Customers love offers and discounts on product purchases, and whenever shopping season arrives, they are on the lookout for better deals,online and elsewhere. Marketers throughout the year look for such opportunities to grab people’s attention and stand out from the competition.

This time, Zoho Campaigns has come up with Calendar-based Promotions, an autoresponder that allows you to plan email marketing campaigns for the whole year. Thus, making you promptly plan for every customer beforehand. Eventually, a cakewalk during deadlines. In this e-book, we will examine the benefits of Calendar based Promotions, when to use them and how to target customers throughout the season.

Power of Calendar-based Promotions, the clever autoresponder!

There is a lot to gain from using calendar-based promotions, from acquiring a whole new customer base to utilizing clever store branding. Let’s take a closer look at some of the advantages.

• They take away much of the headache of the peak season by letting you schedule campaigns in advance
• You can use this tool to inform your reliable customers of your offers before everyone else. This helps generate buzz with your current customer base
• They offer peace of mind freeing you up to focus on other critical aspects of business
• You can use them creatively to attract new visitors to your store and end up getting a new venture
• They are ideal to make the most of your company’s shopping season

Calendar Based Promotions – A Scenario

Bob is the owner of fairly new gym called ‘Fit Mantra’. Since opening in late 2013, it has steadily grown and currently has 150 members. Now with the New Year around the corner, Bob wants to use the opportunity to increase membership and also sell other services like the Spa facility and Food Spot (snack-bar with all health foods and supplements). He doesn’t have a big marketing budget, but is still hoping to make the most of the New Year season and New Year’s health resolutions that typically accompany the holiday

Being a regular Zoho Campaigns user, he comes to know about an Autoresponder called “Calendar- based Promotions” he could specifically use for this purpose. Here is how he goes about executing his marketing plan:

• He creates an Autoresponder called ‘Get Fit 2015’ and automates a series of marketing messages to be sent out over the course of the last week of December up to January 2nd. By this way, the autoresponder saves ample time making him schedule better with correct dates.
• The same marketing messages are adapted and scheduled to go on his company Facebook page and Twitter profile. He does this using the free Social Campaigns feature that comes with the standard Zoho Campaigns account. This measure makes him gain new joins by this merging strategy.

His marketing messages

• Members under the yearly plan can use the spa facility free for one month
• Members get a discount up to 50 percent at the Food Spot if they upgrade to a yearly membership
• Members will be rewarded with two months free usage of the gym if they introduce a new member within the second week of January
• There will be an event called ‘Kickstart Fitness’ on Jan. 2 will feature nutritionists from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. to talk about ideal diets for muscle building, weight loss and weight maintenance.

Bob will end the marketing campaign on Jan. 3 by sending an email to all members asking for feedback on the particular initiative. He expects positive outcomes despite his limited marketing budget.

When marketing campaign seeks attention?

Today, calendar based promotions are not limited to the months of October to December or holidays such as Halloween and Valentine’s Day. Now Easter, Back to School, Veteran’s day and the like is also reason to have special discounts and theme based promotions. Customers actively scout for discounts during such days of the year and as a business it makes sense to make the most of this buzz. Let’s take a look at different occasions where you can try out this kind of marketing campaign.

Traditional holidays and festivals

The most popular holiday season goes from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day. Any amount of preparation you can do beforehand will lighten the load during this season. Here is where Calendar-based promotions come in handy.

Annual events

Certain yearly, local and recurring events like Back to School and Summer Break are good opportunities to run these kinds of campaigns, depending on the product or service you sell. Targeting this particular group of buyers with planned and timely marketing is a great way to boost sales.

Sports events

It is always a great idea to maintain a sports calendar and center your marketing campaign on it. You can be ready with your campaign when a particular season is around the corner. For instance, baseball starts in April and runs through October. Basketball starts in November and runs through June. Football starts in early September and ends in December with the Super Bowl in late January or early February.

Anniversaries and days of national importance

You can promote your product/service on days of national importance such as Labor Day, Presidents Day, Martin Luther King Day, etc.

Celebrating change of season or weather

With the change in season, people change their look, food and lifestyle. You can create promotions tailored to spring, summer, fall and winter.

Tips for Calendar Based Promotions

Here are few suggestions that you should keep in mind before starting calendar based promotions

Plan in Advance

Create your marketing plan well ahead of the event. Also, decide on the promotional offers and deals to be offered during the period. The best way is to take a look at the calendar and start planning different types of offers & discounts at least a month in advance.

Segment Customers

It’s always smart to segregate the target audience and send messages based on their demography, behavior and buying patterns.

Create your theme

A good way to start a campaign is to have a designed template based on the event/season/holiday

Timing is everything

The content of the message is important, but at the same time it’s also important when you send that message. Sending a message one month before or after the event is not well received.

Promote in-store shopping

It’s also a wise move to ask the customers whether they want to go for in-store or online shopping if you provide both.

Equipping yourself with organized emails to grab the attention of the users during festive occasions, important days is vital in getting to the next level of promotions. This specially made Calendar-based promotions autoresponder reaches the users with precision and accurate timings. So, that the next time you will probably be qualifying to a stage of marketing where there is no one to compete you. Good luck! sustain customers and evolve into greater heights of promotion.