What Springtime Can Teach Retailers About Marketing

Spring has sprung! With all this warm, sunny-one-day-rainy-the-next weather washing over my city, I’ve been itching to start spring cleaning, shop for new gardening supplies, and spend more time outdoors.

While thinking about this, I realized that some of my favorite springtime activities actually hold secret lessons for great marketing. Springtime has taught me a lot about marketing data, sales promotions, and geo-targeting — read on to see what it might teach you!

Details, measurements, and data

Whether you’re organizing your basement, KonMari-ing your wardrobe, or regrouting your bathroom, spring cleaning is really all about details and measurements. One of the biggest spring cleaning efforts I’m taking on this year is remodeling my kitchen — and that’s what really taught me the value of accurate measurements.

If my contractor incorrectly measures the width of my oven space or the depth of my sink, we’ll be in for an unpleasant surprise (and some major time delays) when those new appliances or countertops arrive and don’t fit.

Details and measurements are also key to great marketing — especially when it comes to data. Before you start a spring campaign (or any other campaign, at any time of year) be sure to make sure that your data is accurate, relevant, and up-to-date.

Often, we marketers get too excited about new campaigns without doing any “spring cleaning” of our data sets. Without a strong understanding of your data, you might end up delaying your campaign for months … or having to cancel it.

To stay on top of your data as you develop new campaigns, you should:

• Run a deliverability check to ensure that messaging will reach your audience.
• Create a preference center (and stick to it!) to help your content match customer preferences.
• Segment your audience to make sure your campaign is targeting the right people.

Make Black Friday spring forward

Once your data is organized, it’s time to get creative. This year while springtime shopping, I’ve noticed that a number of brands take advantage of the season with interesting promotions that echo November’s Black Friday. Home Depot has Spring Black Friday, Wayfair has Way Day, and Michigan Bulb Company celebrates Green Friday. This is a fun way for brands to put a springtime spin on the retail world’s largest holiday — and drive sales!

If you decide to launch a Black Friday-esque springtime promotional campaign for your brand, be sure to maintain a consistent message throughout every piece of content on every channel.

Your email subject lines and content copy should hint at the scale of the seasonal sale — for instance, Michigan Bulb Company used “A Black Friday for the Green Thumbed!” You should even consider sending SMS alerts about the sale. After all, when you try to go big with a campaign, you need to own it end-to-end on your customers’ channels of choice.

Geography matters, weather you like it or not

I’m writing this from the Midwest — and when it comes to springtime, we Midwesterners are known for getting a little antsy and anxious. The slightest hint of warm, sunny weather can inspire us to break our shorts and skirts out of storage … only to wake up to chilly rain (or even light snow) the next morning.

Weather is important. In marketing, knowing your customers’ geographic locations and local weather can help you deliver more relevant messaging. You don’t have to be a meteorologist to be a geo-savvy marketer. All you need is data!

If you can capture shopper zip codes or use IP addresses, you can easily track what the weather looks like where they are, and send out content that connects with them in relevant ways. With Marketing Cloud Live Weather Block, it’s as simple as dragging and dropping a pre-built dynamic content block into your email template and you’re off and running.

For example, home improvement retailers can use weather data to let customers know it’s the right time to put fertilizer on their grass now, before a projected rainfall in three days’ time. This kind of content informs and educates customers by using real-time data to take into account their real-life situations and drive traffic to a relevant product, like fertilizer.

Whether you’re spring cleaning at home or gearing up for springtime marketing campaigns, I hope these tips spark joy in all you do this season. For more ways to make the most of your retail marketing this spring and beyond, explore how to personalize shopper marketing.