How to build a seasonal product marketing plan: A 9-step guide

This article aims to give sellers a step-by-step guide on how to build a seasonal product marketing plan to boost their sales.

Before we outline a step-by-step guide on how to build a seasonal product marketing plan, including the benefits of seasonal marketing and how it can help boost sales, let’s first understand what seasonal products are.

What are seasonal products?

Products that are either not available on the market during certain seasons or periods of the year or are available throughout the year but with regular fluctuations in their quantities and prices that are linked to the season or time of the year¹ – these are considered as seasonal products.

Seasonal marketing often includes special season-themed promotions to appeal to the customer's seasonal needs. For example, a customer shopping nearer Valentine’s Day may find Valentines-theme ads more attractive.

Let's look at four benefits of seasonal marketing.

4 benefits of seasonal marketing

Seasonal marketing has several benefits for both new and existing businesses. Seasonal transitions and holidays provide a wonderful chance to appeal to new and existing customers with special incentives, thanks to increased online and foot traffic. Here are four of the most typical benefits of seasonal marketing:

1. Appealing to seasonal excitement

Customers tend to become excited about holidays and seasonal transitions because of the changing weather, family reunions, and the desire to exchange presents or discover great deals. Seasonal marketing allows a company to capitalize on the excitement of the season or holiday by offering special promotions that are only available at that time. This limited-time offering means that a customer must act quickly to take advantage of the offer, which increases the likelihood of a purchase.

2. Increasing brand awareness

Brand awareness refers to how well people are aware of your company's existence and the products or services it provides. Seasonal marketing may help bring attention to a company and attract new consumers through special offers. During the Christmas season, many businesses see a considerable increase in customer traffic as a result of referrals and promotions. This can be an excellent opportunity for new firms to break into a new industry by offering fantastic deals and delivering exceptional customer service.

3. Converting leads into paying customers

Leads that are aware of your business but haven't made a purchase yet, may be interested in doing so during seasonal promotions. During these campaigns, prices are frequently reduced, which might tempt a lead to make a purchase and perhaps become a loyal client. Seasonal marketing shows potential customers the benefit of making that purchase and encourages them to remain a customer even after the holiday or peak season promotions have ended.

4. Boost product sales

By attracting new and existing customers to special offers, seasonal marketing can help boost product sales and profitability. Customers appreciate the potential to save money while receiving valuable products or services, which can lead to increased demand and recommendations.

9 steps to plan a seasonal product marketing campaign

Developing a seasonal marketing plan that attracts new customers necessitates an in-depth understanding of your market niche, industry demand, and ideal customer profile.

Here are 9 steps on how you can plan a seasonal product marketing campaign:

1. Understand your target audience and niche

Knowing who you're marketing to and where your business fits into the industry may help you build better-targeted marketing campaigns. The first step in knowing your customer or audience is to create an ideal customer profile. Include items such as:

• Age, location, and interests of your ideal consumer
• Which competitors could sell to your customer?
• What are your customer's pain points?
• Expectations of your customers for your products or services

A deep grasp of the consumer also aids in better understanding the niche of your business. Consider how your company meets the customer's specific wants. Evaluate how your business addresses a specific client demand if you're in a wide sector like food service or retail. You might provide specialized items or services that address a specific pain point that your competitors don't.

2. Plan your marketing campaign around the sentiment of the season

Take into account the sentiment of the season in which you're marketing. Giving, compassion and family values can all be associated with the winter holiday season. This may have an impact on how you market to customers. You may concentrate on items that would make great gifts for certain family members or personality types. Consider the general sentiment of the transition if you're conducting a seasonal transition promotion. Transitioning into winter might have a different feel than transitioning into summer.

3. Maximize your discounts

Seasonal promotions are a terrific time to give discounts on items or services, but it's crucial to know how to make the most of them in order to persuade customers to buy. Instead of utilizing numbers, consider using percentages. For instance, instead of "$5 off," try "10% off." By altering the way a buyer views the sale, it might help them believe they're receiving a good deal.

4. Research similar campaigns

Once you've decided on your next seasonal opportunity, look into and review successful content campaigns for the occasion, paying close attention to how each campaign handled content format, distribution, messaging, and emotion. This will enable you to identify common denominators that can inspire your own campaign ideas and contribute to your overall strategy.

5. Improve your SEO

Search engine optimization, known as SEO, may help your company's website or social media pages rank better in search results. This can help increase site traffic and, as a result, overall sales throughout the season.

Here are some ideas to help you improve your SEO:

• Create a blog: Blogs are fantastic SEO tools. They can give readers information or entertainment while also providing SEO benefits through keywords, backlinks, and shareable links.
• Keep content relevant: Customers are more inclined to read the information that addresses their specific requirements, wants, or concerns. To enhance your SEO approach, keep your customer profile in mind when creating content.
• Improve your website: For new customers or leads, your company website might serve as a landing page. A well-designed, effective website can increase the likelihood of leads becoming customers and being committed to their purchases.
• Make use of social media: Social media profiles may serve as a point of contact for companies and customers, as well as a repository for SEO-optimized material that can be shared easily.

6. Define your message

What is the story you want to convey about the customer journey? Is it new customers, or lead conversions? What emotions do you want your target audience to feel? Love, joy? What kind of action do you want people to take? Do you want them to seek more information, or buy something?

These questions are an excellent place to start when it comes to defining your messaging, and once you have the answers, aligning it with your chosen seasonal opportunity will be straightforward.

7. Set a timeline

With seasonal campaigns, timing is everything, so you’ll need to schedule time to plan far in advance of the event, as well as time to plan the execution of each stage of the campaign at the right time. In general, this implies that your content should be ready to send out at least two months before the event.

8. Organize your assets

All marketing platforms should be considered while creating a campaign: email, social media, public relations, blogging, SEO, and so on. Including multiple platforms in your campaign will allow for better content flow, a wider reach, and higher engagement.

9. Review and adjust

When managing and planning any marketing campaign, but especially ones that are seasonal in nature, staying agile is critical. This entails continuously monitoring and assessing the campaign's performance — where traffic is coming from, which pages have the greatest bounce rate, which pages convert the best — and making adjustments to your approach as needed.

5 tips for marketing a seasonal product

Let’s explore five useful tips for marketing a seasonal product.

1. Put a creative seasonal spin on your products

You can add a little fun to what your company currently offers as part of a seasonal marketing strategy. Which of your products or services may benefit from a seasonal makeover? How can you tailor your marketing to coincide with a certain holiday or season?

An outdoor supply firm, for example, may target people planning a winter holiday in the great outdoors with their cold-weather gear. Marketing efforts for Mother's Day might be ramped up by a company that sells scented candles and bath products. A business that offers men's grooming goods, on the other hand, could benefit from a Father's Day marketing strategy.

2. Revive previous year's successful marketing campaigns

Repeating a successful seasonal marketing strategy from a previous year might entice your audience to return and make a purchase. Some businesses repeat seasonal promotions year after year to establish brand loyalty and attract new customers who want to take advantage of the offer.

For example, Black Friday is a seasonal marketing campaign that many businesses participate in year after year. It's a successful, recognized, and well-known offer that customers actively seek out and anticipate.

Alternatively, you could consider putting a new spin on a tried-and-tested seasonal marketing theme.

3. Align your social media content

Your seasonal marketing strategy should be reflected in your social media presence. Your social accounts should mirror the broader marketing plan, regardless of what you're delivering on your other channels — whether your business has a website, an email list, or is even featured in print or other media.

When you launch a seasonal marketing campaign, your social media content should accomplish the following:

• Get users to subscribe to your email list
• Send followers to your website or Instagram store to purchase items
• Engage your followers with unique chances like giveaways and user-generated content
• Increase brand awareness
• Create an environment of excitement around the special deals you're promoting

The Hallmark Channel is an excellent example of how to drive traffic to your primary channel via social media. Their Christmas in July series featured some of their most popular Christmas movies throughout July 2021.² But their social media accounts backed up the information they shared on TV and via their streaming service. Followers who ran across social posts advertising the films would know exactly what was playing when to tune in.

4. Leverage user-generated content

User-generated content (UGC) is a terrific way to fill in the gaps in your marketing content, especially on social media, by allowing your followers to create it for you. Create a fun social media campaign that encourages your followers to take a photo or make a post featuring your business. You may ask them to tag you in their posts, tag their friends in the comments, and use a custom hashtag so you can quickly discover them. Then, with their permission and credit, republish the material they generate as part of your campaign. While you're running a promotion during a peak season, this is a wonderful method to keep your queue full.

5. Create tailored email outreach

Don't forget to include your email list in your seasonal marketing strategy. Make unique deals available to your email subscribers before they are available to the general public, and consider developing extra offers only for them. In turn, advertise these limited-time offers to get more people to join your mailing list.

Make a series of emails that highlight your seasonal promotion. You can tease out the offer before a major revelation, or you can provide a series of exclusive bargains to your subscribers.

Sell on Alibaba.com

A good marketing plan is crucial, but sellers can gain a lot by selling on a B2B e-commerce marketplace. This type of platform can help in the generation of more leads and sales. Why not open a seller account on Alibaba.com. This online marketplace provides you with the exposure that will be advantageous for brand awareness, enabling you to reach more businesses, boost your product sales and build new customer relationships.

Additionally, Alibaba.com provides powerful analytics tools to give you insights into your target market and the performance of your online store. It combines all of the benefits of an online retailer with a data-driven network of sellers, manufacturers, marketers, and logistics providers.

It's the most unique opportunity to get your products in front of a global audience, with maximum exposure and minimum investment!