Seasonal Marketing Strategies: Utilizing What Every Season Has to Offer

Seasonal marketing explained

Seasonal marketing is the practice of adapting your usual marketing plan to the current time of year. For example, you might change the following marketing aspects to correspond to or complement a specific season:

• Color scheme: For spring, you might use pastels and turn to vivid oranges, yellows and reds for fall.
• Marketing images: You might use flags and fireworks as the Fourth of July approaches and incorporate hearts and Cupids around Valentine’s Day.
• Marketing messages: You might incorporate messages about gratitude for Thanksgiving or charitable donations during the winter holiday season.

You can also change your sales process to highlight promotions around approaching seasonal events. For example, you could hold a back-to-school sale in the summer, a swimwear sale in the spring, a winter coat sale in the fall or a barbecue sale before Memorial Day. 

Ideas for seasonal marketing strategies

Consider the following seasonal opportunities to connect with your target audience. Use this list to inspire ideas for occasions especially relevant to your business. 

Spring seasonal marketing strategies

Many people view springtime as a fresh start — and so should marketers. Spring is an excellent time to relinquish old, ineffective tactics and introduce new and innovative offline and digital marketing strategies. This time of year brings ample holidays and events for testing seasonal marketing ideas.

Spring holidays:

• St. Patrick’s Day
• Easter
• Passover
• April Fools’ Day
• Earth Day
• Arbor Day
• May Day
• Mother’s Day
• Cinco de Mayo
• Teacher Appreciation Day
• Memorial Day
• Father’s Day

Spring events and themes:

• Spring weather 
• Spring cleaning
• Spring sports 
• Green initiatives and gardening
• Bright or pastel color schemes 
• Tax season
• Graduations
• Weddings

Consider the following spring-related strategies or use them as inspiration for your own ideas:

• Easter social media game: Post a photo of jelly beans in a jar and have followers guess how many there are for a chance to win a prize. Creating engagement through a fun social media game is simple but very beneficial.
• April Fools’ Day tactic: Creating a prank ad is a creative way to get your brand involved in this holiday. For example, Windex created a prank ad claiming it added sparkles to its window cleaner to make windows sparkle. This is one of many examples of engaging (and harmless) pranks.
• Teacher Appreciation Day promotions: Teacher Appreciation Day is rightfully becoming more recognized. Consider offering a free or discounted product to hardworking teachers on this day. Your brand will show it cares about teachers while participating in the conversation surrounding this day of appreciation. 

Summer seasonal marketing strategies

While it doesn’t have as many holidays as spring, summer presents numerous marketing opportunities and themes, including sunshine, beaches and outdoor activities. Children are usually out of school on summer vacation and families may go on trips. Brands can also highlight products and services that help people escape the heat. 

Outdoor marketing is another opportunity, as many people will participate in outdoor events. If you have a physical location, utilize its front area. Advertise sales with fun chalk designs on the sidewalk or set up a tent outside to display your products or services to passersby. 

When possible, take advantage of fun national days, like National S’mores Day. Whether you sell products that can help make this summery treat better or just want to connect with your audience, you’re on the right track. 

Summer holidays: 

• Juneteenth
• Flag Day
• Independence Day
• Labor Day

Summer events and themes:

• Summer weather
• Summer Olympics (if occurring)
• Barbecues and summer food, such as ice cream, corn and fresh berries
• Vacations
• School’s out 
• Shark Week 
• Pride month
• Summer Solstice
• Music festivals

Consider the following summer-related strategies or use them as inspiration for your own ideas:

• Fourth of July tactics: Strategic color grouping with red, white and blue can have a bigger impact than you might think. The goal is to relate your products or services to the holiday and color usage is an easy tactic. Be sure to take photos and share your Independence Day images with social media followers.
• Shark Week themes: This one may be unexpected, but social media and advertisements prove this themed week is popular. No matter what kind of products or services your brand offers, there is a way to make them relevant to Shark Week. Whether you incorporate the ocean, a fin or the whole shark, a creative mind will get it done. For even more exposure, create a hashtag to go along with it. 

Fall seasonal marketing strategies

While fall isn’t exactly the start of the new year, people tend to treat it that way. Summer ends, a new school year begins and the holiday season is on the horizon. Use fall themes and holidays in your marketing strategy while considering weather shifts, changing leaf colors and traditional fall activities. 

Fall holidays: 

• Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples’ Day
• Rosh Hashanah 
• Yom Kippur
• Halloween
• Diwali
• Veterans Day
• Thanksgiving
• Black Friday
• Cyber Monday

Fall events and themes:

• Back to school 
• Fall activities (pumpkin picking, hayrides and haunted houses)
• Oktoberfest
• Harvest festivals
• Fall foods (turkey, cranberries, pumpkins and apple pie)
• Football
• Sweater weather

Consider the following fall-related strategies or use them as inspiration for your own ideas:

• Halloween strategies: Consider hosting a Halloween event at your physical location. Although many people stay home to greet trick-or-treaters, they may want to get out of the house for a while. A fun, safe Halloween event with promotions and candy will appeal to families. Create a unique party idea or offer a discount to anyone who comes in wearing a costume.
• Black Friday events: Black Friday is a crucial time for many online and offline retailers. Help your business win Black Friday by offering attractive discounts and holding in-store events. To help consumers shop, consider creating a gift guide for your products. Prepare for the day with strategic planning, advertising and staffing and consider starting Black Friday deals early to appeal to early shoppers. 

Winter seasonal marketing strategies

We’re all familiar with the heavy marketing that comes with the holiday season. However, choosing a unique holiday marketing strategy will help your business stand out. Use winter’s holidays, events and themes to create a new marketing twist while honoring the holidays your audience celebrates. 

Winter holidays: 

• Hanukkah
• Christmas
• Kwanzaa
• New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day
• Martin Luther King Jr. Day
• Groundhog Day
• Lunar New Year
• Valentine’s Day
• Presidents Day
• Chinese New Year 

Winter events and themes:

• New Year’s resolutions
• Super Bowl 
• Winter Olympics (if occurring)
• Snow 
• Skiing and winter sports
• Staying warm
• Online shopping
• Gift giving
• Charity

Consider the following winter-related strategies or use them as inspiration for your own ideas:

• Valentine’s Day promotions: Create product combinations that make great Valentine’s Day gifts. For example, pair two products, such as a bathrobe and bubble bath, and sell them for a discounted price when purchased together.
• Super Bowl promotions: The Super Bowl is a part of American culture, but Super Bowl television ads are out of reach for most businesses. Still, you can use Super Bowl marketing to generate interest and sales. For example, promote a sale that hinges on the winning team’s point total or offer a 5 percent discount for every field goal scored. 

Tips for executing seasonal marketing campaigns

Use the following tips to ensure you maximize each season’s marketing potential.

1. Create a marketing calendar.

Study a calendar well ahead of time to determine the holidays and seasons you’d like to focus on. Your industry, business, products and services will drive this decision. Here are a few examples: 

• Florist shops: Florists typically focus on Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day, but they can be creative about promotions during other holidays and seasonal events, such as graduations. 
• Children’s clothing store: Retailers that focus on kids’ clothes could run specialized back-to-school sales and events in summer and early fall, depending on regional school schedules. They could also design strategies around Christmas and Easter for formal or themed clothes and promote clothes for swimming, camps and vacations ahead of summer. 

The more important the season is to your annual sales, the sooner you should begin your marketing efforts. For example, many retail businesses make three-quarters or more of their revenue in the winter, so they must start seasonal marketing in early October. 

Create a marketing calendar and note when each seasonal event should start. Allocate your marketing budget accordingly.

2. Decide on each season’s primary sales promotions and events.

Sales and promotions are crucial during heavy shopping times, such as back-to-school and winter gift-giving seasons. During these intense periods, people often spend significant money in a short time and they look for sales and promotional extras to help them get the best value. Your business and its busy shopping seasons will drive your promotions, but here are some general examples: 

For back-to-school season, a business could offer:

• A 20 percent discount on back-to-school shoes
• Buy one, get one free deals on specific clothing items
• Extra points for rewards and loyalty programs

For Black Friday, a business could offer:

• In-store samples of edible products include in gift boxes 
• Significant markdowns for various items 
• Flash sales on big-ticket items 
• Free shipping for online sales 

Plan each season’s unique customer offers, taking care to balance the lower profit margin with your expected increase in sales volume so you come out ahead. Planning sales and promotions well in advance is crucial, as it allows you time to buy extra items, create samples, produce promotional materials and more. 

3. Brainstorm creative marketing ideas related to each season and holiday.

It’s time to get specific about your creative seasonal marketing ideas. Meet with your in-house marketing team or digital marketing agency to develop ideas for seasonal marketing campaigns. Discuss the following: 

• Competitors’ campaigns and events
• Ideas that worked well for you in the past
• Product or service changes
• Market trends
• Target customers (and any recent changes)

Brainstorm various marketing campaign types, including email marketing campaigns, offline or digital contests and games, advertising, in-store promotions and events. The goal is to obtain maximum reach, so your target market is repeatedly exposed to your marketing messages. 

Once you have campaign ideas, have your team work on the creative for various media types, such as website, social, print, signage and email. As you get closer to a specific holiday season, A/B test your campaigns to optimize your results.

4. Purchase seasonal inventory.

Your seasonal marketing efforts are designed to generate customer demand, so running out of products is the last thing you want to do. Run point-of-sale (POS) reports to evaluate historical sales for specific seasons or look to your inventory management software for this information. Adjust product inventory based on your assessment of increased or decreased demand. Consider new products and vendors to keep your inventory fresh.

5. Decorate for the season.

If you have a physical location, putting up seasonal decorations can help put customers in a festive mood and remind them of specific needs an upcoming holiday requires. For example, Fourth of July decorations may remind them it’s time to buy food for their annual picnic or party, while winter weather decorations may prompt them to look for gifts or warm clothes. Ensure you prepare signage informing customers of seasonal sales, promotions or events.

The same goes for your digital properties. Include seasonal graphics and copy on your website, landing pages and social media accounts.

6. Create gift guides.

During gift-giving holidays, many customers are unsure about what presents to buy for their friends, family and acquaintances. Make it easy for them by creating gift guides featuring specific products that appeal to individuals with various interests, such as gifts for music lovers, readers, gardeners and nature lovers. Post your gift guide on your website and social accounts and mail it to your customers.

You can also categorize products by gift-giving type on your website or in your physical store to make it easy for customers who are already browsing.

7. Offer gift wrapping. 

Some holidays, such as Christmas, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, involve gift wrapping. Graduations, St. Patrick’s Day, Valentine’s Day and other holidays can also generate fun wrapping and packaging ideas. 

Offer customers the extra convenience and presentation dazzle of wrapped gifts. Gift wrapping will endear you to your customers while giving you a competitive edge. If you run a physical store, set up a side table for wrapping to ensure speedy checkout. If you can’t spare staff for gift wrapping, consider hosting a nonprofit group that will wrap gifts for a small donation as a fundraiser for their organization. This will generate goodwill in the community.

If you sell online, you can also offer gift wrapping as an option so that items are delivered already wrapped. Giving customers the option to include a gift card is also a good idea. You can offer these add-ons for free or at a nominal charge.

8. Prepare for increased traffic.

Prepare your store for seasonal increased traffic and sales by doing the following: 

• Extending store hours
• Scheduling increased staff as needed 
• Streamlining the checkout process
• Adding mobile payment terminals connected to your POS system to shorten customer wait times. 

For e-commerce sites, ensure your website has sufficient bandwidth to handle increased traffic. Your information technology department should also ensure that your checkout and payment processes are friction-free.

9. Gather material to use for next year’s marketing.

During and after the season, gather customer feedback to assess your efforts and see where you need improvement. Soliciting user-generated content is an excellent way to showcase your seasonal marketing successes. Ask customers to send photos or videos of them (or their gift recipients) using your products. You can also ask them for product reviews and testimonials (video testimonials are particularly compelling). Use all positive content in your marketing campaign for next year’s season and use any constructive criticism to improve your efforts. 

How can seasonal marketing benefit your business? 

Seasonal marketing is an opportunity to create connections with customers and increase sales. Here are some additional benefits of seasonal marketing: 

Seasonal marketing capitalizes on seasonal excitement.

When the holidays approach or the season changes, people get excited. They may look forward to gatherings with family and friends, giving and receiving gifts, eating special foods, enjoying warmer or cooler weather and getting days off from work. 

Consumers have also come to expect sales and deals associated with nearly every significant holiday, so they may be excited to save money on things they want or need. Holiday marketing strategies will appeal to happy and excited customers, making them more likely to buy from you. 

Seasonal marketing increases brand awareness and traffic.

Seasonal marketing puts your business in front of potential customers, boosting online brand awareness and giving prospects a reason to try you for the first time. An attractive seasonal promotion can also help establish a new business’s customer base. 

All businesses can benefit from extra visibility when customers are primed to buy and an outstanding promotion at this time can increase referrals and help you grow your business.

Seasonal marketing can increase sales.

Increasing sales is the end game of all marketing and when done correctly, seasonal promotions and marketing have a direct and positive impact on sales revenue. People love deals, events and seasonal in-store decorations and will want to spend more money with you.

Seasonal marketing can meet customer needs.

Customers’ needs change with the seasons. When it’s cold, they need warm clothes. When they have the day off, they may get together with friends and family for a festive meal. When gift-giving holidays approach, they’ll search for good prices. 

Even if you’ve built customer personas around your target audience, consider seasonal changes to adjust your marketing and customer profiles to match current needs. 

Let the seasons inspire your marketing strategies

Seasonal marketing strategies can strengthen your company’s reputation as a responsive business. The possibilities are endless: Create season-related content (such as Instagram posts, blogs and infographics), design product packaging to mirror the time of year, host themed contests or add promotional discounts to relevant products and services.

Preparation is crucial in a seasonal marketing plan. Mark your calendars, plan your strategies and pay attention to the time-sensitive nature of seasonal marketing. Starting too early can derail your campaign, but starting too late can reduce its effectiveness. 

Holidays and seasonal events are excellent opportunities to form genuine connections beyond products and services and to create loyal customers throughout the year.

Lyndi Catania contributed to this article.