Six Tips for Seasonal Marketing Success

Car companies are smart. Have you ever noticed that once fall begins, car commercials switch their backgrounds from summer to winter, showing cars driving through the snow and others adorned with large bows? This is a perfect example of how car companies use seasonal imagery to promote winter holiday shopping.

Advertising insiders refer to this practice as seasonal marketing — marketing products or services in a distinct way at certain points of the year. Since consumer purchasing habits shift based on annual holidays or seasonal events, the savvy business will leverage this information in creating content that targets these behaviors.

What type of content?

When adopting a seasonal marketing campaign, there are two types of content to consider: time-based content, based on a particular month; and season-based content, which addresses holidays and other recurring events.

Seasonal content is timely; as such, it tends to be both memorable and shareable, which can boost brand awareness and relatability. When building a content marketing campaign, include seasonally themed infographics and helpful guides related to that time of the year, sharing the infographics on your social accounts and website to strengthen their impact. For example, February is Wedding Month, so creating content that addresses newlyweds or buying a home would be relevant for that time of year.

Creating a seasonal marketing campaign

There are six key steps to creating a powerful seasonal marketing campaign:

1. Pick the right seasonal opportunities - Whether it’s timely or event-based, focus on seasonal messaging that resonates with your target market.
2. Leverage your client experiences to identify seasonal opportunities – Track common topics of client conversations and create content or marketing that addresses those topics. For instance, as kids return to school each fall, develop marketing content around 529 plans, posting articles on your social media, creating your own video series, or hosting a seminar.
3. Get creative with your marketing tactics – Create infographics, events, videos, podcasts, blogs, or more around different seasonal topics.
4. Research your competition – Familiarize yourself with what other financial advisors or institutions are doing during specific seasons or holidays, it may spark new content ideas.
5. Plan your seasonal marketing strategy in the off-season – Be proactive and create a content calendar that details the topics you intend to address each month or season. Plan your strategy several months in advance, to ensure you have sufficient time to develop and distribute your content to land on time. 
6. Continue with non-seasonal marketing – Consistently post and provide content throughout the year, in addition to specific seasonal content. Consistently pushing out content will keep you top-of-mind with your followers.

Check out these tools and resources to help you develop a seasonal marketing strategy

LPL Marketing 2021 Content Calendar
LPL Financial has content to help you find and share seasonal content. The LPL Marketing 2021 Content Calendar, found in LPL’s Resource Center, provides content ideas to simplify an overall digital marketing strategy. The calendar consists of 12 calendar months, 10 different outreach categories, and over 400 individual ideas, broken down by day. These categories include client outreach opportunities, financial industry opportunities, seasonal celebrations, and other fun days.

Reference the topics to build customized email campaigns, social media posts, and client events throughout the year, or use LPL’s curated content for a turnkey content solution. For tips on using this calendar, watch the Advisor University webinar replay, “How to Use the LPL Marketing Content Calendar.”  (To find the calendar, search “LPL Marketing Content Calendar” in the Resource Center.) 

LPL Social Media Content Library
Our Social Media Content Library, powered by Gainfully, includes a dedicated page of timely seasonal and financial outreach opportunities. Each month, we’ll add new seasonal images to the “Outreach Opportunities” page that you can share through your social accounts. Scheduling the content to go out on the right day is simple with the platform’s intuitive interface.

LPL Monthly Marketing Best Practices Themes and Ideas
The “Monthly Marketing Best Practices Themes and Ideas” page on the Resource Center is a new page of timely, monthly content taken from MOD, ACT and Gainfully. The content follows some of the LPL Marketing Content Calendars topics and includes client letters, educational articles, holiday posts, social media posts, brochures, ACT email campaigns and more. (To find the page on the Resource Center, navigate to Marketing Your Practice à Marketing Best Practices à Monthly Marketing Best Practices.) 

Reach out to LPL Marketing Consulting

Seasonal content is a great way to present engaging content. To discuss how to implement a seasonal marketing campaign into your practice, contact the Marketing Consulting Team at (800) 877- 7210 X6700, option 1, or email Marketing Consulting.

Questions and Consultations

If you have questions or would like to schedule a one-on-one consultation, or if you’d like to subscribe and receive email alerts when new articles become available, contact Marketing Consulting at 800) 877-7210, ext. 6700 or email Marketing Consulting.

If you’re interested in LPL running your digital marketing plan for you, ask us about our Marketing Solutions program.

IMPORTANT DISCLOSURES

Consult your compliance department for information about the rules and use of social media and the review of any and all advisor marketing materials.