Seasons change, so do your marketing campaign strategies.
New Year, Easter, Halloween, Black Friday, and Christmas are all seasonal events of the calendar, the days that drive a lot of website traffic.
The question is, are you capitalising on these seasons and doing your best to maximise the traffic and sales during those periods?
It is given that every marketer plans their marketing strategy all year round. But, a few overlook the essence of seasonal marketing strategy— and that’s a huge loss of opportunity.
If you haven’t applied seasonal marketing strategies, we are here to help you out.
Tips for Seasonal Marketing Strategies
1. Create a Seasonal Email List
Digital marketing strategy is incomplete without email marketing, the same with your year-round email marketing. You have to create an email list; the difference is you have to make a list specific to the season.
It is best to retarget the leads you have collected through your content and offer products or services specific to the season. It is essential to make your opt-in incentive relevant to the season.
You can set up a newsletter or opt-in form on your website to invite your target audience for early access to your seasonal or exclusive deals.
Instead of letting your customers stand in cold hours outside your store during the season sale, giving them early access is valuable and convenient.
Having a relevant email list gets more traffic, and hopefully, sales during the seasons.
2. Audience Report: Understanding Audience Behavior
Make your customer’s purchasing journey easy by helping them find what they are looking for. You can place all season-relevant products on one page and promote them to your visitors.
Leading your prospects to a smaller section of season-specific products helps them choose what to purchase. If you present many choices, it prolongs their decision stage, preventing them from buying.
3. Make them Anticipate— Use a Countdown Timer
The excitement builds up when anticipating a big event. That’s why you should promote your seasonal sales or events ahead of time. If people do not have an idea of what’s to come, they won’t likely come back to your website.
Add countdown timers to your upcoming events. Countdown timers are attention-grabbing, and it triggers the “fear of missing out” of people. Built anticipation creates hype and excitement about what’s to come.
4. Use Season-Specific Testimonials
Customer testimonials increase sales.
Prospects do not easily purchase, even when the product is offered at a much lower price. Consumers look for product reviews and recommendations to ensure its quality. That’s why it is important to include season-specific testimonials.
Season-specific testimonials make consumers think that the product is best for a certain occasion. Dig into customer testimonials to add value to your product pages.
5. Create and Customise Product Guides
Be the source of relevant and helpful information to your target audience. Create and customise product guides. For example, you sell appliances; create a product guide on choosing the right appliance.
You do not have to create new product guides every season. Repurpose your content. Let’s say, you already have a regular product guide about dresses. You can customise it to a new product guide. For example, it is Christmas; you can repurpose the product guide about Christmas dresses.
There is a huge difference between these product guides. The latter becomes more specific and fits the season, making it more relevant for visitors.
6. Make It Interactive
You can make your landing page or dedicate a webpage for seasonal games. There are some seasonal events that you can turn into games, and marketers often use Easter. You are familiar with egg hunting during Easter, right? Marketers apply that game on their websites.
Let’s say you have to look for hidden Easter eggs while browsing your product catalog. When you find the egg, you get a gift voucher or discount.
Creating an interactive seasonal game is an effective method to drive more engagement. Think of more games; creativity has endless possibilities.
7. Be Mindful with Possible Problems
Seasonal marketing strategies come with several possible problems. Your seasonal events and promotions drive more website traffic, which hosts unwanted technical issues. It is common for websites to experience checkout errors, longer queues on customer support, or worst, your website crashes.
No one wants to experience this, but there is a high possibility it may happen.
You can inform your customers that there might be delays and why there are errors. Giving out this information conveys transparency. Moreover, it gives your customers a reason to stay and be patient with the situation.
8. Add Gift Wrapping Option Upon Checkout
It is already overwhelming to decide what perfect gift to give, and buying a gift wrap makes it more time-consuming. Why not help out your customers? Upon checkout, add a gift wrapping option. Adding this small and simple extra service leads to a positive customer experience.
You can show a preview of how the gift wrapping looks to ensure your customers meet their expectations. A small effort converts more loyal and satisfied customers.
Time to Apply the Seasonal Marketing Strategies
Some think seasonal marketing is only offering discount offers during the holiday season. But, there’s more to that. Marketers should be creative in their strategies, especially during seasonal events, to drive more engagement and sales from visitors.
Now that you know how much traffic seasons bring to your website, it is best to take advantage of it. Customise emails, incentives, and offers that are relevant to the season. The results will surprise you.
