As a marketing leader, investing in seasonal marketing is essential to stay ahead of the competition and reach your target audience. Here are a few tips from our passionate content marketing team, including how to create your own seasonal marketing calendar.
What is Seasonal Marketing?
Seasonal marketing is the tactic of connecting your marketing to a seasonal event or holiday. This popular marketing approach can create a more personalized and engaging customer experience—increasing brand awareness, driving sales, and building customer loyalty.
But seasonal doesn’t have to mean the same thing across all industries. Yes, Black Friday and Christmas are an increased time for eCommerce and direct-to-consumer (D2C) sites. But your business might have a completely separate busy season and an off-season. How are you accounting for that in your marketing strategies?
A tip from us: think outside the box.
Most brands incorporate the major holidays into their marketing. But lesser-known holidays can be just as fun to play with. From Arbor Day to Cupcake Day, seek out niche ideas specific to your industry and audience. Plan 2-4 fun content ideas around them (e.g., promotions, landing page, social media post, blog, e-blast, etc.)
How do I create a seasonal marketing calendar?
Now that you understand seasonal marketing, let’s talk about how to organize it all. A well-structured content calendar helps ensure your messaging is timely and consistent across all channels.
Here are a few tips we’ve learned doing it ourselves.
1. Make a list of the holidays or seasons you want to prioritize. There are a few ways to go about this.
- Look at when your sales or traffic tends to spike to see when your customers engage most.
- Use Google Trends to see when your industry is getting more attention.
- Think about which seasons, holidays, or events most align with your KPIs.
Let those be your guiding light for your marketing strategies.
2. Think in terms of seasonal marketing campaigns. Now that you know where in the calendar year you want to focus, what do you want to say? Ideate a few points of view that’ll resonate with your audience. Then, build 2-3 pieces of marketing content per concept to be used across multiple platforms.
Pro-tip: Use a color coding system to segment your seasonal marketing campaigns. This will make it easier to execute without getting confusing!
3. Be creative. One of the best parts of seasonal marketing is the flexibility to be creative. This is a great time to flex your originality, sense of humor, and key differentiators to showcase your brand personality to your target audience. If you’re usually more formal, try adding a bit of levity to your content!
4. Set hard deadlines. Your seasonal marketing calendar should include deadlines, taking into account the optimal time for implementation. You don’t want to send an email announcing a sale after it’s been running for a few days, nor do you want to talk about it too early. Dates and deadlines keep your strategy working together!
5. Plan ahead. Don’t let the big holidays take you by surprise. By plotting out your content marketing strategy, you won’t be overwhelmed when your big marketing months roll around. That’ll give you time to align promo codes, designs, and content for your e-blasts, PPC campaigns, social media posts, and landing pages.
Did you know that almost 50% of shoppers start their holiday shopping before Halloween? It’s true, according to a study from Bankrate.
6. Track your stats. Too many people plan their marketing campaigns but forget to review their performance. Add a column on your calendar where you can log traffic, impressions, clicks, sales, and any other KPIs on your list. Highlight what worked and what didn’t so you can hone in on your campaign for the next big holiday!
Need a second set of eyes on your content marketing?
The creation, upkeep, and execution of a seasonal marketing calendar is a lot of work. If you’re looking for help, contact the digital marketing experts at Brandography.
We’d love to look into your brand and create and execute a content strategy combining seasonality, industry trends, and high-value answers to popular queries—always optimized for SEO to help your website gain organic traffic. It’s what we love to do!
Schedule a (free) consultation—let’s chat content for a productive 2024. Oh, and happy holidays from our team to yours!
