Using Special Occasions, Events & Holidays To Your Marketing Advantage

It's early in the year of 2021. This means you have an entire years worth of holidays and special occasions to plan content around!

You might be wondering, why should I plan campaigns around these occasions? Or you might be wondering, how do I even begin?

Keep reading to find out.

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Why incorporate special occasions

into your marketing plan?

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When you combine special occasions with your marketing plan you do several things:

- Increase Awareness For Your Brand - Appear More Relatable

- Tap Into Existing Conversations

Okay, but what does all of that mean? It means that you'll have another opportunity to reach out to your target audience that you wouldn't normally have. Your base becomes used to the consistent messaging you have throughout the year. Because of that, your audience may even overlook your usual messaging. Especially since competitors may be engaging them with special occasion marketing. Use this as an opportunity to spice your messaging up and reengage interest.

Reigniting your consumer's interest doesn't have to be hard. It's actually relatively simple. Care about what your target audience cares about. If a holiday is special to them, then lean into it. Show that you share their interest and build an emotional bond. If you are a dog walker, there is no doubt that your client's love their dogs. Celebrate the occasions that would matter to them! Highlight your love for dogs on national dog day. Encourage them to share with you

what they love most about their dog!

The most important thing is building that connection and getting them to lower their marketing blinders. When you celebrate the same occasions your audience celebrates, you allow yourself to tap into existing conversations! Use that to your advantage.

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How do I begin?

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Although it may appear daunting, incorporating special occasion marketing into your marketing plan does not have to be hard.

• Start by choosing the occasions.

Occasions can range from holidays to current events to personal events like weddings. As much as we'd love to, its really difficult to celebrate them all. So take some time to determine who exactly your target base is. Identify what it is they like, what they do to have fun, the type of people they surround themselves and more. Once you've tuned into who your target audience is you'll be able to easily identify the special occasions they have interest in.

• Decide how your brand would approach the occasion.

The last thing you ever want to appear is disingenuous. So take the time to analyze how you or your brand would talk about the occasion. Are you a cooking company? Then perhaps it makes little sense to talk about drama at a Thanksgiving dinner. However, it would make perfect sense to ask for or promote recipes, provide tips for easy kitchen clean up, or sharing fun Turkey displays.

• Decide where you want to place your marketing.

This particular bullet point could be a book. In fact, it probably is. There are probably many books on marketing avenues. There are so many to choose from television, flyers, billboards, sponsorships and many more. For simplicity's sake, I am going to make one simple suggestion: Social Media.

Even that in itself has many sub-categories. There are so many channels to choose from: Tik Tok, Youtube, Instagram, Twitter, Linked In, Facebook.... and that's just naming a few. Take the time to decide which social media platforms will work best for you. Which are you already on? Which are your clients on? Which make sense with the type of occasion your celebrating. If you're new to social media marketing narrow it down to one or two and focus all your energy on those. Once you've gained consistency with one, add the next.

The biggest thing with social media is that you want to gain and mantain engagement. So you cannot just drop a post and never check in again. You need to interact with those that comment and share. You need to interact with other people who are doing similar post. You need to interact.

Does all of this sound overwhelming? It can be. Especially if this is not your bread and butter. It doesn't have to be though.

Included in my branding sessions is a consultation. We talk about your branding and goals. Let me take the time to analyze all of this stuff for you and advise you on imagery that you can tap into! Click here to learn more about my branding packages. What special occasions do you love to celebrate? Let me know in the comments.