Ok, we’ve reached our first full week of 50 degree temps, it’s time to start thinking summer! Seriously though, if you’re a seasonal business and you thrive during the summer, NOW is the time to begin your marketing campaigns.
If you’ve already started planning, great, if you haven’t, we’re here to spread the love! Here are some quick, easy ideas you can work on right now to fill out your summer marketing calendar in a hurry!
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- Create early-bird incentives – Boost sales now, before summer hits, with added incentives to buy early. You don’t have to give away the farm either, simple perks like an added gift, small discount, or free delivery can all prompt an early sale. Plus, your customers might appreciate the opportunity to buy now rather than worry about it when the kids get out of school and life gets busy!
- Bulk up on online reviews – If your season is summer, chances are you and your customers are already getting antsy for the season. That means they might already be browsing online and preparing. Why not be there with fresh, relevant reviews that make you sparkle and shine?!
- QUICK TIP – A great way to gain online reviews is to email your best customers directly. Send them a short email, thank them for their business, ask them if they’d be so kind as to review you, provide the link for them to click on, and then thank them! It’s that easy and you’ll be amazed at how many reviews you can generate by reaching out personally.
- Embrace the holidays – Memorial Day, 4th of July, and Labor Day are all great opportunities to be thankful and celebrate, but they can also be a great time to extend special offers to your customers and stay on their radar throughout the season. At the end of the day, it’s about making your customers feel valued and appreciated – who doesn’t love that?
- Partner with a local charity – This is a great way to boost sales, but it’s also a really great opportunity to reach new audiences. Partner with a local charity and donate a portion of your sales to them! It might be for a weekend sale or for an entire month’s worth of sales, but you’ll get extra promotion from their end, a positive story to pitch to local media outlets, and you’ll help your community thrive. Oh, and did we mention that you’ll likely drive new business?
- Use email to prime the pump – Did we mention that your customers might be getting antsy for summer? Feed into that with email! Talk about what’s to come, what you’re excited about, and get them excited for the season and the opportunity to do business with you. Depending on your selling cycle, 90-days out might just be the perfect time to initiate conversation.
- Unveil a creative refresh – Spring is almost here, so act like it! Now is a great time to introduce new, springy creative to your social media pages and your website. Take every opportunity to say, “Our season is nearly upon us and we’re ready and excited!”.
- Actually create a summer marketing calendar! – It doesn’t have to be fancy, but it should allow you to clearly view each month, each week of the month, and the insert what activities you’re going to accomplish each week. To make things easy on you, we have developed a super-simple marketing calendar HERE that you can download and begin working on immediately. And here’s a link to another blog that we wrote that explains how to use it step by step!
If you need more in-depth help or want to converse more about your summer marketing plans, feel free to give us a call, we’re always here to help! Just reach out to our own, Sarah Gordee at 715-396-1661 or [email protected]