Marketing Strategies For Next Year’s Spring
The First Day of Spring 2016 may not come for another few months (with the March equinox on March 20), but savvy marketers know to begin their sales campaigns early. Never mind that Romania, Moldova and Bulgaria, do celebrate March 1st as the first day of spring – this only has to do with ancient traditions from these specific countries, traditions that, ironically, have a lot to do with marketing and sales too.
Today, Romanians buy flowers, gifts and mărțișoare for the women in their lives, and so do Moldavians, and Bulgarians, although, in Bulgaria the small symbol of the spring is called martenitsa. For all these countries, and for many others inhabited by Romanians and Aromanians, the first day of March is a traditional holiday associated with sending off winter and welcoming spring – the first day of spring. But these are rather singular cases. Most of the world celebrates the first day of spring with the Vernal equinox.
By all means, March is a great month for marketing strategies: it does mark the beginning of the Spring season in fashion, – and thus, the strongest sales pushes you will see in the following days revolve around apparel and accessories.
But the trend is not exclusive to fashion. The travel and hospitality industries are also celebrating spring with special offers and packages. Encore Azalea, for example, uses a contest strategy in a PR push meant to attract new customers. Participants can enter for a chance to win the ultimate Callaway Gardens “Celebrate Spring!” vacation package, consisting of a 2 night stay in a two-bedroom cottage for four people, admission to Callaway Gardens for four people, all day bicycle rental for four people, and more.
Babble is pushing apparel in its Family Style section. Sure, Babble is not a fashion designer – but it does offer an example of savvy marketing, by promoting money-making products on a day when the words First Day of Spring 2011 make a trending topic.
For those who want to take advantage of the trend, with a bit of imagination, many approaches can be found, some more interesting than others. For example, did you know that in many Arab countries, Mother’s Day is celebrated on the March equinox? What better moment to target this demographic to sell everything that can be a gift for someone’s mother?
