Seasonal eCommerce Marketing Campaign Ideas

Seasonal events such as Christmas, Black Friday, mothers day, and many others, bring in a lot of traffic to eCommerce websites.

These periods are where you need to put an extra effort into your marketing efforts to capitalize on that traffic and do all you can to maximize sales.

Many marketers plan their marketing strategies quarterly or yearly, but few remember to think about seasonal marketing strategies. Those who do, plan their marketing strategy around the seasonal calendar:

There is something unique about each season which means there’s no shortage of ways to make your marketing campaigns relevant.

So, to help you get more out of seasonal website traffic, I’ve listed seasonal marketing strategies you can implement for the upcoming season. In addition, we’ll discuss the most important seasonal events that require you to implement custom marketing campaigns.

Marketing ideas the perfect seasonal campaign

Update your site with seasonally themed colors

Color is one of the easiest ways to communicate an intention to onlookers. As such, Seasonal color palettes are a shortcut to making advertisements and posts instantly relatable to viewers.

Let’s take the autumn season for example. Most people associate the season with falling leaves, hot drinks, and cozy surroundings – warm earthy colors. When looking at those colors, their brain recognizes and hints towards the change of seasons.

One way you can incorporate this tip into your marketing strategy is by changing the design of your home page during seasonal occasions, and incorporating some of the relevant colors.

You could also add those colors to your pop-ups, advertisements, and newsletter. Another way would be to add images and icons that match the season, such as snowflakes in the winter season, pumpkins in the fall, and reindeers at Christmas.

Choosing color palettes that match the seasonal occasion, even if they are outside your brand’s usual color theme, can improve your advertisements and create conversions.

Create seasonal product categories

As we’ve mentioned before, the holiday seasons bring a surge of customers looking to buy gifts that match the occasion.

You can help them have a smoother journey on your site by helping them find exactly what they are looking for.

During specific seasons, gather all your seasonally relevant products on one page and promote them to your visitors using notifications and pop-ups.

Guiding visitors to a smaller selection of season-specific products makes it easier for visitors to choose the right gift while having too many options can increase a customer’s level of uncertainty and might even have them leave without buying anything at all.

Daily activities and offers

During longer holiday seasons it’s a good idea to invite visitors to engage with your site continuously. One way to do so is to create daily or weekly offers, creating anticipation in visitors to keep coming back to your website every day to see the new offers.

By offering a new promotion every day of the holiday, you will be generating returning traffic and engagement. And more engagement means higher customer retention rates.

You can even use advanced scheduling platforms to schedule all your seasonal popups ahead of time so you can set it and forget it.

Add a countdown

The holiday season brings with it a sense of anticipation. The same feeling should be applied to your website before an upcoming season.

Find a way to promote your seasonal sales ahead of time. After all, if they wouldn’t know about your offers, they wouldn’t be coming back for them.

That’s why you can use a countdown timer popup, leading up to your seasonal sale. The countdown timer is naturally attention-drawing because it triggers people’s FOMO. It is a memorable way to instill a sense of anticipation and excitement in customers.

Engage customers with a game/giveaway

People love games and competitions, especially if they can win something in the end.

There are many seasonal events, year-round, that can be turned into competitions and games.

Creating an Easter egg hunt, or another seasonal game is an effective way of driving more engagement. And if you include prizes for the participants – such as coupon codes, vouchers, and free gifts – you’re likely to encourage sales and increase conversions.

Add gift wrapping at checkout

Many seasonal events require gift shopping which is stressful for many consumers.

The holidays are a time for gift-giving. Beyond finding the right gift for loved ones, it’s also time-consuming to buy wrapping paper and try to wrap the present and make it look good.

That’s why some eCommerce websites have taken the initiative to solve this pain point. By giving customers a gift wrapping option on your site, you’re showing you put that little extra bit of thought into your service. A major plus for customers looking to save some time.

You could add the gift-wrapping option to your checkout menu. As for the seasonal twist, offering seasonally themed wrapping just takes this to a whole other level of amazing.

It’s small things like this that customers will remember—and come back for.

Seasonally based testimonials

It’s well known that social proof drives sales.

Consumers look to each other more than ever for product recommendations and quality assurance, specifically when purchasing somewhere for the first time. That’s why including testimonials on your website can do wonders.

Testimonials let consumers know that not only has the product been purchased before, it is also well-liked. This brings in a sense of trustworthiness and credibility, making new visitors more likely to convert.

What’s better is including season-specific product testimonials to popular products, depending on the season. For example, chocolates and flowers on valentine’s day, costumes on Halloween, and sparkling attire on new year’s day.

Season-specific testimonials world because customers who bought a season-specific product, mention and recommend how that product improved their experience during the holiday season.

Go through your archives before the upcoming season and make sure to display the customer testimonials that are relevant to that season on your product pages.

Another option is to use a social proof tool like ProveSource, to seamlessly integrate reviews into your site in a non-intrusive fashion. This way, visitors will be able to see your reviews from anywhere across your website.

Post seasonal social media posts and ads

Timing is another important factor when it comes to seasonal marketing. You need to plan your seasonal marketing strategy well in advance, or you’ll find yourself missing out on that holiday traffic.

Creating unique seasonal content is at the forefront of your seasonal marketing campaign. So here are a few seasonal ad marketing tips to remember:

  • Use seasonal ad copy – include words and phrases like “holiday” and “tis the season.”
  • Highlight special offers and seasonal deals.
  • Instill a sense of urgency with a copy that incorporates power words like: “free shipping until…” and “order now before it’s too late”.
  • Make sure you’re relevant – conduct holiday-related keyword research.
  • Use colors that match the season – make sure to include relevant seasonal colors to capture the viewer’s attention.
  • Set up ad scheduling to bid on the times when your shoppers are searching.

Conclusion

Hopefully, this article has provided you with plenty of ideas to plan your next successful seasonal marketing campaign for your business.

Remember to plan in advance so you’re ready when the seasonal traffic and demand hits. With the right approach, these seasonal marketing ideas will come in handy year-round!

 

Dana Shabtay
Head of Customer Success at ProveSource
I'm leading the Customer Success team here at ProveSource. Aspiring to be a strong customer advocate with the ability and willingness to help as much as I can.

You Might Also Like