You don’t need to manage a seasonal brand to run a seasonal marketing campaign. With 75% of shoppers actively seeking out promotions and offers during holiday shopping periods, there are countless opportunities for your business to engage consumers and boost your revenue through seasonality.

From Valentine’s Day to Christmas and everything in between, read on for our insights on why you should be crafting seasonal marketing campaigns, and how to effectively implement one to grow your business.

What is Seasonal Marketing?

Seasonal marketing is a strategy where businesses tailor their promotions, brand messaging and products to coincide with specific times of the year, such as holidays, festivals or seasonal events. This could include particular days like Christmas and Halloween, or could even be a more general approach to summer or winter trends.

The aim of seasonal marketing is to tap into consumer behavioural patterns connected with these times, at which many people may have particular needs, wants or spending habits.

Be it through themed campaigns, festive promotions or holiday-related content, aligning your marketing efforts with these behavioural patterns means that you can take advantage of the high traffic that special times of year generate and drive sales as a result.

Why is Seasonal Marketing Important?

Seasonal marketing can be effective for many different types of businesses, regardless of size or industry. Here are just a few of the reasons why you should be factoring seasonality into your campaign.

Wider Brand Awareness

Seasonal marketing provides a platform for your brand to stand out and capture consumers’ attention. By devising creative and engaging seasonal marketing initiatives, you can increase awareness around your brand.

Stronger Audience Engagement

As any digital marketer will know, one of the primary goals of marketing is to build meaningful connections with customers. As such, seasonal marketing provides the opportunity to engage with customers by tapping into the emotions, traditions and cultural experiences they associate with specific seasons or holidays.

Seasonality allows you to resonate with your audience on a more personal level and build stronger relationships with customers, which can translate to more brand loyalty over time.

Greater Creative Licence

Seasonal marketing presents a chance for your team to break the mould and come up with fresh, exciting content ideas that capture the spirit of the season. From unique ads to interactive social media posts, seasonal marketing encourages you to think outside of the box and explore new, innovative ways to connect with your audience.

Opportunities for Upselling

During holiday seasons, consumers are often more likely to make impulse purchases. In fact, Coveo’s 2024 Holiday Shopping Trends report found that a staggering 90% of consumers surveyed said that they’re willing to add products to an existing order, should they be persuaded effectively enough.

With this in mind, you can adjust your pricing strategies dynamically and cross-sell or upsell products or services. With a seasonal marketing strategy, businesses can effectively promote complementary items or upgrades, which can increase their average transaction value and boost your revenue during these short periods.

How to Create a Successful Seasonal Marketing Campaign

Much like any new strategy, incorporating seasonality into your marketing campaign requires careful planning. With the right knowledge and infrastructure in place, you can build a campaign that speaks to your target audience and drive meaningful results. Follow our top tips below to get started with seasonal marketing.

Understand Your Audience

Understanding exactly who you’re marketing to and your brand’s position in the industry will help you to create a more focused campaign. Creating a target customer profile is an essential first step in understanding your audience properly.

A thorough understanding of your audience can also deepen your knowledge of your brand’s niche. If you’re working in a saturated industry, think about how your business fulfils a specific customer need, for example, you may supply a speciality product that competitors don’t, or services that hit a particular pain point

When devising a target customer profile, you should research:

• Your target customer’s age, location and interests
• Which competitors your customers purchase from
• Your customer’s pain points
• Your customer’s expectations for your products or services

Consider the Spirit of the Season

It’s important to not homogenise all of your seasonal marketing efforts. Instead, consider the sentiment of the specific season you’re marketing in. For example, the Christmas season carries the spirit of giving, compassion and spending time with loved ones. As a result, you may want to focus on products that make excellent gifts for a specific person in your life, like a family member or partner, or services that help you give back to others.

If you’re launching a seasonal transition promotion, you’ll also need to align with the general sentiment of that season, for instance, going into winter has a different feel than going into summer.

Of course, throughout all of this, make sure that you’re selecting holidays and seasons that align with your brand values and those of your target audience. Don’t unnecessarily spend time and money on marketing during events that don’t really align with your brand identity.

Craft Compelling Content and Offers

Once you have a clear understanding of your audience and which holidays or seasons you’ll be marketing in, craft compelling content and irresistible offers that engage your audience and inspire them to take action.

You should use storytelling techniques to evoke specific emotions in your audience, aligning your branding with the themes and values around certain holidays and seasons that resonate most with them.

Take an Omnichannel Approach

Leverage multiple marketing channels to reach your target audience effectively across the seasons. Identify the most popular and impactful channels that your customers use, be it social media, email marketing, your website or other platforms.

It’s also worth noting that you shouldn’t take a one size fits all approach to this. Instead, you should tailor your brand messaging and content to each channel for consistency and relevance, which will in turn boost your reach and engagement.

Measure and Analyse Results

Use analytics to measure the performance of your seasonal campaign. You should be monitoring key metrics to evaluate their success in achieving your predefined goals, such as increasing sales, driving website traffic or boosting brand awareness. You can then analyse the collected data to learn more about your audience’s behaviour and trends, what’s working well and where you can improve.

Seasonal Marketing Opportunities for Your Brand

To get you inspired for your next seasonal marketing campaign, here are some key holidays and times of year you could utilise:

• New Year: During this time of year, your business could offer products or services related to health, wellness, organisation or self-improvement.

• Valentine’s Day: In the lead up to the holiday of love, you can promote gift ideas, experiences and special offers catering to couples and individuals wanting to express affection to their loved ones.

• Spring: As nature comes back to life, reflect spring’s rejuvenating spirit by offering seasonal products, outdoor activities, home improvement services and gardening supplies.

• Mother’s Day/ Father’s Day: Promote gifts, experiences and activities that celebrate love and appreciation for mothers and fathers.

• Graduation Season: You might want to target graduates and their families with gift ideas, party supplies, travel packages and career services.

• Back to School: As students prepare to return to school, you can offer a wide range of products and services, including school supplies, clothing, electronics, tutoring services and educational resources.

• Halloween: As a beloved festive occasion for dressing up and indulging in spooky fun, you can take advantage of Halloween by promoting costumes, decorations, party supplies and themed events.

• Black Friday/ Cyber Monday: As the biggest shopping weekend of the year, it’s important that you attract customers with exclusive deals, discounts and promotions both in-store and online.

Leverage Seasonal Strategies for Business Growth

Integrating seasonality into your marketing campaign might seem daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. With the right strategies and support on hand, you can transform cyclical trends into big opportunities.

At Bigg, we specialise in creating bespoke digital marketing campaigns that are designed to boost your brand visibility, engage your target audience and drive sustainable growth. Whether you’re looking to expand your social media offerings, optimise your email marketing campaign or revamp your content strategy, our team of professionals can guide you through every step of the process with expert knowledge.

For more information about our service offerings, please get in touch with us today to schedule a strategy call.