2023 is whizzing by! Every year that passes seems to flash by and before we know it, we’re hitting the final quarter of the year and the lead-up to Christmas and New Year again!
Temperatures start to drop, leaves change colour, and jumpers begin to make an appearance in preparation for the colder months. Autumn is a beautiful season and often the last opportunity to soak up the last of the longer days and scattered sunshine.
This season presents different opportunities for businesses to create marketing campaigns that evoke emotions in customers and utilise seasonal events and traditions.
Set the mood with senses
Target customers by triggering their senses. Get them feeling that autumnal vibe by selecting the right colour schemes and palettes. Halloween is often associated with orange and black, whilst generic autumnal colours include warm hues, such as burnt oranges and yellows, rich browns, cool blues, and olive greens. These colours lend themselves exceptionally well to an array of products, services, and print marketing such as sales leaflets, lookbooks, seasonal brochures, signage, and POS literature. A word of warning though, try not to lose yourself in autumnal loveliness and saturate your print by over-designing and losing your brand identity. Keep it simple, use colours to complement your logo, and keep it all aligned to ensure you see the best results.
Allow customers to sniff their way into the season
Print automatically taps into our senses through sight and touch so why not navigate towards stimulating your customer’s nose?
How many times have we all associated a smell with an occasion? From the smell of real Christmas trees in December to the mouth-watering smell of BBQs floating in the summer air. Our sense of smell creates a powerful connection between us and the world we live in, which is why it’s a good idea to use scent marketing in your Autumnal campaigns.
Given the rise in costs for consumers, I’d hazard a guess that savvy shoppers are already bagging Christmas gifts to save money and spread costs, so utilising scent marketing could be the icing on the cake for your autumnal print marketing.
There are so many inviting scents associated with Autumn such as cinnamon, apple, cranberry, spice, pumpkins, bonfire toffee, and nutmeg, so simply add scratch-and-sniff elements, scented tissue paper in your product packaging, or scented flyers to take full advantage of this wonderfully tangible form of marketing.
Think ahead to New Year
Having only just left summer behind it seems a bit silly to start looking forward to next year but given the fast-paced world we live in, many people are. With that in mind, think of print marketing ideas that are useful for your customers such as a calendar. Your brand will be in front of your customers all year round which holds more weight than a postcard or flyer that could get lost in the abyss. Or why not try and include a tear-off coupon or QR code in your POS with a January discount to brighten up your customer’s days when the January blues set in?
Use print marketing to reinforce your digital output
Carefully crafted email marketing is likely to capture consumers’ interest if you strike at the right time. Trigger temptation with your email (and social posts) and then follow up with an associated direct mail campaign to ensure your buyer can’t resist temptation. Keep the marketing message and aesthetics aligned and you’ll be onto a winner!
There are many human emotions linked to the change of seasons and this has a big impact on our buying habits. Targeting your customers with unique and well-executed seasonal print marketing at the right time will make you stand out from the crowd.
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