How to Market Your School Store Products with Seasonal & Holiday Promotions: Part 2

Developing a seasonal and holiday promotion strategy starts with identifying your target customers and the most relevant holidays to them. You can walk through these steps in Part 1 here. In this article, you’ll continue learning about how to then move from calendars to actually identifying the products, offers and more. 

Read Part 1 of this article here. 

Continue to create your plan incorporating products, promotions, advertising and goals. 

Products - What products speak to customers’ experiences and/or could enhance these events? 

As you consider customers’ lives and events happening during this holiday, what kinds of products might help solve a customer problem or enhance their experience? Consider what products and services could help. 

For example, if parents are attending a family holiday event, what if your team set up a photo booth near the Spirit Box, so families could get a quality holiday photo and also peruse your offerings while in line? 

Or if you know it generally rains during the last weeks of school, what if you sold fold-up rain ponchos? 

Or before homecoming, what if your team created a new long sleeve t-shirt design to offer for a limited time in the Spirit Box? 

Perhaps a lot of students get sick or have allergies in the fall, and might need tissues, cough drops, etc. to help them get through the day! 

Action Step: Brainstorm products for the holiday or season. The possibilities are endless and your team will likely come up with many ideas. The more you understand what your customer segments are thinking, experiencing and feeling, the more you can match relevant products with what they need, when they need it. 

Promotions - How can you highlight or discount these products to make them extra appealing during the holiday? How long will it last? 

Once you decide what products you might want to sell, it is time to figure out your offer. This will depend on how much the product costs for you, as well as how much you can discount (if you do) and still make a profit. Perhaps you discount a pair of gloves on a particularly snowy day to make them that much more appealing, or maybe you offer a “buy one get one” on rain ponchos during a family day. Work with your team to craft an offer that will be realistic for your Spirit Box profitability but also enticing to your customers. Next, you can decide how long you want to extend that offer. Will it be for one-day only to create urgency? Or for something more seasonal like a winter hat, will the offer extend past the holiday because some might still need it? 

Action Step: Decide with your team which offers are best for which products, and how long they will be offered. 

Advertising - How can you get creative with colors, images and phrases to spark curiosity or interest in this promotion? 

Once you figure out your products and offers, you can get creative! How can you position this product to sell? What images, colors, phrases and visuals might get people excited or interested in what you are selling? How can you incorporate your Spirit Box brand into each holiday to keep it fresh and interesting? 

This is where your marketing team can shine. Consider how to use video, photos, graphics and more to speak to the experiences of your different customer segments and help solve their problem. 

Action Step: Develop some advertising ideas. Keep the message simple and clear. Remember people will likely scan it and won’t read many details. Let the creativity flow!

Goals - How will you track the success of each promotion? What are your KPIs (key performance indicators) or measures of success? 

You can decide your KPIs (key performance indicators) at different points along this process, but for sure, do not end your planning without knowing what exactly success will look like for the holiday promotion. Will you measure it by gloves sold? Family photos taken (increasing Spirit Box exposure)? Amount of profit made on a particular product? Profit made this year versus profit last year? 

Action Step: You will likely have more than one measure of success. But before you implement, be sure you and your team are clear about your goals!

Start Small with Seasonal & Holiday Promotions 

Holiday and seasonal promotions are a great way to inform customers about what you offer. as well as continually create new and exciting ways to keep them connected to your store. If you want to, you can start small with just a few of the major holidays throughout the year, and continue to grow and learn from there. 

What was your team’s most successful seasonal or holiday promotion? Share it with us!