Do you ever tie your marketing to the seasons? Why or why not (and if you do, how do you do so)?
The following answers are provided by Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched StartupCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.
1. Yes: Every New Season Breathes a New Story
It is always important to tailor your strategy to what is relevant. Seasonality is extremely important, especially if you are in seasonalindustries like fashion. Customers needs change depending on the time of year, so do their spending habits. If you aren’t focusing on key buying days like Black Friday and/or holidays, you are missing out on a ton of business. – Alexander Mendeluk, theDisruptive & SpiritHoods
2. Yes: Sports Are Seasonal and We Market Accordingly
Absolutely! Private coaching, and sports in general, is a seasonal business. Before the start of the athletic season, we tailor our email campaigns and SEM keyword bidding towards the sports that are in season. Now that we’ve been around for awhile and have a couple years worth of data, we can actually pinpoint exactly when our customer base will change sports/seasons. – Arian Radmand, CoachUp
3. Yes: Weave It in Naturally
Seasonal marketing should be subtle to show customers that you‘re keeping up with the seasons, not exploiting them. For example, for the Leadnomics publishing offers we update our animated character, Gabby, to be dressed for the current season. We don’t change the language to scream seasonal discounts, but our subtle background change keeps our marketing strategy dynamic and relevant. – Zach Robbins, Leadnomics
4. Not Really: Our Marketing Changes With Technology
The “seasons” that drive our business are more related to technology cycles and launches such as Apple or Samsung events that produce new, timely reasons for consumers to shop for accessories to related items they’re buying. We work well in advance to source offers for accessories to these launches that we know these buyers will want. – Josh Payne,StackCommerce
5. Yes: Certainly on Social Media
It is a powerful marketing strategy to create seasonal content, especially on social media where people typically respond to and comment on real-time happenings. We have great traction with marketing that uses seasonally themed visuals and leverages popularseasonal hashtags. Take advantage of seasonality to provide your audience with content that is most helpful for them in the moment, too. – Doreen Bloch, Poshly Inc.
6. Yes: To Stay Topical
Using the seasons and holidays is an easy way to enter the conversation that is already happening in your customers’ minds. For example we deployed a Veterans Day battle plan for our financial clients. We talked about the fact that our soldiers have a plan when they go into battle, and that they should have a plan to battle retirement. In December we are wrapping the entire month around “It’s A Wonderful Life.” – Greg Rollett, Celebrity Expert Marketing
7. No: We Stay Evergreen
We do not tie our marketing to the seasons because evergreen marketing gives you a better ROI. Plus, our marketing budget is not big enough to do both. – Vladimir Gendelman, Company Folders, Inc
8. Yes: The More Timely the Message, the Better
While you can push the same marketing message year-round, we’ve found season-specific messaging has helped dramatically drive up sales and conversions each time we use them. Fortunately, you can recycle those messages for the same season next year (and the year after), so you never really have to start from scratch, either. – Firas Kittaneh,Amerisleep
9. Yes: Because Marketing Should Be Fun
At ZinePak, we love tying marketing to the seasons. Our social fans love when we do “12 Days of Christmas Giveaways” or put together fun BuzzFeed lists for holidays. Seasonal marketing is a great way to keep your product top of mind during holidays, and to create fun, sharable content that is relevant to your fans. – Brittany Hodak, ZinePak
10. Yes: Relevance Is Key for Content Marketing
We rely on heavily on PR and content marketing to drive word-of-mouth referrals for our software. Creating insights that are relevant to the season makes it much easier to pitch journalists on using our data to supplement their stories. Similarly, we follow seasonalentertainment trends on our blog. – Jared Feldman, Mashwork
11. Yes: Product Companies Must Tie Into the Seasons
Seasonal marketing is crucial for a product-based company. Simply, folks expect light “beach” designs in the summer, and darker, more festive designs in the winter. Aligning your marketing is critical. Not only do people want to see your story match what you‘re launching, but they also expect certain things (e.g. holiday sales) during certain times of the year. Sometimes, surprises aren’t good! – Aaron Schwartz, Modify Watches
12. Yes: It’s Important for Our Industry
In the beauty industry, seasonal changes are important. Not only do our skin’s needs change, but there is also a desire to start fresh and get in the spirit. We offer seasonal mani/pedi specials and create treatments that have different scents or go with a new season. Right now we are offering “Sugar & Spice + Everything Nice” which features cinnamon, apple and brown sugar scented products. – Samira Far, Bellacures Franchising LLC
13. Yes: It’s Relevant to Our Customers
We tie our content and email marketing to the seasons because our customers are companies, and many companies confront the same legal quandaries at the same time of year. For instance, in the last quarter of the year many companies try to wrap up loose financial ends, and in the first quarter of the year, many of our small businesses have tax related concerns. – Basha Rubin, Priori Legal
Image Credit: Shutterstock.com
