With Labor Day officially in the rearview mirror and September ticking by, it’s officially time to start transitioning your marketing campaigns from fall to summer. Fall offers a lot of opportunities for promotional activities, whether they are seasonally themed or inspired by a specific holiday. Here are eight ideas to help you kick off your fall marketing, from hosting a promotional giveaway of custom rain gear to planning for November sales.
Host an end-of-summer sale.
If you sell physical products, hosting an end-of-summer sale is a great way to clean out your old stock and make some space for fall and winter merchandise. If you have physical stores, hosting a sale will also entice people to visit your retail locations and increase foot traffic. Even if you sell services instead of physical goods, you can still offer a discount on your services to encourage people to book appointments. Since summer weather is rapidly turning over for fall, we recommend doing this sale ASAP if you haven’t already.
Plan out your fall campaigns.
Another marketing activity that you should kick off as soon as possible is planning for your fall campaigns. Your marketing will be more effective if you plan and execute campaigns with an eye to all steps in the buying cycle, rather than firing off random tweets and emails. Think about the audiences you want to appeal to this fall and where they will be in the buying cycle, and design a campaign accordingly. Once you have created your overarching objectives, break down your fall campaigns into specific channels and deliverables and assign them deadlines.
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Update your marketing materials.
Once you have your fall campaigns figured out, it’s time to start creating your fall assets. Update your website imagery with seasonal photos and design social media assets with a fall-inspired color palette. We also recommend taking a look at the keywords and copy for both your organic SEO content and paid advertising campaigns and giving those a seasonal refresh as well. In fact, it’s a good idea to get in the habit of doing this at least once a season — not just when transitioning from summer to fall — and more often if you need to.
Order some seasonal promotional giveaways.
Promotional giveaways and contests are a fantastic way to raise brand awareness and grow your subscriber database. We recommend choosing products that are well-suited for the changing weather of fall, such as branded umbrellas, custom jackets, and promotional gloves. If your company is part of the health and wellness space, it might also make sense to do a giveaway geared around cold and flu season, such as promotional face coverings and branded hand sanitizer. Most promotional items require some lead time for customization and shipping, so be sure to order them in plenty of time.
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Consider fall event marketing opportunities.
While many people think of summer as the time for event marketing, there are plenty of opportunities for event marketing in the fall as well. In fact, the fall can sometimes be a more pleasant time for outdoor events since the temperatures are finally cooling off. Research some event marketing opportunities in your area and reach out to the coordinators to see if they still have openings for vendors or sponsors: whatever makes the most sense for your business. Most of these events fill up fast, so if you’re interested in participating in one this fall, don’t wait around — get the ball rolling today.
Plan for Halloween and Thanksgiving.
Halloween and Thanksgiving are the two biggest fall holidays, and they offer lots of possibilities for marketing activities. Most companies just post a “Happy Thanksgiving” graphic on social media and leave it at that, but you can go the extra mile by combining one of your other marketing ideas with one of the holidays. For instance, you could do a Halloween-themed contest or run a series of SEO blogs about Thanksgiving prep. Many businesses also choose to collaborate with nonprofits on charitable campaigns around Thanksgiving time since Giving Tuesday is the week after Thanksgiving.
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Get ready for late November sales.
Right after Thanksgiving come Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday. Most businesses participate in some — if not all — of these sales holidays, and they are often critical for making an annual profit and boosting sales in the leadup to Christmas. If you plan to participate in any of these sales, we recommend deciding on what discounts you will be offering and advertising them to your customers ahead of time. If you want to spread out the shopping, you can choose to start your sale early or end it late so that you don’t have to cram it all into a single day.
Start thinking ahead to the winter.
While winter technically doesn’t start until the winter solstice (which is December 21st this year), many people mentally switch their focus over to the winter holidays as soon as Thanksgiving is over. This means that you need to be ready to seamlessly transition from your fall to winter campaigns at the end of November, which requires planning in advance. As you think about your fall campaigns, figure out how you will change over to your winter content. You should also start planning what holiday content you want to do around Christmas and New Year’s Day so that you will be prepared.
Are you already well into your fall campaigns, or are you still in summer mode? What exciting marketing ideas do you have planned for the fall? Let us know in the comments below!
