Winter is coming! While some businesses have geared up for EOFY sales or taxation returns, many experience a lull in business and slowdown in customer activity. Generally, customer’s sense of urgency to spend is diminished as we all tend to stay at home, keep warm and perhaps even save some of our hard-earned cash.

SLOW DOWN OR GEAR UP? That is the question!

Many businesses are inclined to slow down their marketing activities, when in fact it’s a great opportunity to stand out when there is less competitive noise. It’s also good time to plan ahead so your business is ready to drive sales & build your social communities during spring & summer.

Here’s BEAM top 10 ideas for successful winter marketing:

#1 Get Social Inside - Less time socialising outdoors means more time socialising online – so boost up your social marketing. Use winter to advertise, engage and grow your community with cost effective campaigns that drive engagement and traffic to your website. Also use your email database to send tailored e-newsletters with competitions and promotions to get interaction and conversions.

#2 Winter Promotions – Creatively find ways to turn the colder months into an opportunity for your products or services e.g. “Beat the Winter Blues” with X product or come up with competitions to help participants survive or escape winter like winter warming products or holidays to sunny Queensland.
Winter Giveaways – embrace the season with winter-themed branded giveaways and gifts – for example; umbrellas, beanies, travel mugs, cold and flu kits, hot chocolate set (mug & sachets).

#3 EOFY Sales – these can be a genuine promotion to move stock and increase last minute sales with end of financial year offers or can be topical promotions geared to take advantage of the tax time theme.

#4 Online Shopping – Australians are embracing online with $19 billion spent online in the last year (12% higher than the previous year). For Christmas, 53% of us chose to avoid the chaos and went online. Winter is the perfect time to get business while we shop from the comfort of our homes. Adding e-commerce to your website may not be as hard or expensive as you think – give us a call to chat about kick starting your online sales.

#5 Get Awareness Online - Use winter to test adword campaigns - incentivising new customers to visit your website and trial your product and/or service. Paid traffic can effectively increase your brand awareness, web traffic and sales. Make sure you use relevant and competitive search terms and tailored ad copy to get the best ROI.

#6 Create Some Warmth - Increase your corporate citizenship and social responsibility profile by doing good and creating some public relations for winter worthy causes such as 300 Blankets www.300blankets.com.au and Smith Family Winter Appeal https://www.thesmithfamily.com.au.

#7 Create a Winter themed blog – Write and share winter relevant articles - such as tax guides, top 10 winter ways to X, top 5 mistakes associated with Y. Promote the blog via social and include on your website for great content, credibility and social sharing potential.

Written by: Natalie Potter (brand strategist / director)

Email Natalie at Natalie@beamcreative.com.au - or call 0409 996 087