Moneymaking Ideas for the Other Holidays

I wanted to blog about the holidays. Christmas, New Year's, nah. I'm talking about those holidays that don't have all the hoopla. Valentine's day is a biggie, I'll give you that, but February has a ton of opportunities to put your company in the spotlight.

Here are some special occasions for your winter and spring calendars and a few ideas on how to capitalize on them.

February Black History Month Valentine’s Day Presidents’ Day Chinese Lantern Festival Daytona 500 Mardi Gras
March NCAA Basketball - March Madness St. Patrick's Day First Day of Spring	April April Fools’ Day Daylight Savings Time Begins Passover Tax Day Baseball Opening Day Easter Secretaries’ Day	May Cinco de Mayo Prom Kentucky Derby Mother's Day Graduation Memorial Day

All of these holidays provide a great "reason" to send email newsletters, offers or direct mail postcards no matter what business you're in. Here are some ideas for you to get those recipient's clicking!

• Use Discounts and Promotional Offers - Entice your customers with premium rewards, discounts or special promotions tied to a particular product or purchase date.

• Contests and Sweepstakes - Increase the number of visitors to your website and collect sign-ups in the process.  Center the contest on a specific holiday or concept for an easy promotional hook.

• Find Your Special Niche - The list above includes some of the more universal occasions, but there are nearly as many industry-related celebrations as there are days in the month.  For example, February is “Get to Know an Independent Real Estate Broker Month,” “Hot Breakfast Month”, “Wise Health Care Consumer Month”, “Cherry Month” and “Relationship Wellness Month”, just to name a few. 

• Create Your Own! - Creating your own holiday can be a blast then promote it with press releases, newsletters, media pitches or direct mail pieces.  If you have a brick-and-mortar location, you can throw a party to draw people into the store, collect email addresses and popularize the occasion.

No matter what industry your business is in, I'm sure there’s a holiday or a special month to commemorate it. This free calendar  has a great list of holidays so check it out. The key is to be creative and have fun with the idea.  For more marketing and promotion suggestions, check out WorkZ, it's VerticalResponse's source for information on how to grow your business.

Comments

[Paul Kuchinski]

Thanks for the thoughts... it's always good to open our eyes to new opportunities.

Thanks!

[Lisa Chumney]

Thank your for the calendars and holiday lists. As a card designer and such, it is always great to get great new suggestions and materials for promotion. Lisa Chumney, President

[Janine]

Thanks for the info Andy. I also checked this site out and thought it was great!

http://www.earthcalendar.net

[Andy Hall]

As steven said, many of these holidays are unique to the USA, he expressed an interest in British Holidays. Well, being British, I can certaintly help you get the ball rolling.

Our major holidays are as follows:

St Patricks Day--- 17th March
St Georges Day--- 23rd April
Mothers day---14th May
Fathers Day--- 18th june
Rememberance sunday--- Sunday before 11th Nov (US veterens day, our Armistice Day)

We also have Bank Holidays, no real reason for these other than an excuse for a day off. these are traditionally when people hit the coast (go to the seaside!):

Good Friday--14th april 2006
Easter monday---17th april 2006
May day--- 1st May (or closest monday)
Spring Bank---29th May (or last monday in May)
Summer Bank---28th August (or last monday in august)

Other bank holidays include christmas day, boxing day and new years day, but everywhere has them.

There is talk of creating a national day to celerbrate our nation, however, its unlikely to be legislated for a few years.

REMEMBER: Everday is a holiday for someone, somewhere!

For other, once in a while marketing pushes at the british remember:
FOOTBALL (proper football, with a round ball that you kick with your foot)The World Cup, The European Cup, FA Cup;
RUGBY LEAGUE: Super League Final, Challenge Cup, World Championship Final.

And its the winter olympics this year too.
Ive found sports to be very profitable as you just have to tap into the emotion already created by the sport.
Happy Holidays!
or as the British say "see ya tuesday!"

[Russel Harris]

At my former company we put together a multi-national, personalised calender that proved to be extremely popular with customers worldwide.

Emailing them on their holidays / national days would be a nice touch.

[Steven Paul Green (S.P.G.Enterprises)]

Thank you, that was very thought provoking,
it has certainly given me food for thought,
I couldn't help noticing that while some of the high days and holidays refered to were universal, some were unique to the U.S.A. which has tweeked my curiosity about special days that are specifically English or British. Somthing I may have to consider looking into further! Thank you!

Yours...

Steven