Off-Holiday Marketing

When it comes to marketing, consistency is key. Prospects typically need to interact with your brand/message between 5 – 12 times before they act upon your call to action. And you should engage your existing clients at least once every 30 – 60 days. The question is, do you have a good reason to make these connections?

Holidays offer a great excuse to contact clients and prospects. Birthdays, Thanksgiving, and Christmas are the most common holiday opportunities. But these are occasions when mailboxes can become flooded with cards, increasing the odds yours will get lost in the shuffle. However, the calendar is filled with opportunities to make casual, yet meaningful, contact with prospects and clients. This is where the concept of off-holiday marketing comes into play.

Off-holiday marketing is an underutilized, yet effective way to stand out and get tangible results. It involves using minor holidays as the focal point of your marketing campaign. In other words, your reason to connect with clients and prospects.

Off-holidays to consider include:

Off-Holiday Marketing Tips

Understand Your Target Market

Any marketing you do, holiday or otherwise, should be tailored to your target market. Off-holiday marketing should be a cohesive extension of your base marketing strategy. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel here. Simply add a bit of holiday flair to the face of your message and launch as you would any other campaign. Just remember to plan ahead. Implementation is just as important as creativity when it comes to a successful marketing campaign.

Don’t Limit Yourself To One Form Of Contact

Effective marketing incorporates all available mediums to stay in front of your target market. Traditional holiday cards and mailers are great, but contact can also be made via social media, your website, or email. If you prefer something physical that goes out via mail, think of items that won’t go straight to the junk mail pile. Branded promotional items – magnets, pens, and keychains (to name a few) – are inexpensive gifts that keep your name (and contact info) front and center. A yearly calendar customized to include important planning opportunities (tax time, RMDs, life insurance awareness month, etc.) is another effective top-of-mind awareness tool. 

Off-Holiday Content

Use the season as your reason for creating a call to action. Holiday-themed blogs, newsletters, and social media posts can help engage followers and drive more traffic to your website. Video can be another powerful tool in your off-holiday marketing arsenal. A short video message can be good for nurturing leads and staying connected with clients. Of the aforementioned types of content, video typically yields higher engagement and conversion rates than the others.

National Days

If you want to get creative with your off-holiday marketing, look online for a list of National [insert theme/cause here] Days. For example:

• National Dollar Day (August 8)
• National Coffee Day (September 29th)
• World Smile Day (First Friday in October)

These are meant to be fun, or even a bit silly. But they provide good, light-hearted fodder for your social media pages.

Beat the Summer Slump

With the summer downturn in business, this is a good time of year to utilize some of those off-holiday or outside-of-the-box marketing tactics. Develop summer-themed marketing campaigns to attract new clients. Highlight services that can benefit clients during this season, such as investment planning for year-end goals or tax-saving strategies. By focusing on these strategies, you can maintain client engagement and drive business growth even during the typically slower summer months.

If you’re looking for tips on how to do so, check out the IAMS 2024 Summer Slump Kit. This complimentary package includes updated editions of some of our most popular marketing guides.

• 24 Sales Ideas for 2024
• Off-Holiday Marketing
• Surviving the Summer Slump
• Grassroots Marketing Tactics