Dealing With Seasonal Marketing Fluctuations
A marketing campaign never runs independently from its environment. Seasonal fluctuations are common and can be a frustrating waste of money if you don’t account for them. Just think about Black Friday, Christmas, and Valentine’s day. All of these are opportunities, but they also pose a few problems if you don’t fully understand the implications they can have on your campaigns.
Remember that these three periods often come paired with rising costs. You should never join a trend if you haven’t thought about whether it will work for your business. Finding out when your marketing campaigns convert is therefore key to honing your overall strategy. In this blog, we’ll look at seasonal marketing fluctuations, how you can analyse these, and what factors you need to keep in mind.
Use Analytics & Reports
Firstly, how do you analyse at seasonal fluctuations?
Often, Google Analytics is the key. It can help you drilldown into the seasonal variations of your website and social traffic. Simply look at the last yearly period (or even multiple years if possible) to see where there are traffic spikes or slumps.
Do these coincide with sales spikes and slumps? Or do they run independently from one another?
The last thing you want is to send campaigns out at random and to hope for the best. The more data you have, the more insights you can gather.
By using analytical tools, you’ll be able to pick up on key trends and patterns, which can inform your future marketing campaigns.
Look at Seasonal A/B Testing
To better understand the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and the seasonal variations that could be influencing their success, consider A/B Testing your campaigns at different periods of the year.
And, of course, make sure to compare them with each other in order to extract the key learnings.
Understand your audience and their behaviour
Another key factor to assess is the behaviour of your intended audience. What does their schedule look like? When and on what channels do they tend to look for solutions?
If you sell a product that is intended for a particular purpose, then this is often linked to climate or the time of the year. Ecommerce websites, for example, are affected by this, with clothing, accessories, and consumer goods all being heavily influenced by the seasons they are intended for.
Understand Your Conversion Rate
Conversion rate is everything when it comes to marketing. After all, a smaller campaign on a tight budget can get you better results than a much larger campaign if it has a good conversion rate. This often depends on when your campaign goes out.
Ask yourself this question: when does your audience tend to convert?
If there are periods when traffic is high, but conversions remain low, this may indicate a period when your audience might not be ready to buy from you.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that your campaign isn’t working. Instead, it could indicate that this simply isn’t a good time to be running campaigns, as your audience aren’t at the buying stage yet.
So, should you run campaigns in the summer?
If your company primarily engages in B2B marketing, then the summer period might not be a great option. This is because a lot of people are on holiday, and businesses often wait until after the holidays before looking into new procurement strategies.
Another good example is business and life coaches. The New Year is a fantastic opportunity for these businesses, as this time coincides with New Years Resolutions and (oftentimes) yearly business reports, which may require new strategies.
Use Seasonal Fluctuations to Your Advantage
Planning your marketing campaigns is crucial. Whether it is a themed social post or setting up a blogging calendar, you need to build your marketing strategy around these seasonal fluctuations.
Download our Marketing Strategy guide for more information.
