciated for encouraging the power of empathy among young generations. 

But it was also a unique approach in which you don’t need something brand new idea to create an impact. Reusing the same idea can work for the audience as well. 

Samsung Galaxy 

Samsung came up with the idea to celebrate its tumultuous year and cheer the masses. They offered the Gear VR as a gift.

Virtual reality is going to be an important marketing device in the upcoming years. It becomes more important when brands want to establish their experience with customers. 

With the help of Gear VR, the company can easily do that.

Samsung promoted the idea with the holiday ad. They showed relatives gifting to their loved ones. Sharing the feelings of shock, happiness, and wonder. 

They promote their ads on social media sweepstakes for the campaign. 

They promote it with the contest by offering the chances to win Galaxy S7 Edge along with a Gear VR.

The brand invited the users on Twitter with the hashtag #GalaxyS7edge and #GearVR along with #Sweepstakes. 

They were also asked to share their opinion on why they deserve it. 

Mistakes To Avoid When Planning Seasonal Marketing 

The holiday season is one of the opportunities that no business owners want to waste. However, starting the seasonal marketing campaign can be a hassle but make sure not to mess up by doing mistakes 

Here are a few ones that you make sure to avoid. 

Starting Way Too Late 

The timing of starting your seasonal marketing should be perfect. It is unique and choosing the time can affect the results of your overall marketing. 

The October month is crucial, and it’s important to start with the plan and ready to implement it. 

Make sure you are not waiting for November to start with the campaign. 

Make sure to pre-plan and consider all the latest changes to plan your marketing. 

Not Focusing On Landing Page 

Landing pages are helpful for boosting your SEO. For promoting your site, you are going to need effective landing pages. 

For seasonal months, your landing pages become much more important. 

You can also use a mini-website as an alternative option. . Make sure your theme is holiday-based and make it look interesting. 

For example, you can take Hubspot mini-site for holiday seasons which proved as a great success. It can help you in getting leads for your holiday sales. 

Not Creating The Hype Of Post Holiday 

Holiday seasons are important but keep in mind that it’s not your only aim.

Even after the holiday season ends, the after period is important for the business too. For a business, making the best of it can help in getting more sales and customer engagement. 

Consider people to share their reviews or options after your business experience. This will boost the word of mouth. 

Overall improving your impression in the market. Also, ask them to sign up for the newsletter. But make sure to offer something like small gifts or deals to encourage as well. 

Not Analyzing The Previous Trends 

Small businesses should not ignore analyzing their previous trends and what their competitors did. 

Doing such things can help you in understanding what lacked last time. If your competitor did a great job, you will get the highlight too. 

Consider past trends that did successful results. Make sure to understand all the positive and negative aspects. 

Making sure to know about such points can help you in getting some idea about the new trends too. Try to understand the pattern and make it your way to target your audience.

Offering Too Much Of Discounts 

Offering coupons and discounts are good and it’s assured to get more people. However, not knowing when to stop can be a mistake for your seasonal marketing. 

If you are overdoing with the discount and offers, people will assume your brand is too inexpensive. It also makes your discount and offers less exciting for your audience. 

Make sure when to use the discount to trigger more people’s attention. People like it when they get good deals, especially with bundle deals. You can also offer gift cards to improve the experience.

Frequently Asked Question ( FAQs)

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