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INTRODUCTION In some industries, the summer season is known for being a slow period for consumer marketers, who assume that their target audience has checked out for the season, logging off their computers and heading off to vacation. Whether or not this is true, it doesn’t mean that it’s time for marketers to check out too. Seasonality is a key driver of consumer marketing, and the summer season is chock-full of opportunities. Aside from the countless opportunities to tie your marketing to different themes—holidays, graduations, vacations, gatherings, and back-to-school shopping—with the increase of digital technology and consumers’ consumption of it, you can reach your audience wherever they are. Furthermore, research from the Journal of Consumer Psychology has shown that warm temperatures strengthen the concept of social closeness, activate feelings of emotional warmth, and increase product valuation—meaning your customers are more likely to buy from you during the summer months if you engage them with the right message. This ebook will detail how to get the right summer marketing strategy in place to make this summer season your most impactful summer yet.
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WHY IS SUMMER MARKETING IMPORTANT FOR MARKETERS? Consumer marketers plan a lot of their seasonal marketing campaigns around the fall and winter, where they’re able target their campaigns based on the behaviors and needs of consumers around the holidays. However, the same effort does not go into summer marketing because of the common misconception that summer is a slow period for sales. But this should only mean that marketers need to work even harder on planning their summer marketing campaigns. And because most brands are not leveraging the season, it means that you have even more of an opportunity to reach your customers with less noise from your competition. People are on the go more during the summer, but with the right strategy and tools, you can reach them wherever they are—whether that’s at the beach, on vacation, or at the mall. You can have a seamless conversation with buyers based on their schedules.
Just like the saying, “It’s five o’ clock somewhere,” the same concept applies for summer as a season. Brands are able to reach consumers all around the world, so they can expand their summer marketing efforts year-round to target different regions. While in the northern hemisphere summer starts in the middle of the year, in the southern hemisphere summer spans from the end of the year to the beginning of the next. If you’re a global marketer, the months in between give you enough lead time to shift your marketing strategy to the appropriate region.
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SUMMER MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES Warm Weather Makes Everything Better Blue skies and sunny days give marketers a clear advantage because, based on research, warm temperatures make consumers more receptive to messages. In fact, according to the Journal of Consumer Psychology, warm temperatures increase people’s perceptions of social closeness, which leads them to consider the opinions of others much more and makes them more likely to conform to the crowd. This means that consumers are more receptive to brand and product recommendations from their peers, which sounds like a great opportunity to ramp up, or start, your advocacy program! Another study from the Journal of Consumer Psychology suggests that warm weather also increases product valuation by activating the concept of emotional warmth, making it more likely for you to achieve positive reactions from your audience. Use this to your advantage by employing the principles of engagement marketing to connect with your audience with the right messages at the right time wherever they are this summer. By doing this, your efforts are more likely to be positively received and lead to higher engagement and conversions.
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SUMMER MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES Supply and Demand While it may be difficult to predict what your audience will buy on a daily basis, the summer season presents you with the opportunity to forecast what products and services consumers will need during this time. The obvious example is that consumers will need apparel and shoes that are suitable for warmer weather. Another example is that they’ll be outdoors and traveling more, which means they’ll need everything from transportation to lodging to bug spray. Take for example the email below from Doctors Foster and Smith, a direct-to-your-door pet supplier operated by veterinarians. During the summer, they send out an email about how pets can get heartworm disease, which is spread through mosquitos that are abundant in the summer. A section below the educational portion of the email brings you to their site to purchase heartworm medicine.
But summer needs extend far beyond the retail, travel, and consumer goods industries. For instance, a company like Dropbox can expect an increase in demand for their file hosting service from consumers who are on the go and want to load their pictures and files into the cloud. Just take a look at the example below from their social media account, which shows how easily you can edit and update files on the go. In this particular tweet, Dropbox showcases their drag and drop URL feature by showing how consumers can plan their next trip and keep all their travel documents in one place. Another example is a financial services company that sees an influx for a new or extended line of credit for consumers to use for their travel and entertainment expenses. Or an insurance company that sees an increase in interest for policies with international coverage. Even the gaming industry may see a surge in purchases and usage—from students having more time to play video games with schools being closed for summer break. While these examples demonstrate how different industries can leverage the summer season for special campaigns, the important thing is that you identify a use case that makes sense for your brand. A marketing automation tool enables you to track which campaigns throughout the year generated the most conversions. Then, you can try to identify what correlations there might be to the summer season.
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SUMMER MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES Happy Holidays Everyone enjoys having a reason to celebrate, and holidays are no exception. In fact, holidays are a great time to market to consumers because they have come to expect advertisements, promotions, and offers around special occasions. In the U.S., summer holidays include Memorial Day in May, Independence Day in July, and Labor Day in September. But if you’re marketing to a global audience, be conscious of what holidays may be happening in the region or country you’re marketing to. While some holidays are globally recognized, others are not. So whether it’s Memorial Day in the U.S. or Australia Day in Australia, by tailoring your campaigns to your audience, you can formulate it around the appropriate message.
Think about all the sales that go on around this holiday. And even if you don’t sell products or services that directly relate to the holiday, you can still offer different promotions that are relevant and showcase your company’s values. For example, Macy’s, department store, promotes various in-store and online discounts and advertises their fireworks event to commemorate the holiday and show their patriotism.
Aside from the celebration that goes on, holidays also invoke a lot of emotion–pride, patriotism, and appreciation—that you can tie into your campaigns to humanize your brand. For example, Independence Day—otherwise known as July 4th—is a huge summer holiday in the U.S. and the marketing opportunities that revolve around it are endless.
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SUMMER MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES Happy Holidays Consider how this holiday affects other industries as well. Uber, whose mobile app connects passengers with drivers, uses this holiday to promote their service for those who want to celebrate the holiday without having to worry about how to get home.
While the specific holiday dates may be set in stone, it’s important to think of your marketing strategy as a spectrum. Your planning should begin weeks and months before the actual holiday, and as you wrap up one holiday, it’s time to get ramped up for the next one.
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SUMMER MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES Congrats, Grad! As May and June roll around, graduation season is in the air. While this includes fresh faces from all sorts of grade levels, let’s focus on the commencement of graduating college seniors. In the U.S., teenagers are considered legal adults when they turn 18; however, one of the true measures of adulthood is their graduation day when they enter the “real world.” This phase opens a new door of opportunities for all the impending life changes to come. Think of all the consumers moving to new cities, with new jobs, buying or leasing new cars, and financing or buying new homes—and all the products and services they’ll need spanning different industries. As new graduates move on to the next stage of their lives, they may need a variety of items and services, for example: • Moving trucks to transport their belongings • Storage containers if they’re moving somewhere with limited space • Furniture and home décor may need to be purchased or replaced • New clothes as they transition from everyday casualwear to more formal attire for the workplace • Financial products—from financing to savings to retirement planning • Transportation to get to work These are just a few of the many opportunities available for different industries to market to new graduates. The important thing to keep in mind is that, as a marketer, you need to be well equipped to speak to them with the right message and offer at the right time to meet their needs.
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SUMMER MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES Back-to-School Summer is prime-time for back-to-school marketing. In fact, the average family with children in grades K-12 will spend $669 on apparel, shoes, supplies, and electronics, and the average college student and their family will spend $916 on dorm furniture, school supplies, electronics, and more—according to the National Retail Federation. And while the school year may not start until August or September, consumers—students, parents, and teachers—start to access information about products and pricing, form opinions, and draw conclusions well before they choose to interact with your brand. This means that you need to communicate with them with relevant messages throughout their journey so that when they are ready to purchase, your brand is top-of-mind.
Your back-to-school marketing campaigns will need to begin early in the summer, as consumers start shopping for the new school year earlier and earlier every year. Shop.org reports that 30% of online shoppers start their back-to-school shopping at least two months before the start of school. And according to Google, back-to-school searches begin in May and continue through September—which means you should be marketing to consumers all throughout the summer. Consumers shopping for school supplies are one of the primary targets of back-to-school marketing. Staples’ back-to-school promotion starts almost immediately after the school year ends and extends into the start of the next school year.
Average Back-to-School Spend K-12
$669
College
$916
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SUMMER MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES Back-to-School Other industries, beyond retail, are impacted by back-to-school shopping as well. For software marketers, the back-to-school season is an opportunity to highlight products that can help students and teachers take on the new school year. For example, this tweet from Microsoft advertises their digital storytelling app Sway for teachers who are putting their lesson plans together.
And don’t forget about marketers in the automotive industry, who can use this time to appeal to students who are going back to school without a way of getting around on their own or simply want a safer or more stylish ride. And for parents whose children are going off to college in another city, a car may make it more convenient for their children to come home and visit.
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SUMMER MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES Summer Marketing Across Industries Cheatsheet Consumer marketers across industries can take advantage of the summer for their marketing campaigns. Refer to the guide below for an example of a few opportunities across different industries.
Industry
Types of Campaigns
Retail
• • •
Provide educational information and offer specials on summer products Offer discounts around the holidays Offer incentives (cash or points) for customers to refer their friends and families
Travel & Hospitality
•
Advertise summer travel deals on transportation, lodging, and airfare
Electronics
•
Advertise products that are useful for being on the go (e.g. portable chargers, USB drives)
•
Educate patients on preventive care during the summer (e.g. preventing heat stroke or a back-to-school physical exam)
Financial Services
• • • •
Advertise car insurance plans that cover road damage Advertise international insurance plans for traveling consumers Offer credit line increase evaluations throughout the summer Offer low APR rates for new credit cards around graduation
Pharmaceuticals
•
Advertise supplements for summer, such as vitamins to keep immunity up
• • •
Advertise mobile capabilities Advertise cloud-based file hosting for remote access Advertise time-management, project management, collaboration, and productivity tools during the back-toschool season
Automotive
•
Offer promotions and low APR around holidays, graduation, and back-to-school
Education
• • •
Advertise to new students and parents based on their interests and attributes Provide relevant information to current students going back to school Promote local events and activities to alumni during the summer
Healthcare
Software
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CREATE YOUR SUMMER MARKETING STRATEGY Marketing is a continuous process. According to Forrester Research, today’s customers distrust and resent one off campaigns that interrupt or intercept them—which is why your summer marketing campaigns should feel like a natural continuation of a conversation with your customer. The more time that you devote to that conversation, the more you know about your customers, and the deeper your relationships can grow. This is where engagement marketing comes into play. Engagement marketing is about creating meaningful interactions with people, based on who they are and what they do, continuously over time. It’s marketing that engages consumers towards an activity or action (sometimes that is purchase), influencing their buying decision wherever they are, and it’s backed by creative vision, data, and a solid strategy.
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CREATE YOUR SUMMER MARKETING STRATEGY Define Your Goals The first step to planning your summer marketing strategy is to establish your goals for your campaigns. By asking the right questions, you can start to map out your plan. Think about how summer marketing will help with your overall business objectives. Consider the following questions:
What are your overall goals? Tie your goals into metrics that you can measure. In terms of soft metrics, consider how summer marketing will affect the following metrics: • Brand awareness and recognition • Mind share • Reputation • Engagement For hard metrics, look into things that you can tie directly into revenue. Consider the following metrics: • Conversions (purchases, subscriptions, downloads, etc.) • Profit • Inventory turnover 13
CREATE YOUR SUMMER MARKETING STRATEGY Define Your Goals
Who are you targeting?
When will your campaigns start and end?
Today’s consumers demand hyperrelevant communications that speak to them as individuals. Regardless of what industry you are in, you’re marketing to individuals at the end of the day. To accomplish 1:1 marketing, you’ll want to be well versed on your buyer’s demographics, individual preferences, purchase frequency, relationship with your company, stage in the buying journey, and more.
The timeframe your campaigns will be running on may differ depending on your objectives. If you’re marketing around a holiday, you may want to start marketing a few weeks leading up it. Whereas, for back-to-school marketing, you’ll want to start early and engage with your audience all throughout the summer.
Develop and identify the different customer profiles based on the personas of your potential and existing customers. Then, as you develop your summer marketing plans, take a look at the how relevant the different opportunities within the summer season are for your personas. For example, holidays campaigns may apply to all personas while graduation and back-to-school campaigns are more limited, and your offers for each campaign may change depending on whether your audience consists of potential, existing, or loyal customers. 14
CREATE YOUR SUMMER MARKETING STRATEGY Define Your Goals What channels will you use to run your campaigns? Today’s consumers are everywhere. All year round, 60% of smartphone owners use their smartphones to browse on the go, according to eBay Enterprise User Research. And the same study found that 81% of consumers use more than one device type to browse/research products and 64% use more than one device type to browse/research for the same item. Now take into account how much that increases during the summer, with schools out of session and employees using their vacation time. Consumers who are full-time employees save more than one-third of their vacation days for the summer season, according to the Citi ThankYou Premier Summer Travel Survey conducted by Wakefield Research. To meet your customers wherever they are, without interrupting them, you need to deliver an integrated customer experience across every single platform based on their behaviors. Use behaviors on one channel—say, an interaction on your company’s Facebook page—to inform marketing on another channel—such as the message that appears when that person opens your app.
60% of smartphone owners use their smartphones to browse on the go
81% of consumers use more than one device type to browse/ research products
64% use more than one device type to browse/research for the same item 15
CREATE YOUR SUMMER MARKETING STRATEGY Map Your Marketing to the Customer Lifecycle Whenever you communicate with your buyers, keep the customer journey in mind. Engagement marketing isn’t about relationship building for its own sake— it’s about relationship building toward a goal. At each phase of the buyer’s journey—from awareness to advocacy— your goal is to move those buyers into the next phase toward purchase or recommendation. To do so, you need a clear understanding of that journey, a clear call-to-action in all of your marketing, and a way to tie each of your marketing activities to profit. Even at the awareness stage, your ultimate goal isn’t just to get your brand noticed; your goal is to start building a long-term relationship. Using intelligent nurture tracks, marketing messages can flow in a logical fashion, creating engaging, personalized conversations around consumers’ needs and wants. It’s
not about individual messages, or even individual campaigns—every interaction asks for another interaction and is part of a longer chain of events. An engagement marketing platform, like Marketo’s, enables marketers to do this efficiently by making marketing assets—emails, landing pages, forms, segmentations, and workflows—easy to replicate and implement. This ability to fuse planning and execution allows marketers more flexibility than ever, which enables them to engage consumers quickly and personally— whether they’re at home, at the beach, or on the road—to move them to the next stage in the customer lifecycle. At Marketo, we break down the customer lifecycle into four main stages: Awareness, Engagement, Retention/ Loyalty, and Advocacy.
Customer nurturing is the process of building effective relationships with potential customers throughout the buying journey and beyond—maximizing results and revenue for your organization. It requires listening and responding to buyers on multiple channels. And now, with breakthroughs like personalization software, marketer can nurture anonymous visitors— touching the entire lifecycle and creating a more personalized and engaging experience than ever before.
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CREATE YOUR SUMMER MARKETING STRATEGY Map Your Marketing to the Customer Lifecycle
Awareness Consumers in this phase are at the beginning of the customer lifecycle. This is where good branding and a high ranking on search engines are useful. Your goal in this phase is to drive brand awareness and to capture consumer interest, reaching them on the right channels with relevant, personalized messages. Consider the different ways you can increase brand awareness and your SEO rankings during the summer season. For Ikea, it’s by showcasing how their furniture and home décor can be used to create a “summer oasis” in your home. The post received a good amount of engagement relative to their other posts, with many Instagram users tagging their friends to share the post, further spreading awareness about the Ikea brand.
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CREATE YOUR SUMMER MARKETING STRATEGY Map Your Marketing to the Customer Lifecycle Engagement Consumers in this phase have displayed interest in your company and are a potential customer. Listen to their behaviors and then engage them with targeted messages to nudge them closer and closer to conversion. This includes creating specific offers, nurture tracks, and more based off of a customer’s preferences and behaviors. For example, this email from Instacart, a grocery delivery app, was sent to nudge a customer who had downloaded the app but not made a purchase, with a summer-focused message and offer—ice cream. But what happens when a consumer continues not to respond (which can be a likely scenario a marketer encounters during the summer)? It’s vital that marketers maintain permission to market to that customer directly since she opted in to your emails. While most brands focus only on promotion, it’s important that you use this opportunity to listen—really hear that the consumer isn’t ready to buy now. If she didn’t open any of your emails, click on your ads, or use your app, that’s a sign she hasn’t had the chance to engage with you or that she’s not ready. Use that information to your benefit and start educating and engaging the customer. If you’re a marketer in the travel industry, send her interesting, relevant content, for example, something like “How to Get Away on a Budget” or “A Guide to Packing Lightly.” Useful content is a great way to maintain a connection with consumers, educate them until they are ready to buy, avoid the dreaded ‘unsubscribe,’ and, ultimately, maintain a relationship with them.
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CREATE YOUR SUMMER MARKETING STRATEGY Map Your Marketing to the Customer Lifecycle Retention/Loyalty Engagement marketing doesn’t end after the initial sale. While converting a buyer into a customer is considered a success for most marketers, creating trusting, long-term relationships with your customers is one of the most effective ways to increase revenue beyond just the summer—ensuring that you get the most value out of your customers, and they get the most value out of your offerings. In fact, the probability of selling to a new prospective customer is less than 20%, while the probability of selling to an existing customer is greater than 60%, according to data from Marketing Metrics. And Bain & Company Bain & Company reports that repeat customers spend as much as 67% more than new customers, and 49% of companies say they achieve a higher return-on-investment by focusing on engagement rather than acquisition. Because you should have a good understanding of your customer’s interests by now, you can use it to offer better, more tailored content to them. This email from Hilton’s HHonors program is a good example of a summer marketing email targeted to existing customers. The recipient receives a “Don’t miss our end of summer weekend sale” email from Hilton, which recaps her member status and includes an exclusive offer for a 15% discount off her next booking.
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CREATE YOUR SUMMER MARKETING STRATEGY Map Your Marketing to the Customer Lifecycle
Advocacy Engaging with customers throughout their lifecycle isn’t just about individual value—it’s also about the value of their networks. Turning your loyal customers into advocates can expand your reach by accessing their networks to promote your brand. As we previously covered, warm weather makes consumers more receptive to brand and product recommendations from their peers, so it’s important that you treat your existing customers well by continuing to engage them with special perks, incentives and great customer service to encourage them to become brand advocates and refer your brand to their friends and family.
This email from Birchbox exemplifies a marketing communication with an advocate. It has elements of thanks and appreciation, while also asking the advocate to share their service with her network. All in a fun, summer-themed watermelon template.
Engaging with customers throughout their lifecycle isn’t just about individual value—it’s also about the value of their networks.
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CONCLUSION It’s time for all consumer marketers, beyond retail and travel, to buy into summer marketing. There are a plethora of opportunities to build your marketing efforts around and a multitude of channels where you can reach your audience. Research backs that summer is one of the best times to market to consumers, not to mention the value of acquiring a new customer and earning their business extends well beyond the summer season. With the right summer marketing strategy in place, you’ll see your revenue increasing as you build relationships with consumers that can last a lifetime.
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Marketo (NASDAQ: MKTO) provides the leading engagement marketing software and solutions designed to help marketers develop long-term relationships with their customers - from acquisition to advocacy. Marketo is built for marketers, by marketers and is setting the innovation agenda for marketing technology. Marketo puts Marketing First. Headquartered in San Mateo, CA, with offices around the world, Marketo serves as a strategic partner to large enterprise and fast-growing small companies across a wide variety of industries. To learn more about Marketo’s Engagement Marketing Platform, LaunchPoint® partner ecosystem, and the vast community that is the Marketo Marketing Nation®, visit www.marketo.com.
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