The holiday season is coming, are you ready? The holidays are right around the corner, which means you should get your holiday sales campaign ready now!
Keep in mind though: almost every eCommerce business will be sending campaigns dedicated to Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Looking up events and holidays for the upcoming month, putting them in a calendar, and seeing which ones align nicely with your business can really help you stand out.
→ Get ready for the unprecedented holiday season with our eCommerce Holiday Guide: Selling Through Email.
So, this month is obviously October, it’s spooky time for everybody. Everyone’s getting geared up for Halloween, whatever that looks like for you, your family and your community, but this is a really important time to start gearing up for the holiday season that’s up ahead.
Most people are sticking to online shopping, again, just due to the pandemic and just to be safe. So we are urging all our clients at the moment, anyone who listens to our podcasts, and anyone who subscribed to our YouTube channel to make sure that they are starting to prepare for the holiday season.
Listen to the Email Marketing Ideas on our Podcast
Breast Cancer Awareness Month and Women’s History Month
The other thing to know is that October, 2023 is recognized as Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which is a big deal for any of our brands that focus primarily on a women target audience. And also as a note in Canada, because we do have clients in both the US and Canada, it is Women’s History Month in Canada.
So that is something that is, again, targeted towards primarily women-run demographic. So, if that is something that would pertain to you or make sense for you and your brand, highly suggest creating some campaigns or some initiatives around these two kinds of months initiatives.
Email campaign creation is a long and complicated process. The key is to streamline it – so you know exactly what you need to do at each stage. That’s why we created a Campaign checklist, where we share step-by-step instructions on how to create your campaigns in a more efficient way.
So, I’m gonna kind of pick one holiday for each week in the month of October, give kind of a brief idea around a campaign that you can do. And again, these are just suggestions primarily based on we find to be interesting on our end here at Flowium and what we find is gonna be most relatable for you and kind of what the general population would kind of connect with.
So, let’s start!
October 1st is International Coffee Day
I am not typically a coffee drinker, but I just became one since becoming pregnant. My midwife actually recommended that I drink some coffee in the mornings to help with the migraines that I’ve started to get as a symptom of pregnancy. So, International Coffee Day is definitely one that I’m gonna be celebrating.
This is something that you can run out a fun campaign for your brands that you work with or for the specific brand that you run. Just kind of a friendly reminder saying hey to your subscribers.
Again, the purpose of a lot of these campaigns is just to put a smile on your subscriber’s face, continue to engage with them, and then also provide that element of trust. It should almost feel like you’re kind of talking to a friend of yours when you send out these campaigns. So then that way your customer base can feel like they’re connected to you and connected to your brand.
World Teacher Day for October 5th
For the following week, we have World Teacher Day for October 5th. This is a huge one this year, I know because teachers have been going through a lot of stress and a lot of drastic changes when it comes to what their teaching life looks like. Especially with their students, younger students in elementary school, all the way through to high school. There’s a lot of virtual learning that’s going on.
So, World Teacher Day is a nice one to kinda celebrate. And if you know that you have a customer base that is made up of teachers or students who can show appreciation to their teachers, this is a good one to just send out a campaign and say “Hey, listen, we love you, we see you, we know what you do, and we appreciate you, especially for all the kind of hassle that this year has brought for you”.
So that’s a little idea for World Teacher Day.
Thanksgiving Day in Canada on October 11th
The following week, it is Thanksgiving Day in Canada on October 12th. I know that’s a little funky for us Americans ’cause we’re so used to the fourth Thursday of every November, but it is Thanksgiving Day in Canada.
So if you are a Canadian based brand, great time to just send out a quick blurb, happy Thanksgiving to everybody out in Canada.
Boss’s Day on October 16th
We also have Boss’s Day on October 16th. I know this was one that my colleagues and I will be celebrating ’cause we love our boss and we think he’s amazing. He does a great job running Flowium, the company that we all work for and love to work for.
And so this is a nice one just to kinda send out a, again, if you’re a company or a brand that works with kind of executives or you provide kind of gift options for people, this is something that you can kind of send out in the days leading up to Boss’s Day, reminding people to, “Hey, boss appreciation day is coming up Friday, October 16th, make sure that you let your boss know how much you care about them”, that kinda thing.
October 21st is National Pumpkin Cheesecake Day
Following week, I am all about the pumpkin spice hype in the fall.
So, October 21st is National Pumpkin Cheesecake Day. Again, this is kind of just like a fun, random holiday, just sending stuff out, kind of leading up to the hype of Halloween.
National Pumpkin Day on October 26 and then October 31st is Halloween
And then the following week, you have National Pumpkin Day on October 26 and then October 31st is Halloween. So, for your subscribers that get into the spooky mood towards the end of the month, make sure that you acknowledge that and connect with them over that.
The other thing to notice, October is a time when most of Northern America starts to cool down. I’m in Florida, so we don’t necessarily experience that as much, but this is a good time to start kind of launching out any new products that have to do with the cold, whether it’s actual clothing or stuff that will kind of help people keep warm throughout the winter. This is a really good time to start sending out those launches.
In preparation for the holidays, this is also a really good time to send out campaigns that either provide mini sales leading up to the big Black Friday through Cyber Monday event at the end of November. And also just to kind of figure out who your loyal customer base is and who you can rely on to help you reach the targets that you’re looking to achieve through the month of November, December, and January as well for the holiday season.
