How Email Marketing Can Help Your Seasonal Business Work

How Email Marketing Can Help Your Seasonal Business Work

For some businesses, not all seasons are peak season. But that does not mean that you should be sleeping while waiting for the peak season to kickoff.

When it’s off-peak, the challenge is to stay relevant and connected to customers, and one of the most strategic ways to address this is through email marketing.

Easy, efficient, and inexpensive, email marketing can help you keep in touch with customers and excite them for the next season. Remember, up to 91% of consumers check their email daily, which means that there’s a great chance that your email will be opened and read.

Follow these email marketing campaign tips, and make your seasonal business stay on top even during the off-peak season.

1. Grow your opt-in database during the peak season

It’s been said that you should strike while the iron is hot. Take full advantage of the peak season to grow your email database while customers are most engaged with your business.

Insert compelling CTAs on your website. You can put a pop-up subscription box for your email newsletter in selected pages or a hello bar on top of your pages. If you have a referral program, boost it with incentives for each referral you get from a customer. It can be a discount or a freebie.

Remember, growing your email database means having opt-in contacts. Be sure to get the permission of your contacts to avoid being tagged as spam.  

2. Make customers feel invested with updates

The challenge is to remain interesting and relevant to customers while it’s off-peak. You can do this by telling stories to your customers, and businesses will always have stories to share.

Update customers on your activities while waiting for the peak season. Are you selling crops or roses? Tell them what’s happening while you are at the stage of growing them. Are you using new technologies to improve the quality? How are you preparing for the peak season when you are expecting high volumes of orders?

Sharing your journey as a business while it’s off-peak will keep customers invested in you and in what you offer. These kinds of stories matter to customers, especially they are really interested in your business.

3. Start a countdown

There are two main purposes of a countdown. First, they serve as a good reminder to your customers. Second, they build anticipation to the fast-approaching season and your offerings.

Begin your countdown weeks before the peak season. You can start by sending emails once a week, and then make it more often as you approach the kickoff.

4. Be identifiable by your audience

Branding is essential to be recognizable to your customers. It shouldn’t just end with the colors or font style in your email campaigns.

Establish your own brand voice. Speak not just according to your business but also to your target market. This makes it easier to connect with them.

Once you have established your brand identity to customers, it would be much easier for them to recall, identify and recognize your business even when it’s off-peak.

5. Educate customers about your product or service

This is where your blog posts, videos, and guides become more useful. You can send customers tips, lists, and other kinds of informative content to educate them about how they can enjoy your product or service more.

It does not matter whether it’s off-peak or not. Interested customers will consume information about your business, product or service long as it is helpful and relevant to them.

Creativity, resourcefulness and strategic thinking are the keys to enduring the off-peak season. With email marketing, there’s no excuse not to remain relevant and in touch with customers.  

Read more:

Email Marketing Tips for Travel and Hospitality Businesses

The Importance of Opt-In Compliance