6 Tips for making your seasonal content marketing more effective

By Rob John on
Seasonal content on iPad

Are you the founder of a small business, a member of a creative team or just someone who is looking for best practices on how to make your seasonal content marketing more effective? Then this post is for you. Whether it’s holiday shopping or back-to-school promotions, this list of 6 tips will help get you started. 

What is a seasonal content marketing campaign?

Seasonal marketing is a creative effort that is typically associated with a specific time of year. For example, Christmas or another holiday, as well as shopping events such as back-to-school promotions.

Why are seasonal marketing campaigns important?

Seasonal marketing can be an effective way to increase awareness and depending on sector, hopefully lead to more sales. Creating seasonal content that resonates and engages with your audience can also keep your business top-of-mind for those who may not be in the market to get in touch right away.

Here are some examples:

Simply Business provide insurance to companies so are nestled firmly within the B2B space. Although their seasonal content isn’t around events per se, they focus on seasons of the year and what it could mean for business owners. For example, they have a Knowledge Centre with an incredible amount of content around how bad weather could effect your business. Check out SimplyBusiness’s knowledge hub.

Another example are the recipes that SevenC3 create for Sainsbury’s Magazine, focused on seasonal produce or trends. By creating seasonal content that sits at the heart of their web pages, visitors are able to easily find relevant content that is both appealing and timely. Check out the Sainsbury’s Magazine seasonal content.

6 tips for seasonal marketing campaigns:

1. Plan ahead and schedule well in advance

This one goes without saying, but how many times have you heard, “we’ve missed the boat on this one, let’s get ready for next year.” Timing is key with seasonal trends, make sure you utilise consumer research as well as looking at competitors who may have already created seasonal content during the same time period. This will help you create an effective strategy that stands out from the competition.

Thanks to 10 Yetis who created this incredible calendar which has all the dates you need to look at in 2022.

2. Keep your messaging on-brand

Make sure all of your seasonal marketing materials are consistent with your company’s messaging and tone of voice. This will help to create a unified look and feel for your content that will feel natural and not a forced attempt to be in a space that feels inauthentic.

3. Utilise seasonal keywords in your marketing materials

Including seasonal keywords in your marketing materials can help you reach those who may already be looking for seasonal items or services. This can be done through online search engine optimisation (SEO), as well as through the use of targeted ads. Some of the tools used by our community include Answer the Public, SEMrush and Google Trends. Of course, planning your content well ahead of time will help out massively. Whether working alone or part of a team, a content calendar is the perfect way to manage this – our friends at ContentCal have created a template which may help you out. Check out the template here.

4. Use seasonal themes and imagery

Including seasonal themes and imagery across your content can help to evoke a feeling of excitement among consumers. It can also help to create a sense of urgency, especially when it comes to seasonal products and services. How deep you venture into adding seasonal spins to your content can vary depending on the sector, but is certainly an easy way to dip your toes in seasonal activity.

5. Partner with complementary businesses

Coordinating with complementary businesses can help to amplify the reach of your seasonal marketing content. This can be done through co-branded content, as well as joint promotional efforts. If you can’t join forces and partner at Christmas, then when can you?

6. Analyse the results and adjust accordingly

Once your seasonal marketing campaign is over, take some time to analyse the results. This will help you to determine what worked well, and what could be improved for future campaigns. Remember that as nice as immediate sales are, the objective of creating content is to engage with your audience, so be sure to follow up with more great content and keep that calendar refreshed.

Finally, I spoke to Ben Coles from Essentra and asked whether seasonal content factored into plans as much in the B2B space.

“Without telling your granny to suck eggs, content should always be with the customer in mind and in our industry, seasonality doesn’t play a part as our customers are driven by a trigger or demand, which could happen at any time. There are no clear standard or seasonal cycles either so we ensure we are “always on” with our content and conversion based activity keeping momentum. That said, we do create appropriate customer related communications (not really content) around closing/open times etc.

If you move to other industries. such as Education or Public Sector, they do have seasonal and defined cycles where budget must be used and so ensuring content and appropriate tactics are being deployed ahead of such things like University clearing dates (as early as March) for example.”

Need some help? Starting a post can feel daunting, but tailored keyword research and original Content Briefs can remove that stress. If you’re looking for help in creating content, you can get in touch with CMA members, inflo.AI, who’ll be able to help you out with ideas, guides to writing, as well as analysis.

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