If you’re looking for July marketing ideas, you’ve come to the right place. There are lots of articles out there with “ideas” but few with specific marketing campaigns that aren’t just tied to wacky holidays.
To help small businesses run effective July marketing ideas, we asked marketing experts and successful business owners this question for their best ideas. From running a fourth of July hangover sale to buying a relevant Facebook group to explode traffic, there are several marketing ideas that may help boost sales for small businesses during the festive month of July.
Here are nine July marketing ideas for small businesses:
Run a Fourth of July Hangover Sale
This one of our July marketing ideas that we ran last year with a ton of success was our “4th of July Hangover Sale.” While every other brand focused on deals and discounts leading up to the big holiday, we focused on the day after – July 5th. Our thought process was this: everyone goes hard on 4th of July, drinking and partying way more than they normally would. At least, this is generally true for our demo, college kids. And what do people do when they’re hungover? They lay around and shop online while they recover.
People aren’t thinking about buying things on July 3rd or 4th – they have other things on their minds. The 5th is where it’s at. So at 12:01 am on July 5th, we did a blitz on a major sales event. We flooded our email subscribers with promotional emails, blasted out tons of social media posts, and plastered banners all over our site. Basically, we did an all-out marketing blitz on our “4th of July Hangover Sale,” going all-in on one day, and it worked great.
John Ross, Test Prep Insight
Do Ticket Giveaways To Local Summer Events
There is no shortage of local events during the summertime. Offer ticket giveaways to your followers on social media to encourage engagement with your profile and show your involvement with your local community. This creates a community-driven reputation for your business that benefits your brand reputation. You’ll be supporting other local businesses while increasing exposure for your own business.
David Aylor, David Aylor Law Offices
Engage Customers During and After The Festivities
At least in the States, everyone’s doing independence and it’s easy to get lost in that kind of marketing noise. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t participate– we do typically like to offer a Fourth of July promo if for nothing else but patriotism, but July doesn’t end after the first week.
July is also National Grilling Month and Family Reunion month. To stand out from the endless red, white, and blue or fireworks-themed emails, we like to contact our email list towards the end of the month when the advertising oversaturation has calmed down. Consumers are likely still in the mood to party and appreciate the summer, and also more likely to notice and engage.
Brandon Adcock, Nugenix
Turn Fridays into Free Days
With business slowing down in July, it is a great time to build brand awareness. We turn Fridays into “Freedays,” extending weekends by a day. The last Friday of the month, however, is a day of giving, where the entire company works together on a charitable cause decided by popular vote. We encourage employees to post photos to their social media. We have a get-together after the event and it’s a great way to say goodbye to July Freedays. From a marketing perspective, we use the content we generate in recruiting, public relations, and corporate marketing throughout the year.
Patricio Paucar, Navi
Design a Smart July 4th Email Marketing Campaign
When it comes to crafting campaigns for US-specific holidays like the 4th of July, marketers usually fall into one of two camps. Some will refrain from sending a holiday campaign to their email list altogether (since the “Happy 4th of July” messaging would be irrelevant for any non-US subscribers). On the other hand, some brands undoubtedly “spray and pray” with a July 4th offer to their whole list—likely generating sales, but alienating non-US subscribers.
I’d offer a better idea: segment your email list before July 4th. Most modern email marketing platforms will let you filter by recipients’ location or time zone. Doing so, you can send a “Happy 4th of July” campaign to *only* subscribers who live in the US this year—generating more sales while refraining from alienating subscribers.
Zach Grove, Zach Grove
Leverage Gamification in Your Campaign
Gamification lets people compete for fun, which is an excellent strategy to implement this July. It brings extra twists to a marketing drive, provides a meaningful experience, and allows consumers to recognize your brand through unique incentive schemes.
Lure your audience with cash backs and rebates they can use on their next purchase. A voucher code for winning a specific challenge is also a perfect reward to encourage them to take part in your games. People participate in contests if they get a reasonable price in exchange for their time.
Lilia Tovbin, BigMailer.io
Share Summer-Themed Blog Content
Start writing summer-themed blog posts. You don’t have to change your products with the seasons, but you can create seasonal content. For example, since we’re a brand dedicated to improving health and wellness, we might draft blog posts in the summer about the benefits of wearing SPF daily or how to deal with hot flashes as the temperature rises. Consider what your audience will need in July and give them the best tips and tricks to make it through summer with your brand.
Alexandra Fennell, Attn: Grace
Use Audio-First on Social Media
With the popularity of podcasts over the last few years, several social media platforms have launched audio-first social media features. Audio-first is a novel way to reach audiences that have grown tired of scrolling and watching videos. This provides opportunities for businesses to post audio content akin to blog posts, but without causing internet fatigue.
Moreover, as a business directory, the opportunity to interview local business leaders in an audio format creates the possibility of scaling our marketing strategy to a monthly or weekly podcast. We have been discussing utilizing Twitter Spaces to host audio-only events and link to our website and blog.
Lastly, we believe that audio-first marketing saves on video production costs, fosters a closer relationship with audiences, and most importantly adds some spice to the social media space.
Tony Peacock, Near Me
Buy a Relevant Facebook Group To Explode Traffic
A couple of months ago, I made a random offer to buy a small FB group in my business niche. I was surprised when the admin took me up on the offer for an extremely small sum. A few months later, my traffic utterly exploded. We have over 150,000 members now and my business brand awareness is through the roof in this niche.
Find 20 or so small groups in your market and offer to buy them. What’s the worst that could happen? The upside is massive and the downside is minuscule.
Tiffany Homan, Texas Divorce Laws
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