Guide to Seasonal Marketing

Even though the end-of-year holidays are swarmed by festive buzz and promotions, it’s not the only time of year that’s rife with marketing potential. Every month, season, cultural happening, and celebratory event brings with it opportunities to reach customers in fresh ways. Tapping into the energy and emotion of these collective moments is what seasonal marketing is all about. 

By mapping your unique offerings and value to relevant occasions throughout the year and crafting a compelling seasonal marketing campaign, you’ve got the chance to increase engagement, build customer loyalty, and boost sales. You may even become a memorable part of someone’s seasonal traditions and celebrations.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through common types of seasonal marketing and best practices for planning your own campaign. Plus, find bright ideas and practical tips that’ll set you up for success as you get started. 

4 common types of seasonal marketing

Whether drawing inspiration from annual holidays, weather shifts, cultural trends, or anchor events in your industry, there are countless ways to approach seasonal marketing. To determine the best approach for your business, consider your target audience and which moments throughout the year are particularly important to them and the ways your brand can authentically support these moments. Here are four popular types of seasonal marketing to consider.

1. Calendar-based seasonal marketing

By connecting with customers during annual holidays and events, you have the chance to participate in culturally relevant moments, and also harness some of the positive sentiment that naturally accompanies festive occasions. Use the opportunity to build campaigns around related activities, such as gift giving and gathering with others.

For example, to tie in with holidays where people get together for picnics and potlucks, like Memorial Day or July 4th, a cookware boutique could offer a special deal on barbecue supplies, like grilling tongs or spice rubs. In anticipation of Halloween parties, a kids clothing brand could create a how-to guide with creative tips for turning wardrobe staples into DIY costumes.

Choose occasions that feel like a natural fit for your products or services, so there’s a clear benefit to your customers. Examples of calendar-based marketing moments include:

• Holidays: Valentine’s Day, Lunar New Year, St. Patrick’s Day, Halloween, New Year’s Eve

• Appreciation days: Teacher Appreciation Day, Bring a Kid to Work Day, National Grandparents Day, Best Friends Day, Galentine’s Day

• Annual occurrences: Back to school season, graduation season, wedding season, tax season, summer solstice, fall equinox, Oktoberfest, April Fools’ Day, Groundhog Day, Arbor Day, Pi Day

2. Weather-related seasonal marketing

With every shift in temperature and weather patterns, you have the opportunity to help your customers prep for the season and match your offerings to their seasonal habits, such as changes in attire, seasonal activities, and overall vibe. For example, a cafe might welcome autumn with seasonal menu items, like warm pumpkin-spiced drinks, offered only for a limited time. On the fall equinox, a travel advisor could offer special fall getaway packages or a florist could offer bouquets featuring seasonal stems. 

Like calendar-based marketing, think about what your target customer needs from you in each particular season, so you’re offering something relevant and exciting to them.

3. Culture-based seasonal marketing

Whether riffing on awards season, a major sports event, or seasonal style trends, what’s happening in culture can translate into fodder for of-the-moment seasonal marketing. For example, the bracket format used to track elimination-style basketball tournaments could be repurposed for a playful competition relevant to your business’ offerings or as a fun way to raise awareness around a relevant cause.

Examples of cultural moments to riff on include:

• Entertainment: Awards season, music festival season

• Art, design, and fashion: Fashion weeks, the galas, art fair season

• Sports: Major championship games, global competitions, the Big Game

4. Business-specific seasonal marketing

Think about the key events for your industry throughout the year, as well as celebratory days and months that spotlight demographics your business serves. These can be meaningful times to run a seasonal marketing campaign. For a nonprofit that serves a certain population, for example, a national awareness campaign could be a prime moment. Offering a limited-edition release is a way for a music shop to build buzz and generate sales when vinyl fans are primed and ready to shop.

Examples of moments and campaigns that might make sense for your business to participate in include:

• Shopping and spending moments: Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday, restaurant weeks

• Awareness campaigns: World Mental Health Day, National Cancer Prevention Month, National Literacy Month, World Wildlife Day, International Children’s Day, Earth Month

• National campaigns and heritage celebrations: Black History Month, National Hispanic Heritage Month, Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Native American Heritage Month, Women’s History Month, International Women’s Day, Pride Month

How to plan seasonal marketing campaigns

Creating a memorable seasonal marketing campaign is about matching the right message to the best timing. From identifying strategic opportunities and nailing down messaging, tactics, and benchmarks to launching and tracking performance, here’s how to get started.

1. Identify relevant seasonal marketing opportunities

Pinpoint opportunities that are relevant to your brand, authentically speak to your customers or clients, and help you meet your overarching business goals. Comb through your business data to examine past performance and spot opportunities and trends. For example, if you’re seeing increased traffic that coincides with certain holidays or cultural events, that signals consumer interest and, therefore, an opportunity to further build on that demand.

2. Set campaign goals and allot resources

Once you’ve selected a seasonal moment to focus on, clearly define your campaign goals and success metrics. Set benchmarks, key performance indicators (KPIs), and relevant targets, such as goals for revenue and profit, engagement, conversion, growth, and/or brand awareness. These should support your overall business goals. Determine the amount of resources you’re budgeting for this campaign, including time, costs, and staffing.

3. Define your target audience and segments

Before you can refine the voice and messaging for your campaign, you’ll need to get crystal clear on who your target audience is. Consider your ideal customer’s demographics, geography, lifestyle, and values. This knowledge can help you adapt your tone, what products or services to highlight, and what platform to focus on to reach your audience. By also defining audience segments, you can focus your efforts for the biggest impact.

4. Craft your message

Create a specific, targeted message that speaks to your target audience’s needs, wants, and motivations. Think of this as a storyline that carries through to every part of your campaign. You might use several channels, but the strongest campaigns tell one unified story—through copy, content, and visuals—with a clear, consistent message. Designed assets, photography and video, color scheme, and tone and voice are all key elements of your campaign’s message.

5. Choose your channels and tactics

Determine which channels are most relevant for your audience, message, and goals. This could include email marketing, social media, PR, ads, landing pages, blog content, shopping guides, direct mailers, paid advertising, brand collaborations, live events, and more. 

Once you home in on the most relevant channels for your campaign, define what tactics you’ll pursue for each channel. For example, if your campaign centers inspiring customer stories, a cross-channel campaign could include a long-form blog article, short videos for Instagram, and a segmented email send spotlighting a selection of customer photos and quotes.

6. Make a launch plan

Map out a detailed plan to execute every facet of your vision. Bring together anyone responsible for producing each element of your campaign. Your team may be just you, or it could include designers, writers, editors, and producers, depending on your campaign’s needs and your budget. Work backwards from the launch date to define key milestones, timelines, and due dates.

7. Measure performance

To gauge success, monitor performance through your chosen metrics. This could include revenue, units sold, average order value, conversion rate, bounce rate, views, new followers, web traffic, or brand sentiment. Take note of what worked and what didn’t to inform your next campaign.

Seasonal marketing best practices

Blending compelling messaging, enticing offers, and a true understanding of the occasion are essential elements of seasonal marketing. To successfully meet the moment and drum up engagement, follow these best practices.

Customize the message to the market

If your business operates in multiple global markets—or even different regions of your country—it's essential to tailor your seasonal campaign messaging to each location to reflect the local weather, lifestyles, and cultural preferences. For example, when your U.S. customers are in the market for warm winter coats and snow boots, your Australian customers are thinking about sun hats and swimwear.

Foster a sense of urgency

Since seasons are finite by definition, you’ve got a built-in way to spur potential customers into action with limited-time offers that they won’t want to miss. For example, this could be special seasonal inventory, exclusive merch, a brief sale, or a free gift that’s only available to the first 100 shoppers or VIP subscribers. To build anticipation around a drop, post a countdown clock in your channels.

Invite engagement

Prioritize opportunities that help you meaningfully engage with your customers. This could include hosting a fun contest, spotlighting user-generated content (UGC) or inspiring customer stories, hosting events and meetups for your community, or building a customer loyalty or affiliate marketing program. This engagement not only helps your content get more visibility, but it also strengthens connections with your brand.

Track ideas for the future

Since seasonal marketing requires planning ahead, you might be struck with a brilliant idea that’s just missed its moment. Luckily, the seasons keep cycling and the right time will come around again. So, take an always-on approach to brainstorming and document your ideas. That way, when the season returns, you’ll be prepared to take action.