You may have already noticed the drop in temperature and that sudden urge to put the heating on. Well, that’s because it’s the first day of autumn. The wonderful season where leaves begin to change colour and the days slowly get shorter. But what does the autumn season mean for your marketing? 

Autumn gives you the opportunity to thrive and understand the behaviour of your target audience. In particular seasons, people’s purchasing power changes and they ultimately behave differently. Getting to grips with the autumn season allows you to do a couple of things to entice your audience to purchase your products though seasonal promotions or a little sale. 

Regardless of what season it is, there’s plenty of scope to be creative and really get your audience engaged. So, if you’re thinking of brainstorming some marketing ideas for the season, here’s how you can create amazing seasonal content for autumn… 

Figure Out What Your Seasonal Marketing Objectives Are…

Autumn is the season of change and what better time to discuss your seasonal marketing objectives than now? Often people associate the New Year as being the best time to consider the options for a business in the next year, and plan out changes and growth. But it’s actually best to air out any concerns, analyse the latest trends and really get into the nitty-gritty parts of your business in Autumn, ready to start fresh in the New Year. 

In fact, some bloggers and businesses opt to start creating autumn content as early as summer to ensure they get maximum mileage out of all their seasonal marketing and content. (Hazel and I have been working on our own Autumn content and promotions for a couple of months!) 

If you begin in the summer around July time, it means that you can get cracking early with your marketing, but not so early that you won’t have an opportunity to understand the current landscape of your industry and what is really going to be trendsetting next year. 

Our three top tips for determining your seasonal marketing objectives are to:

1. Make sure you study your seasonal opportunities wisely. What is often really handy is gathering together all of the key events and seasonal activities throughout the year that you want to get involved with, like Halloween, Christmas or even Star Wars Day. 
2. Think about what you can provide for your audience. Determine what message you want to project through a seasonal campaign and think about why you’re doing it – what do you need to achieve this season? New clients? Greater reach? Enhanced brand awareness? Rolling out a new product or service? Hitting an income of social target? 
3. Begin brainstorming and implementing a strategic plan that will support your objectives. Establish a schedule, organise your assets and continue to remain focused throughout. 

One of the best ways to make the most of your seasonal content once it’s created is to get sharing on social media, and push your message out to as many new people as possible using seasonal hashtags. The best general hashtags to use for autumn are:  #autumnvibes #autumn #pumpkinspice #fall.

The Best Autumn Advertisements Ever Created…

There are plenty of autumn ads to inspire your own campaigns but there are three in particular that we love. They use creative and innovative marketing to sell their products but in a fascinating and inquisitive way… 

Seasonal Marketing Ideas…

Autumn is a wonderful time of the year and there are a couple of events and activities that can be used for some smashing seasonal content…

Thanksgiving…

As a content writer in the UK, it may seem rather peculiar that I would even suggest that Thanksgiving is relevant enough to write about. But your content isn’t restricted to one area or country. You may have audience members in the US celebrating the holiday, which makes it a more inclusive theme for your customers outside the UK. 

Thanksgiving is a time for reflection and a way to say thank you for the surrounding community you have. It’s an easy way to connect with your international audience and really engage with them.

A great way to do this is by running a Thanksgiving-themed competition to tell your audience what you’re thankful for this year, and asking what they’re grateful for. It’s an amazing way to boost engagement and join in with the Thanksgiving celebrations. 

The best hashtags to use for Thanksgiving include:  #thanksgiving2019  #thankful #thanksgivingdinner #turkey

Diwali…

Diwali is the beautiful 5-day celebration that takes place in autumn in the northern hemisphere and in spring in the southern hemisphere. Since I live and work in the northern hemisphere, it’s only apt it’s mentioned in this year’s autumn marketing ideas. 

It’s an exciting festival that involves lots of candles, bright lights and lanterns, and you don’t necessarily have to be religious to get involved. It’s the celebration of 5 things:

1. Fortune 
2. Knowledge
3. Light
4. New Year
5. Love between siblings. 

You can easily get involved by creating some visually stunning some social posts (the light theme plays really well on social!), writing a blog post, do a live video (if you’re feeling brave, do it one evening and release your own lanterns!). Unsure what to say about the holiday? The theme of light triumphing over darkness is perfect. 

The best hashtags to use for Diwali are: #diwali #happydiwali #diwalidecor #diwaliwishes

Halloween…

Halloween is always an exciting time and it’s something we love getting involved in, especially here at Acrylic. We all join in to dress the office in scary decorations and ensure that we get involved with those “spooooky” vibes! 

Last year we also had our own pumpkin carving competition. It got very heated and a couple of days later, it was announced that I had won. That classic Mike Wazowski pumpkin wins every year!

Halloween  is the perfect time to introduce some seasonal branding.  Having a temporary design can get you and your business into the spirit of Halloween. Tim, our graphic designer, is an absolute genius when it comes to anything spooky, so he was really in his element when he created this masterpiece? last year. 

We used this graphics as a quick change-up of our cover photo on Facebook and a couple of posts on surrounding channels. It can be as simple as this, or as big as creating a new product or service specifically relating to Halloween.

Take ghostwriting as an example. This is a naturally Halloween themed service that can easily be turned into a seasonal promotion. Or alternatively, take the opportunity to reword or slightly alter your products.

Creme Egg is an amazing example. At Halloween, they change their original Creme Egg to a Screme Egg with green “goo”, mixing it up to follow a creepy Halloween theme.

Regardless of what you decide to do at Halloween, make sure you are prepared early! Seasonal blogs and content take a good chunk of time. Plan well in advance and stay focused on the objectives. You’ve got a month before Halloween, you need to start rolling out content to support a promotion like this at the start of October.

You may actually find some exciting Halloween events to attend, so make sure you get those up on social media including hashtags, a geotag and an amazing caption with some emojis?.  

The best Halloween hashtags are: #Halloween #Halloween2019 #TrickOrTreat #HappyHalloween #October

National Novel Writing Month…

A very exciting part of autumn and the perfect way to create amazing seasonal content for autumn is through National Novel Writing Month. The whole of November is specifically dedicated to the global celebration of all things novel writing! 

In case you were wondering, as an award-winning author, Hazel religiously takes part in this wonderful celebration as much as she can every year. She also inspired the idea of taking advantage of the challenge to start creating your own business book. 

During this month, you have the opportunity to advertise your products and services to those who are partaking in the NaNo month. You may need to think outside of the box for this one, so here are a few examples of what you might be able to offer…

• If you run a cafe, restaurant or pub, create a reward scheme or discount to encourage participants to make it their base for the month. (Hazel’s group camps out at one pub in Chester for the whole month – they make a fortune off it!). A popular one is to have a stamp scheme, once you hit your word count for the day, stamp away and once you get a certain number of stamps you’ll get something for free!
• Is there a product you offer that will help writers? Notebooks, pens and journals are essential for writers during this month. Can you offer something similar and maybe run a giveaway that you audience can win? Maybe they have to share a selfie of their best writing moment so far? 

To help you join the NaNo month, here are the best hashtags for National Novel Writing Month posts: #NaNoWriMo #NaNo #NationalNovelWritingMonth #AmWriting #WritersLife

Alternatively why not participate in NaNo yourself? You can make a start on creating your own business book during this month. Releasing a book is incredibly advantageous for any sized business. One of the biggest benefits is having personal and business credibility. It gives you a source of pride and allows you to showcase what you and your business can provide for your audience. It can build brand clarity and help potential clients get to know your brand first hand. 

Your book can provide your audience with in-depth knowledge about your industry, business and brand and it’s an insight for them to get to who you are and what your business represents. 

We challenge you to spend 30 days in November writing down all of your book ideas on paper. At the end of the month, simply hand it over to savvy ghostwriter who will develop and shape it into your own business book and marketing masterpiece.

How To Plan A Seasonal Marketing Campaign…

Planning and writing seasonal content can be difficult, especially if you’re someone who doesn’t have the backing of a marketing department or you’re not really sure where to start. It’s a tricky topic. 

Luckily for you, we’ve got the expertise to support and nurture your plans all year round. From helping you understand the latest seasonal marketing trends to utilising seasonal marketing content or even writing your own business book, we’ve got you covered. Find out how we can help relieve some of the stress and assist your businesses marketing, book your free consultation below…