eBusiness Weekly
Leslie Mupeti
The year 2023 is here. There’s a lot to look forward to in the New Year. It’s an opportunity for brands to turn a new leaf, connect and reconnect with their audiences.
No doubt at the top of everyone’s mind is the election season and how the elections will affect brands both short term and long term. However, before you worry about the elections, let’s worry about how you’re going to survive the first month of the New Year (elections are at the minimum six months away).
Ideas for New Year’s marketing are particularly helpful because people will probably spend money on items to help them fulfil their resolutions. Bringing in customers at the beginning of the year gives you an extra safety net when sales fall off in the months that follow.
After spending a lot during the holiday season, people start to spend less. This may give the impression that your audience isn’t ready to make a purchase or move forward with your business, but that impression might not entirely be accurate.
Before this spending cut, you can secure sales with New Year’s marketing strategies. Let’s look at some of the strategies you can use for the new year.
- Launch a new product
The phrase “New Year, new me” and New Year’s resolutions are not exclusive to people. Brands and businesses can actually apply this “New year, new me” in their ventures and take advantage of it.
As a way to advertise your new products, your store can also benefit from this. Consider doing it for the New Year and giving it a New Year’s theme if you are unsure of the ideal time to launch a new product.
This might seem counterproductive since all of the presents have already been purchased and opened, but the right customer for your product may be ready to buy.
You can highlight how it will give customers a head start on the new year. To ensure the success of your new product’s marketing, don’t forget to launch it in December across a variety of social media and online marketing channels.
Ideally, your New Year’s marketing campaigns would last the entire month. Don’t forget to highlight the product’s unique and exciting features.
If you strategically promote this upcoming new product throughout December in addition to your exciting holiday launches, offerings, or sales, your sales opportunity will be strengthened.
- New Year marketing promotions
Offer tempting New Year’s discounts and deals along with the introduction of a new product. Consider giving each customer a free gift or a discount on their first purchase of the year, for instance (within a given time limit). Or you could just use your loyalty programme to offer a general discount, discounted bundles, coupons, or even more rewards.
Consider holding a post-New Year’s sale or a New Year’s Day clearance sale. Remember that the promotions that perform the best will be those that are related to New Year’s festivities as you plan them.
If at all possible, make your offer distinctive from both your previous sales and discounts and from those of your rivals. Offering a substantial site wide discount is one way to go “big or go home” (excluding your new product).
A two for X amount offer or a buy one, get one free scenario are additional choices. You can hold sales that last a specific amount of time (for instance, from December 28 to January 1), on a specific New Year’s Day, after New Year’s Day, or all three. To avoid being too ironic, the more the merrier.
- Target New Year’s resolutions and make your customers feel good
A New Year’s resolution is a practice in which a person resolves at the beginning of a calendar year to continue good habits, change an undesirable trait or behaviour, achieve a personal objective, or otherwise improve their behaviour.
By promoting goods that will assist customers in achieving their goals in 2023, brands can benefit from New Year’s resolutions.
Persuade customers that your products are necessary for their new selves. According to Statista, the top 3 New Year’s resolutions are to lose weight, eat healthier, and exercise more.
Use this information to build your marketing campaign in a way that uses this information.
Following the holidays, your audience is likely looking for self-care products, so positioning your products as such, sharing mental health resources, and using language like “treat yourself” and “focus on yourself” can be effective strategies.
- Set specific marketing goals for the New Year
Set marketing objectives using the New Year’s blank slate. Request feedback from your marketing team on what worked well and what could be improved.
Make a strategy for upcoming marketing campaigns using this information. Your advertising objectives must be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time bound).
Because they provide you with a clear direction, ensure that your goals are relevant to your vision, and place great emphasis on measuring your results — which is crucial in marketing — SMART goals are so effective with marketing objectives.
Leslie Mupeti is a brand strategist and Creative Innovator. He can be reached for feedback on [email protected] or +263 785 324 230. His Twitter and Facebook is @lesmupeti.
