By Kim T. Gordon
If you think holiday marketing
begins just after Halloween and ends on New
Year's Day, think again. For most small
businesses, holidays from Father's Day to
Administrative Professionals' Day provide
terrific hooks on which to hang marketing
promotions.
To get you thinking outside the
gift box, here are 12 months of holidays to
consider--plus creative ideas for using less
traditional holidays to grab your customers'
attention.
February
Valentine's Day is a bonanza for
restaurateurs and jewelers, but other
entrepreneurs also can use the day to tell
customers they're appreciated. Show your
company's love by sending letters with
special rewards, such as money off a
purchase, to your best customers or clients.
Rewards at this holiday, rather than just at
the more traditional times of year, will
grab attention and be appreciated.
Also in February are Groundhog
Day, Mardi Gras and Presidents Day. Want to
be inventive? A professional services firm
could enhance its client relations (and
loosen an otherwise stiff image) by throwing
a Mardi Gras-themed party, while an air
conditioning and heating contractor could
send a direct mail piece using Groundhog Day
as a hook, offering customers a special
discount on heating maintenance services to
help them get through six more weeks of
winter.
March
The two biggest holidays on my calendar
in March are St. Patrick's Day and my
birthday. Granted, my birthday may not be of
any interest to your customers, but they'll
definitely enjoy being appreciated on their
own birthdays. Include a field in your
customer database for birth dates, and
depending on your type of business, send a
gift, card or reward.
As for St. Patrick's Day, there
are many fun tie-ins--from the color green
to the luck of the Irish--you can develop
into marketing hooks. And the first day of
spring is March 21. Traditionally, this is
the kick-off for major spring retail
promotions.
April
Ah, April Fools' Day. Businesses large and
small have used this day as an opportunity
to draw public attention. In one
well-publicized April Fools' hoax, Taco Bell
placed ads in major newspapers announcing it
had purchased the Liberty Bell to help
reduce the federal deficit and was planning
to move it to Irvine, California. Americans
were furious. There were more than 400 TV
mentions and thousands of newspaper and
radio mentions worth millions in media
coverage, though Taco Bell sent out a news
release announcing the hoax just a few hours
later. The smart promotional gambit resulted
in a $500,000 sales increase for the company
on April 1 and a $600,000 increase on April
2.
Easter will be celebrated on April
8 this year with traditional spring sales at
most retailers. Earth Day is on April 22,
and you don't have to be a green company to
take on an environmentally friendly
promotion, such as planting trees and
letting your customers know about it. And
let's not overlook Administrative
Professionals’ Day (formerly known as
Secretaries' Day) on April 25. This holiday
is prompting small businesses to take
action: The Vermont Teddy Bear Co., for
instance, has added a page to its website to
sell gifts for the occasion.
May
The two biggest holidays in May are Mother's
Day on May 13 and Memorial Day on May 28.
Small businesses in the hospitality,
consumer services and retail categories
typically realize the greatest gains from
Mother's Day promotions. Husbands and
daughters make the bulk of all Mother's Day
purchases, and consumers spend more on this
holiday than most others, including Father's
Day. The most popular service given as a
Mother's Day gift is a half-day spa
treatment. To promote your Mother's Day
offerings this year, consider using e-mail
as a low-cost, high-return tactic to promote
everything from jewelry to flowers.
June through September
While not the big spending holiday
Mother's Day has become, Father's Day on
June 17 is still a terrific hook for small
businesses looking for an early summer
boost. Since women make the most purchases
for fathers and husbands, create promotions
that appeal to their desire for convenient,
easy shopping and cost savings.
Summer officially begins on June
21, but long before that, the season can
provide a wonderful hook for specials or
promotions that tie in to warm-weather
vacations and fun. Campground owners, for
example, can ramp up marketing campaigns
that target families with RVs looking for
affordable vacations.
Since the Fourth of July is a
major retail marketing holiday, smaller
businesses may want to stay out of the fray
and concentrate promotional dollars on
less-crowded holidays. If you offer products
related to back-to-school promotions, August
is your month. And retailers should plan a
marketing push for Labor Day sales on
September 3.
October
Trick or treat! Halloween is more popular
than ever, with many adults attending
costume parties and even sales of pet
costumes seeing a dramatic upswing. For
small nonprofits and fundraising
organizations, Halloween provides a
wonderful marketing opportunity. You can
create a haunted event, get other local
businesses involved as sponsors or partners,
and sell tickets in multiple locations.
Halloween is also a smart hook
for businesses promoting child safety
products and services. You can win media
coverage, including newspaper and radio
interviews, by producing a fact sheet with
safety tips along with a pitch letter to
send to targeted editors and journalists.
November through January
November 1 officially marks the start of the
holiday selling season, so why not put a new
spin on Thanksgiving promotions? Instead of
focusing on holiday decorations or falling
retail prices, make an effort to help others
while enhancing your company's image in the
process. You can sponsor meals for the
homeless. Or you and your staff can engage
in a visible community improvement project.
Work to enlist other businesses in your
area, and share your story with the local
media to aid your cause. Then you can
proceed with your company's traditional
winter sales promotions with a strong PR
lift and community goodwill. And retailers
can keep the momentum rolling into January
with New Year's Day sales, followed by
special promotions tied to the chilly
weather.
Kim T. Gordon is the
"Marketing" coach at Entrepreneur.com and a
multifaceted marketing expert, speaker,
author and media spokesperson. Over the past
26 years, she's helped millions of
small-business owners increase their success
through her company,National
Marketing Federation Inc. Her
latest book,Maximum
Marketing, Minimum Dollars, is
now available.