There’s nothing quite like a seasonal sale or promotion. Consumers love to bag a bargain, and all businesses – no matter what the industry they belong to or the products/services they provide – should latch on to this information.
The Christmas and January sales have been around for decades, and a new promotional behemoth – Black Friday – has become a more modern phenomenon.
Scheduled for the last Friday of November following the final payday prior to Christmas, it was estimated that Americans spent more than $90 billion on Black Friday in 2018 and its sibling Cyber Monday; that’s an average spend of $483.18 per adult.
Some firms are reluctant to mark down their prices or initiate buy-one-get-one-free style offers but, when there is such a captive audience – and the marketing graft has been done for you given the ‘viral’ nature of Black Friday and Cyber Monday – why wouldn’t you want to take advantage?
Of course, seasonal promotions aren’t solely the preserve of the festive period, and you will find sales and special offers available at various points throughout the year.
And, today, many successful businesses are utilizing ‘micro promotions’ to boost sales and generate interest, from day-long sales to ‘happy hours’ and the like.
Think your business could benefit from a seasonal injection of revenue? Perhaps these kinds of promotions could work for you.
Back to School
The summer is, typically, a quiet period for many businesses with potential customers away on vacation or saving up their hard-earned money for a trip somewhere nice.
Clearly, the Back to School style sales tap into this timing and can help to generate income at a time when figures might otherwise be down.
You might think that these deals are the sole preserve of those involved in children’s products in some way and, of course, these are the frontrunners of such timely promotions. Walmart, for example, was retailing coloring pencils for as little as 50 cents last year, while the likes of Amazon and Office Depot also offered deals on clothing, footwear and stationery.
But the key to any good promotion is to think outside of the box and come up with ingenious ways to tie in your products and services to the new school year. This is a notoriously good time for electronics retailers, for instance, with Apple offering free Beats headphones with purchases of iPads or Macs back in 2017.
And how about Old Navy, the fashion retailer, who launched their own Back to Cool campaign? It’s that smart thinking that can help businesses really take advantage of a seasonal promotion.
Timing is Everything
Happy hour is a promotion that has been used by public houses and bars since the dawn of time.
Businesses have caught hold of the idea, and they too hold their own ‘flash sales’ and promotions that have a limited time span. How about offering a percentage discount during a specific timeframe, say 10% off all orders between 8-9pm?
These are easy enough to promote via social media, and there are even some super-cool graphics that are coded into a website by even the most technophobic of business owners.
Consider tying in your time-based seasonal promotions to a time of day. Buzz Bingo offer a ‘Brunch Time Bingo’ deal, where players get a special bonus for playing between 11 am and 12 pm. That’s another clever way to boost sales at a typically quiet time of day.
Try Before You Buy
It always seems so counter-intuitive but giving away free samples of your products – or allowing a customer a trial of your services – really is a smart promotional tool, especially when you are new to the market or launching a brand new product.
If you truly believe in the quality of your items for sale, then the hard part is getting them into the hands of the consumer: the rest should take care of itself.
Think about Birchbox, the subscription service that offers free samples of cosmetics to their customers.
The brands contained within the box get some fantastic exposure for a small outlay, and it’s a smart way to enhance your exposure to a wider audience while (hopefully) generating new sales and customer loyalty.
As far as marketing promotions go, giving a little to get a lot back is smart business.
