Memorial Day Mayhem

Finally, summer is here! With Memorial Day firmly in sight, it’s time to start budgeting your vacation days to make the most out of the warm months ahead. Whether you plan to spend your summer stuck in the sand or battling it out with your neighbors for backyard barbecue supremacy, you’ll want to get a head start on your branded marketing campaigns so that you can actually use your selected products before the summer season comes to an end.

But where do you start? After you’ve identified your campaign theme, think about how any number of products could compliment your effort to enhance both brand loyalty and brand recognition. Whatever the specifics of your campaign theme might be, it’s best to keep your products generally aligned with the themes of summer. Why? Because the people you’re trying to attract will be full steam ahead in summer mode. Selecting products that fill a need for your audience will determine the success of your promotional effort.

With that in mind, lets identify some common summer activities that your market will likely be engaging in over the upcoming months.

1. Swimming/Beach days
2. Backyard barbecues
3. Backyard sports
4. Hiking
5. Road trips

Now that we’ve identified a universal list of common summer activities, it’s time to think about what products could enhance them. Think about your last road trip, would you have enjoyed having a trusty neck pillow with you? Now think about your last beach day, wouldn’t a new insulated cooler have made those cold drinks taste just that much better? It’s the little things that go a long way in keeping your brand front-of-mind to your target market and strategically placing your brand in a situation where you can act as a crutch to a good time for them will do just that.

When your audience reaches for that neck pillow or for their next drink, they’ll be seeing your logo and associating it with a good time or with a comforting convenience that you’ve now provided them. This positive association goes a long way towards creating a positive brand image.

But as mentioned before, the key is to fill a need for your market, not necessarily yourself. Having the ability to put yourself in their shoes will largely determine your effectiveness in filling a need for them, which is what you’ll be trying to achieve. Who knows your market better than you do? Nobody. As marketers, that’s what we should all strive to do and Stran challenges you to do just that. Think about what they’ll be doing this summer and then think about what you could do to enhance their experience. Make your brand a part of your markets fun in the sun this summer.