Seasonal marketing tips for small businesses

Making the best use of seasonal marketing campaigns and timely social media marketing can help small businesses build meaningful engagement with their target audience, make the most of peak demand periods and drive more online sales or conversions. 

In this blog, we look at some top tips for seasonal success, and some pitfalls to avoid, to help you get your seasonal marketing strategy right. 

Plan ahead to make the most of seasonal marketing ideas

Planning seasonal marketing activity well in advance will help ensure that you get the strategy right, with every aspect of the campaign having a purpose, measurable KPIs and a full implementation plan to maximise results. Early planning also helps ensure that you have time to overcome any unexpected blockers and can make sure your marketing content and other material is spot-on in advance of it needing to go live. 

Planning at least three months in advance is a great start, but having a full 12-months mapped out in a top-line way can be super-useful. 

Focus on your seasonal marketing messaging

Getting your messaging right is pivotal when running seasonal marketing campaigns. Focusing on what you want your audience to feel and think when they see your campaign content is a great starting point. Do you want to give them the warm fuzzies? Do you want to make them stop and think? Do you want them to aspire towards what you’re showing them? By pinpointing the right messaging for your specific campaign goals based on what you know about your target audience and what makes them tick, you can develop material that is consistent and highly relatable to have the best possible impact. 

Offer time-limited seasonal promotions

By introducing some well-planned seasonal special offers or bundles, you can help to drive more purchases or conversions over the line. Everyone wants to know that they are getting value for money and offering some compelling promotions for a limited time can help people make that final purchase decision.

Things to avoid in your seasonal marketing efforts

We cover a few common potential pitfalls of seasonal marketing that could result in you doing more harm than good to your brand or business. 

Avoid tokenism in your seasonal marketing

Consumers are savvy when it comes to brands jumping on a seasonal event just to try and sell more. When choosing your seasonal marketing campaigns, you should ensure that it’s an event/season that means something to your target audience and aligns with your brand and company ethos. 

For example, a business that starts heavily marketing around mental health to coincide with an awareness event on that topic, but doesn’t have any mental health provision for their own staff, is going to be criticised. 

Be sensitive to different cultures

The UK has a culturally diverse population. There will be a wide variety of different events and holidays celebrated by various customers and being inclusive and mindful of different traditions can help you avoid scoring any own goals with your seasonal marketing campaigns. 

Ensure you have the stock and processes to fulfil successful campaigns

For customers, there’s nothing worse than seeing a great deal online as part of a seasonal promotion, jumping on it to order and then finding out that there is no stock, or delivery is going to take significantly longer than they could reasonably expect. Making sure that your promotions and offers are ‘fulfillable’ is an important consideration when it comes to customer perception and your ongoing reputation. 

If you’re considering adding seasonal marketing campaigns to your wider strategy, we can help ensure you make the most of the opportunity. Get in touch with the team to find out how we can help you plan and implement successful seasonal marketing activity that drives great results. 

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