Making the Most of Your January Marketing Strategy
December 25, 2020
There’s so much commotion just before the New Year. With Halloween in October, Thanksgiving in November, and Christmas and New Year’s Eve in December, this is a marketer’s dream, offering up plenty of topics to structure advertising around. What about January? Once all the festivities are over, most businesses are left waiting for Valentine’s Day to plan their next big promotion.
Throughout this blog, we’ll touch on the topic of January advertising; how to prolong the holiday festivities through the New Year and keep consumers excited about shopping.
Make Something from Nothing
The first way to increase brand awareness and website traffic is to create a reason for consumers to visit. Holidays do this naturally. However, you can inspire customers to engage by creating an event of your own. This is as easy as inventing a company celebration; things like the birth date of the business, an anniversary sale, the launch of a new product, or an extended New Year’s sale.
Making your own buzz also makes your promotion unique to you. It’s something which sets you apart from other businesses this time of year and makes it difficult for competitors to match prices.
Remind Customers Why They Love Your Brand
Without a real holiday to make consumers search for the best and brightest in any industry, it’s your job to remind them why they should rely on your products or services. An e-mail and social media campaign are great ways to remain relevant throughout January and keep customers interested while they replenish funds from the Christmas drain.
The first big pay of January is usually reserved for holiday recuperation, but after this, consumers are back on the browse for games, clothes, food, and a variety of products to make life more convenient. Send an email with a January coupon or promote your services through Facebook to let customers know you’re there when they’re ready.
Get Extra Social on Social Media
This is the perfect time of year to really engage with your customers. There are less traditional promotions going on, so social media is a great place to motivate shopping. Create unique content like videos and memes to invite your followers to comment, share, and like. The more engagement you receive, the more visible you become through that social media channel.
If you aren’t running any type of promotional campaign, simply posting regularly through social media can stir up interest in your followers. We recommend using various types of visual content to get your point across and encourage sharing. Remember when a consumer shares one of your posts, the information is being sent through multiple accounts and sometimes multiple platforms. From Facebook to Instagram to email and back again, your post could feature on hundreds of pages in a day if you’re lucky.
Take Advantage of Resolutions
If there’s one thing January is famous for, it is New Year’s resolutions. From gym memberships to nutrition plans, men and women around the world make it a priority to turn into the best version of themselves over the month of January. This is a wonderful opportunity to discover which of your services or products could feature in somebody’s resolution.
Even if you run a business that wouldn’t be commonly associated with New Year’s resolutions, such as an office supply store, find a way to tie it all together. For example, if you do work in office goods, remind your customers that January is a great time to focus more on their correspondence and journaling. Promote letter stock, stationary, and notebooks. Similarly, if you work for a sneaker company, push the running shoes and yoga slippers to health enthusiasts who will partake in these activities, at least until February hits.
Prepare Shoppers for February
Speaking of February, there’s no better time to start your Groundhog Day and Valentine’s Day campaigns than January. It gives you an entire month to remind shoppers why they need cards, chocolates, and new iPhones for their significant others. It’s not just the products that make February an amazing promotional device; it’s the services some businesses offer. Maid services, for example, could make a killing this time of year if you play your cards right. There’s nothing busy executives need more than a clean house without the added labor to a full day of work. Cleaning services, babysitting businesses, and of course, anybody in the entertainment or hospitality industry could really take advantage of the upcoming month of February.
Search for New Trends and Gather Your Team to Brainstorm
Maybe January isn’t your month to market. Maybe it’s the month you plan for your next campaign. Take priority over team meetings and brainstorming, gather the troops and decide on your best plan of action.
Take your time to discover what’s worked in the past by searching through last year’s analytic reports. Things that worked can be repeated, those which didn’t should be ditched in favor of new ideas. Make January your planning board month and February will be a real winner.
Hopefully this has provided you with some insight into how to make January a month to stay active and be productive, despite its lack of exciting holidays. Sometimes it’s these low-key months which spark the best and brightest marketing strategies. If you’re not sure how to overcome the January blues, try a few of these suggestions or hold a team meeting and develop your own.