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Seasonal industries are particularly demanding when it comes to marketing activities. Two or three months a year may determine whether a given brand lasts. How to beat the competition and increase profits during the busiest part of the year? It’s a question that many entrepreneurs ask themselves. Not just the ones who are taking their first steps in business. While in businesses enjoying constant demand, marketing activities seem obvious, when it comes to seasonality, it isn’t so certain for many people. Therefore, in this post, we are going to share ideas on how to promote seasonal products or services.
Types of Seasons and Seasonal Marketing
The seasonality of industries doesn’t need to be explained – we all know that there are products/services that are only popular during certain times of the year. Apartments by the sea, ski resorts, Christmas decoration stores – these businesses have times during the year where sales peak and an off-season where sales slow down. However, you have to be aware that there are different types of seasons. In marketing, we divide them into three main groups:
- long-term – usually lasts several months. Here we have, for example, summer, winter, and the holiday season (before Christmas),
- short-term – focus on one-off events or specific holidays we like to celebrate, but which do not require too much preparation. Examples: Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Women’s Day, or back to school,
- seasonal trends – they appear unexpectedly as a result of fashion or other circumstances. Example from the recent past: a large increase in demand for disinfectants during the pandemic. Seasonal trends are not cyclical.
Each of these types is slightly different and requires a specific approach from the marketing point of view.
Trend Analysis
In the case of seasons, it is important to determine when the interest in given products or types of services increases. It may seem that you know perfectly well when the activity peaks because you can see the sales boost. The moment of purchase, however, does not have to coincide with the moment of increased interest. For example, if you sell tires, it may turn out that our season begins not when drivers start buying new tires but, for example, a month or 1.5 months earlier, when the customers start comparing offers from different stores.
Statistics from Google Analytics will help you find out when the season for your product starts. It is worth comparing the website traffic year to year to learn when potential customers start looking for information on a given topic. However, if you don’t have access to such data, because you didn’t connect to Analytics or you’re just starting your business, you can use Google Trends. By entering phrases related to your industry, you will see how many users look for them in particular months or weeks.
Does SEO in Seasonal Industries Make Sense?
In industries that enjoy constant demand for their products and services throughout the year, SEO is known as one of the most effective ways to gain traffic. But is the situation the same for seasonal industries? If we are talking about long-term seasons – for sure. However, you must pique the interest of recipients before the season, then you have several months of heavy traffic, and let’s not forget that many people like post-season promotions and discounts. All the organic traffic that you gain can translate into profits – if you act early enough. A common mistake of many entrepreneurs is to sign an SEO contract just before the beginning of the season, forgetting that it takes time to obtain positioning results. Therefore, you should find an SEO agency at least 2-3 months before the season.
However, you should have the website’s visibility in mind not only during the biggest boom for a given product or service. In many industries, the key is to constantly maintain the interest of recipients and increase brand awareness so that when it comes to the purchase decision, your company name is well known among potential customers. A website blog is ideal for this. Regardless of the season, you can publish articles with tips, news, or trends, adding phrases related to the industry. if you have a store, which sells tires, you don’t have to try to sell summer tires during cold winter, when no one is thinking about sunny days yet. However, you can post articles on the types of tread, product comparisons from different brands, information about new models on the market, or even more general post about motorization. Before the season starts, it is worth enhancing your actions, focusing on the more current content, with phrases such as “tires for summer 2022” or “best tires for 2022”. Effective website positioning is a long-term process – remember that 🙂
Google Ads and Social Media To Grab Attention Faster
In the case of temporary trends, preparing a strategy and building a position in the search engine in advance is a luxury. Marketing in seasonal industries requires a different approach. It’s crucial to act quickly so as not to miss the recipients’ greatest interest, which is why the best methods of promotion are the ones that bring the effect almost immediately. Namely, running advertising campaigns in Google Ads.
Depending on the type of service or product, you may choose the search engine itself, a product campaign, banners on the websites of Google partners, or even a combination of these options. It is also worth using remarketing, which is showing targeted ads to users who have previously visited your website. By doing so, your products/services will be immediately visible to potential customers. Remarketing also comes in handy during short and long-term seasons – it’s one of the ways to gain recipients’ attention. Google Ads allow you to reach a large group of people who are potentially interested in the offer based on the phrases they searched for or based on the collected data on their online behavior.
As with most cases, there is a catch. Running Google Ads is not a difficult task, but optimizing them is more of a trick. Poorly set ads will burn your budget and won’t bring you the expected profits, and may even end in a loss. Therefore, before you start creating campaigns in Google Ads, it is worth carefully analyzing the types of keyword matches, including negative keywords, locations, ad text, extensions, and times of display on the web. And when your ads start running, it’s a good idea to check them every day and, if necessary, modify your bids or slightly change the basic settings to achieve better results.
Ways to Lure Customers
The question remains, however, how to do good ads to attract the attention of potential customers. Of course, a frequently used and popular method is to inform about promotions, post-season sales, or pre-season deals. However, this is only one way to catch the client’s attention. Insights from research in psychology and behavioral economics show that free add-ons are highly attractive to customers. What can you offer your customers as a bonus? Of course, free delivery is the first choice. In your messages, you can tempt recipients with free delivery with no minimum spend but for a short period of time, because the limited-time offer pushes the customer to make a prompt decision.
However, you can offer your audience something completely different. Returning to the example with tires – if you run a physical store, it will be a good idea to offer a free tire change when buying a set of tires – then the customers will have the feeling that you not only provided a full service but also saved them the trouble, so there is a good chance that they will remember your company the next season. The hotel, on the other hand, can offer free breakfast, free spa treatment, or a free stay for a child, if the guests’ stay is long enough. These are benefits that don’t cost you much and can significantly affect the brand image – and thus future profits. Of course, the bonuses can be completely different, the key is to know the needs of your target group.
Ready to prepare a seasonal marketing strategy?