03.19.07
Spring Weather Marketing
The last couple of weeks, the weather here in California’s High Desert has been quite a bit warmer. Â A few days have even exceeded 90 degrees Fahrenheit! Â It is time to clean out your home and pack away your Winter clothing, it seems.
This is also a good time to ask yourself about your seasonal marketing.  What is seasonal marketing?  It is the way you adapt your marketing efforts (in this case we mean advertising, promotional activities, and sales, as well as product selection) to the time of year and the things that the market is craving.
This is not the time to order thick ski parkas to put on your racks–you’d wind up holding them for six months, depending on your location, before you sold them.  Instead, seek out products that are going to sell well in the next month.  You will note that most retailers have all of their Easter-related goods on display.  It is not that they care all that much about the actual meaning of Easter (that is, ”Resurrection Day”, not the feast of Ishtar/Astarte/Ashorah).  They realize that consumers have Easter on their minds.
Consumers are more willing to buy Easter merchandise right now than they are to buy Thanksgiving products.
Your business needs to tailor its marketing efforts to the seasonal ebb and flow of customer desires and habits.
If you sell home electronics and appliances, for example, this might be a good time to have a special on that super duper vacuum cleaner with ads in your local media (including cable television, newpapers, radio, and “shopper”-type throwaway papers) telling how it is just perfect for Spring cleaning.  Talk about accumulated dust, dirt, dander, and microbes and how your product will reduce the accumulation of the dust and dirt particles.
If you are a cleaning service, this is the perfect time to offer a carpet cleaning special.
Even home maintenance and repair companies can use this time of year to say, ”this Winter’s weather may have damaged your roof/windows/doors/electrical/plumbing, so XYZ Home Maintenance is offering a free no-obligation home checkup inspection now.  In this business, telling people that their homes do not need your services could result in greater business later.  Of course, you could bring along some stickers with your contact information–if something changes, the homeowner may call you because your sticker is there in the home.
The big boys have people whose entire job is to think of these things.  We in smaller businesses can react faster to market conditions, but we have to take the time to notice them.
