Holiday & Event Marketing
One of my clients has mentioned some New Years marketing and perhaps combining this with some Valentines Day promotions, it occurred to me that really great marketing opportunities for retailers such as Valentines Day are in reality ‘just around the corner’.
Anyone business to take advantage of Valentines Day really does need to get started with their designer as the clock strikes January with no delay.
Most businesses will be back at work formally on Tuesday the 1st January. I’ll give you an idea of the sort of timescales you are facing if you want your promotion out in from of your customers in time for Valentines:
Week 1: 1st Jan - 6th Jan
It it will take that first week to talk to your designer about your needs and swap quotes and deposit payments, and to gather together them images and text related to the project.
Week 2: 7th Jan - 13th Jan
Your designer is working their little socks off you your project.
Week 3: 14th Jan - 20th Jan
It’s early in the week and you ask for some tweaks to the design that you hopefully like and don’t need a full redraw. Minor tweaks should be completed by mid week, and by Friday the 18th Jan you hopefully have your print ready files in your hand.
But wait….that’s just the files, not the actual printed promotional items, and so if you hand over your print files to the printing company on Friday the 18th Jan for the average printing firm you can expect most print products to take (including time spent approving proofs) around 12 working days in total to hit your premises. Some can do it faster, but personally I’d rather not risk cutting it so fine.
18th January plus 12 days = the very end of January. That then gives you two weeks to use them to promote your special offer, event or whatever it is you are doing to pull in more business over the Valentines weekend.
Not much time is it?
So clearly you need to spend some time over Christmas preparing any Valentines Day marketing ideas so that it’s ready to hand to your designer as soon as January comes along otherwise you will be skating very close to the line in getting it all done in time.
EVENT & SEASONAL MARKETING
Seasonal and event marketing isn’t just for retailers of course, all variety of business types can take advantage of the multitude of public holidays and events that make up the yearly calendar here in the UK.
The most important thing however, as described above in relation to Valentines Day marketing, is to plan ahead.
The sort of events and holidays you can take advantage of throughout the after Valentines Day year include;
Easter
This is at the very least a time when consumers get a long weekend at their disposal, therefore even if you’re not a purveyor of chocolate, cards, flowers, or gifts people have more time to for example to;
Look for and view properties for purchase.
Indulge in leisure pursuits.
Start their spring gardening.
Book their Easter/and or summer holiday.
Plan and purchase their Spring/Summer wardrobe.
Attend events.
Eat out.
Spring clean their homes.
…and doing any of these things and more hasn’t yet occurred to them, you can certainly put it in their mind!
After Easter you can plan ahead for:
April Fool’s Day - Apr 1st
The Grand National - Apr 9th
The London Marathon - Apr 17
Royal Ascot - (over 300,000 people visit the Ascot racecourse during Royal Ascot week) Jun 14th - 15th
Henley Royal Regatta - June 29th
