#68: Seasonal marketing is more than just the holidays

Marketing / Automation

This month’s theme is Seasonal Marketing…

When you think of seasonal marketing the first ideas that probably pop into your mind are the typical holidays like Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Day, Mother’s Day, and the other holidays on your calendar, but seasonal marketing is much more than that. Seasonal marketing can involve the four seasons in a year, the typical holidays mentioned above, various causes that are important to you, as well as client anniversaries, or happenings like School’s Out or Back to School.

Basically, any event or trend that cycles annually can be considered a seasonal opportunity.

But, like many of you who are coaches or service provides, I was always stuck on how to take what I do, which is to help you automate and systemize your online business, and create a seasonal marketing plan around my services and products. It’s not easy when what you do doesn’t easily translate to a “season.”

If that sounds like you, you’re going to really like what I have planned for you this month.

In today’s Systems Sunday training video, we will brainstorm some seasonal marketing content ideas and I’ll show you a tool that will help you identify when your market is in the “buying mood.”

When you think of seasonal marketing, the first ideas that probably pop into your mind are the typical holidays like Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Day, Mother’s Day, and the other holidays on your calendar. But seasonal marketing is much more than that. Seasonal marketing can involve the four seasons in a year, the typical holidays mentioned above, various causes that are important to you, as well as client anniversaries or happenings like School’s Out or Back to School,

Basically, any event or trend that cycle annually can be considered a seasonal opportunity.

But, like many of you who are coaches or service provides, I was always stuck on how to take what I do, which is help you automate and systemize your online business, and create a seasonal marketing plan around my services and products. It’s not easy when what you do doesn’t easily translate to a season.

If that sounds like you, you’re going to really like what I have planned for you this month. I’ll be giving you some seasonal marketing ideas and strategies and we will walk through how to create a seasonal marketing plan.

This week and next week we’ll spend some time brainstorming content and we will finish up with planning and promoting later in the month.

Let’s start with thinking about your business and writing down events, holidays, seasons, or otherwise notable things that affect your market that are potential opportunities for seasonal marketing.

Now, brainstorm about your market and your niche, when they’re most active, and which holidays and other events make a difference in their business or lives.

Examples:

  • Holidays such as Christmas and Independence Day
  • Seasons (winter, spring, summer, fall) 
  • Months – The symbolism of September month focuses on refocusing our energies, that would make a good coaching program
  • Local events like festivals and community gatherings. In my small town we celebrate First Fridays throughout the summer, it’s a community event, free to the public, that increases awareness of what the city offers both businesses and residents.
  • Global events such as the Olympics or sporting events such as the Super Bowl or the World Series
  • Industry-related events like trade shows or tax deadlines

All these events and happenings are perfect “excuses” to have a sale, special promotion, or contest to entice your customers to buy more or to draw new customers to your site.

And if you don’t know when your market is active, check out http://www.google.com/trends. For a more in-depth look at when your market is in a buying mood. Enter your search term and Google will present you with a graph detailing search volume for that term over the past several years. Not only can you see what months are hot, but you can also see if the searches are increasing, decreasing, or holding steady. For example, if you are a professional organizer, and you put in a search term like declutter, you would see that right after the holidays is when people want to declutter their homes and then around the end of April, sort of prime spring cleaning time.

Not only will this give you ideas on when to begin your promotion, but you’ll also know how much time and energy you should invest. After all, if searches on your term have fallen to nearly zero in the past several years, perhaps it’s time to focus on another keyword.

You can see that there are literally dozens of variables involved when you begin to think about seasonal marketing for your online business. Make a list of all the seasonal activities and events that might make a difference to your specific market and keep it handy. You’ll need it when it comes time to develop your own marketing calendar.

I’ve got some great videos planned for you this month, next week we will talk about what to do when no holiday or special event really fits with your business.

 

 

Did you enjoy this episode and want to put it into action? Grab this kit!

New Year Marketing and Promotion Planning

$29.00

At the end of every year, most businesses take stock of how well they have done and also look forward to the future. One of the most important tasks you can do in conjunction with this evaluation is to start planning your marketing and promotions for the new year.

Planning ahead in this way is the best way to help take your business to the next level. It will serve as a roadmap of what you need to do, and when. If you are working with other people, such as colleagues or joint venture partners, it keeps everyone on the same page.

It also helps you manage your 4 main marketing areas:

  • Your website or blog (content marketing)
  • Email marketing
  • Social media marketing
  • Special sales and promotions, including important events like product creation and launch

These work together to drive traffic, generate leads (get subscribers), and make sales. All marketing is content marketing. It’s just a question of the format of the content.

I’ve made it super easy for you to plan your next product with these templates.

Here’s what you get:

  • Insider’s Guide with quick tips on product creation, seasonal marketing, and holiday promotions, etc.
  • 15 Done for You Templates, Calendars, Worksheets, and Planners (all in .docx format for easy editing)
    • Year At-A-Glance Marketing Calendar
    • Monthly Promo and Marketing Calendar
    • Daily Promo and Marketing Planner
    • Marketing and Promo Goal Setting Worksheet
    • Promo and Marketing Goal-Focused To-Do List
    • Product Brainstorming Worksheet
    • Content Creation Checklist  & Planner
    • Content Creation Worksheet
    • Product Planning Checklist & Product Creation Planner
    • Product Planning Worksheet
    • Product Promotion Checklist & Planner
    • Product Promotion Worksheet

As you can see, everything included in the New Year Marketing and Promotions Planning Templates will make it easy for you to plan out your next product and promotion.

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