Seasonal Online Marketing

Yesterday, in the context of creating a marketing calendar, I talked about seasonal businesses. Many businesses show a seasonal pattern, and whether to try to get as much mileage as possible during the busy season or to try to even out the oscillations in your system by marketing heavily in the off season is a strategic decision that has to be informed by the unique realities of your business.

But what about the truly seasonal business or product?

Right now I'm working with a couple of websites which are so spring-specific that there is really no way to market them for the current season.

First, here's Sweetique.com, a company distributing chocolate-filled eggshells (real eggshells, that is, filled with chocolate)



While Sweetique does make some other products that appeal to consumers year-round, this page is so completely for Easter that visitors who aren't looking for Easter items won't stay. The call to action is clearly "Order Easter eggs," so we can't expect sales till March.

The second site is Grand Getaways Passover 2010, a Passover destination site. While taking a Passover vacation (possibly with friends and family) is an undertaking that people are likely to prepare for earlier than ordering Easter basket items, we're still talking about an event that won't take place till the end of March.




Both sites offer the option of booking or ordering early, but neither will probably see much conversion for the next month or two. One of the benefits of the internet is immediacy -- but that also means that many of the things we'd usually do in the way of online marketing won't be valuable for these sites.

What's our best strategy?

• Work on rankings. We want to see Grand Getaways at the top of the page for "Passover vacations," "Passover travel," "Pesach program," and similar terms. Sweetique wants high ranks for "Easter baskets," "Easter chocolates," "Easter gifts," and other terms of that kind. Starting now gives us a good chance of being on top when consumers begin to search for those phrases, even with such highly competitive terms.
  
• Use articles. Well-written articles on these subjects can bring links and traffic. With this kind of lead time, we can pitch to online magazines and top bloggers in these areas as well.
• Get busy with linkbuilding. Intensive linkbuilding will help us reach the rankings we want, and can also get us at the places where consumers are likely to look for information once they start looking. Passover travel directories are an example of strong niche directories that are worth courting. Easter sites may not be updating soon, but their webmasters also aren't being inundated with link requests right now. This is a good time to start identifying and reaching out to sites that will want to share our sites with their visitors.
  

"Strike while the iron is hot" is good advice, but having plenty of time to heat the fire before you need to put your irons into it has its advantages as well.