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We hope everyone stayed warm this past weekend! The holiday season is in full swing, so today we’ll look at ways to engage leads and current customers using seasonal marketing strategies. You may have overlooked that there are seasonal marketing opportunities to take advantage of year-round, and not just during the end of the year. We’ll offer inspo from both conventional and unconventional campaigns to help you stay relevant every month of the year.

Let’s dive in! 🏃‍♂️🚀

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Strategic Campaigns

We’ve talked about creating urgency as a conversion tactic between MoFu and BoFu, and now is the perfect time to do so— the time between black Friday and Valentine’s Day is ripe with opportunities for flash sales. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t implement seasonally targeted marketing strategies year-round.

Although retail businesses thrive the most between Black Friday and Christmas, along with e-commerce companies (especially with Cyber Monday), your brand may see its’ peak during a different season.

Outdoor recreation companies might push more sales around Memorial Day and Independence Day to promote beachwear, camping gear, and outdoor activities. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t winter sports to capitalize on during the perceived off-season.

Seasonal strategies aren’t limited to retail stores— software companies can benefit just as much. A B2B edtech provider, for example, can speak to the back-to-school period to sell educational products, and a productivity software service can play into New Year’s resolutions, highlighting goal-tracking and efficiency features.

If you don’t sell something that lends itself to a certain season— like florists, jewelers, and and chocolatiers on valentines day— find a way to spin your product or service to make a seasonal campaign.

AirBnB, for example, could launch a campaign focused on couples’ getaways, and play into the Valentine’s theme across channels— from YouTube ads to emails to IG:

Let’s look at more season-specific campaign examples and ways to incorporate user-generated content year-round, considering each season’s holidays and themes.

A comprehensive seasonal guide

Winter

Winter themes: Gift giving, charity, love, winter sports, New Year’s Resolutions, Super Bowl

Winter Holidays: Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year’s, Groundhog Day, Valentine’s Day

Winter Campaigns: We gave enough Christmas-themed examples last week, but there are many more opportunities during the winter season to incorporate seasonally aware advertising. If your software or tech company makes lives easier, frame it as the perfect way to accomplish this year’s New Year’s resolutions. And if you’re a company like Coke, which ironically steers people away from their fitness resolutions, you can still have in:

For the next month, complementary or matching products can be advertised as the perfect Valentine’s Day gift. And for customers that are already hooked (read: Spotify), providing themed content as a customer engagement tactic is just as important:

Winter UGC: there are all sorts of UGC themes that are perfectly fitting for the winter season beyond baked goods and snowman decorating contests— for example, you could inspire UGC through X by prompting users to drop creative NY resolution ideas using the product/service you offer.

Spring

Spring themes: Green/sustainable initiatives, spring sports, spring cleaning, graduation

Spring holidays: St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, April Fools’ Day, Earth Day, Mother’s Day, Cinco de Mayo, Teacher Appreciation Day, Memorial Day, Father’s day

Spring Campaigns: Spring is an especially good time to explore your comedic side— perhaps by creating a prank ad. Here’s a video with examples ranging from Samuel Adams to Southwest:

Using gamified popups on your website themed for the season creates a consistent feel across channels while infusing more fun into your marketing efforts. Give website visitors a chance to channel their luck of the Irish with a St. Patty’s Day theme:

Spring UGC: Get users more engaged with social media games— for example, you could have users guess jelly beans on an IG post and give a prize to the winner. Or take inspiration from this real estate company and hold an easter themed photo contest with a prize for winners:

Summer

Summer themes: Olympics, outdoor activities, barbecues, pride month, music festivals

Summer Holidays: Flag Day, Independence Day, Labor Day

Summer Campaigns: Fourth of July campaigns are obvious, but what can we learn from one of the most successful recurring marketing campaigns in America? Every year, millions tune in to Discovery Channel’s week-long celebration of Sharks. That’s because for one, they’ve mastered the art of building suspense. You can emulate this by incorporating teases of future features in the weeks or months prior to launch. They also create lots and lots of hype around the series through partnerships:

Summer UGC: Summer is prime vacation time— which means lots of opportunities to get UGC from loyal customers. Even Glossier, a skincare and cosmetics company, found a way to tap into the season despite its’ product being completely season-less:

Fall

Fall themes: Back to school, Football, Oktoberfest, hayrides and haunted houses

Fall Holidays: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Veterans Day, Black Friday, Cyber Monday

Fall Campaigns: Brands of all kinds— from candy companies to toilet paper brands— can spin off a spooky season idea and incorporate it into an ad campaign. Here’s Bacardi’s take on Halloween:

It may seem more obvious for an alcohol company, but PG products can also get in on the action— here’s how toilet paper brand Angel Soft used a creative approach to its’ October advertising:

Fall UGC: Why spend excessive time creating endless ad copies when you can get loyal fans to make ads for you?

The opportunities are endless with Halloween looming. Food and bev companies can launch “Creepy Cocktail” or “Devlish Desert” challenges showcasing creative recipes made with the brand’s products. Cosmetics companies can challenge fans to post their best Halloween looks, and fashion brands can obviously hold costume contests.

If you’re selling tech or software, it’s still possible to use UGC, but doing so may require a little bit more creativity. A graphic design-focused software could challenge users to create the best Halloween party invitation. You could even use text-form platforms like Domino’s Pizza did here, tweaked to your product:

Looking Ahead

Tailoring marketing campaigns for the holidays isn’t just an end-of-year strategy: it’s a tactic you can leverage year-round to cater to customers’ changing needs across the year to boost sales. Beyond color schemes, imagery, and messaging, there are endless creative ways to promote UGC and use gamification with particular themes.

If you’re interested in automating your marketing processes to grow faster, click here to learn more about how Loopgenius can help you.

Stay tuned for next week, when we’ll tap into our generous side and look at ways to implement advocating for a cause into your marketing strategy!

Seasonal Strategy

Week 1: Product Positioning
Week 2: Seasonal Engagement (this week!)
Week 3: Cause Marketing
Week 4: Tis the SEOson
Week 5: Marketing Resolutions

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