Seasonal Marketing - 5 tips to best utilize during the fall

You can walk into any retail store this time of the year and hear Christmas music and holiday themes playing throughout the space. Pumpkin spice lattes, Black Friday deals, holiday sales, the endless plentitude of seasonal offerings are upon us. This time of the year is important to many businesses looking to capitalize on holiday trends and meet end-of-year revenue goals. Both consumers have become accustomed to seeing these seasonal specials and businesses have hedged their books on a significant increase in sales, so what are you doing to ensure your business is marketing to this excitement?

Here are 5 tips to boost your seasonal marketing efforts.

1. Use nostalgia to your advantage

Nostalgia can play an important role in seasonal marketing. This is why apple pie, fall colors, and warm flannels resonate with us in both visual appeal and in other sensory capacities. The same goes for seasonal marketing. Using warm colors, seasonal patterns, and similar trends that align with your target audience and demographic can elicit strong emotional ties. Knowing how your product or service aligns with each season not only helps you strategize how to sell best but it also can give you creative ideas when it comes to messaging this to potential customers.

2. Bandwagon

Who doesn't like a good bandwagoner? There is no shame in using the hype of Black Friday and Cyber Monday to your advantage, regardless of the product or services you sell. Customers expect sales and specials during this time of the year, why not join in on the adventure? By offering a discount on existing service or clearing out an overstocked product you can save yourself time and most likely margin later down the road. Get creative with building out the creative with this. Cleaver captions and thrifty creative will surely have customers flocking to your store.

3. Build momentum

When designing a seasonal marketing calendar, say fall, for example, build momentum with your creative and copy. By starting early and slowly easing into the theme of the season allows customers to get excited for what is to come, again using nostalgia to your advantage. Depending on what you are looking to specifically advertise, these early marketing efforts will build momentum and compound when customers begin seeing other seasonal content across both physical retail and digital channels.

4. Double down on social responsibility

Corporate social responsibility is important. If your business doesn't already have a charity or philanthropic endeavor you have partnered with, go do this first. Certain seasons elicit strong "giving" emotions where we focus on helping others or choosing companies based on their social or charitable impact. Younger generations are choosing to align themselves with companies that exercise corporate social responsibility. According to a Nielsen survey, 73 percent of Millennials prefer to work with socially responsible companies. More so, 81 percent of Millennials expect their brands to make a public commitment to good corporate citizenship. Offer a "round-up" program to donate a portion of sales to a local charity, partner with a local food bank, the list goes on.

5. Most importantly - Know your customer

Well, you should know your customer first and always but when planning out a seasonal marketing campaign, this is ever more important. Customers buy from people, they don't care how many advertisements that you ran or how much in marketing that you spent, they just want the best deal from the best company for the product they want or solution to a problem they need solving. When engaging with potential customers, be specific with the channels you utilize and what content and creative you use for each. For instance, if you're an online boutique selling unique women's apparel, Facebook carousels showing the sale on each item can be a powerful channel to use. Have a limited time offer? Deploying content through the Google Ad network can be an effective way to reach certain demographics that resonate best with your service. Get creative and don't be afraid to get granular in targeting customers during this time of the year. Doing your research and knowing how best to interact with your customers through an authentic way will aid in your busiest time of the year.