Ideas to Boost Your Summer Marketing Strategy

Everyone loves summer. Nice weather, great company, loads of fun! The only trouble is that people get too busy vacationing and mostly forget about online shopping.

With all the events and holidays, consumers spend less time on their screens. You need to amp up your efforts to reach your audience in the hot months.

Here are four summer-specific marketing ideas you might want to try in your campaigns this year.

Have a summer sale

The easiest way to grab attention in the slow months is to launch a sale or clearance. First, figure out how long it will last. Just a couple of weeks or the whole three months?

Maybe a few shorter-lasting sales one after the other? In that case, you could dedicate each to a different category of product to pique customers’ interest and have them looking forward to shopping with you.

There may be laws and regulations in your area that dictate how long a sales promotion can last, so do your research to make sure you’re in the clear.

Also, run some analytics on your customers’ preferences. Try to time your clearances for when they’re most likely to indulge in them.

Take advantage of causes

Tons of things have their own day in the year. This is a golden opportunity for you to reach out to a wide base of consumers, new and old.

The obvious example is Pride Month in June: it’s an incredibly widespread conversation and you can ride that wave to generate lots of brand awareness.

The downside is that companies are getting an earful about exploiting it for a quick buck and not being authentic allies, so keep that in mind when you plan your approach.

Alternatively, if you’d rather stay away from the whole Pride talk, there are many International Days in the summer season.

Some are serious issues, and some are more lighthearted, so you can choose the atmosphere you want to go for.

Days like these offer an opportunity for a wide scale of marketing tactics: from casual social media posts and jokes to full-blown company events with custom flying banners for the cause.

Give out seasonal freebies

A seasonal giveaway is always a great idea. People love free stuff any time of year! If your sales drop in the summer, some attractive freebies will hit two targets with one dart: you get rid of excess goods and boost your presence and reputation.

Summertime is particularly suited to a giveaway marketing tactic. People spend a lot of time outdoors and typically take lots of photos.

This means a lot of user-generated content on various social media platforms that you can take advantage of.

Give out items that people can showcase for you. These can be clothing, accessories, useful items like portable mugs, or even souvenirs.

Whatever you give out, it needs to be attractive, attention-grabbing, and as unique as you can muster. Something that’s season-specific or even year-specific can be a great idea (think of a witty COVID pun on a mug). Bonus points if the freebie can make for a nice present. That will increase your reach offline as well.

Cash in on seasonal events

In line with dedicated “Days of Things”, tailor your summertime marketing strategy around important events of the season.

An easy example is back-to-school or back-to-university sales. These typically roll around in the late summer or early fall.

Of course, the pandemic has caused some significant changes on that plane. What’s the situation like where you do business?

If students are going back to in-person learning, you can pretty much use standard campaigns with a few refreshing twists.

Maybe play up the benefits of getting out of the house and spending time with friends again. Appeal to parents and caretakers with the idea of finally getting a break from homeschooling.

If online learning is still the dominant trend, consider a virtual campaign instead. Since you won’t have much room to offer products like back-to-school outfits, backpacks, etc.,

you may want a campaign that focuses on young people’s mental health and how it is impacted by remote learning.

You can also do a variation on the freebie idea: welcome the back-to-school period with a new knowledge hub for your customers. Have a blog or Resources page with some seasonal guides, mental wellness articles, etc.

So, to summarize, summer is a generally lazy period shopping-wise, but you can still keep the business rolling.

Just tailor your marketing campaigns to the season’s peculiarities. Consider having a sale, hosting a giveaway, and targeting specific days for maximum impact.

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