Marketing Strategies that work during festivals

In a country like India, where purchase decisions are mostly driven by emotions, the holiday season comes with a big bonus of reminding your customers about the Indian culture by associating it with your products. Festivities provide you a very good opportunity to reconnect with your current and prospective clients or customers. You can plan out effective marketing strategies during the festivals that will help you in making a better connect with your customers or clients.

“During festivals, people in India are ready to spend and entrepreneurs like us prepare months in advance to meet the surge in sales during the festival season. We have to assure that we have enough stock. Festivals are times when various melas are held all over the country. For small businesses like us who do not sell through the direct distributor and retailer route – the melas are a boon to introduce our product to a wide variety of customers and make instant sales. It is also the time when we make contacts with retailers.” says Mr Anurag Jain, COO, NEEV herbal soaps.

Here are a few tips that will help you to tighten the bond with your clients/customers during the festive season.

1. Ad campaigns for festivals: During festivals like Deepawali, Holi and others, develop an innovative ad campaign that highlights your product as a means to celebrate the festivals. Cadbury, for instance came with a new ad campaign for their product ‘Dairy Milk’ during Deepawali through which they tried to put chocolate as a substitute for the Deepawali sweets. And to its contrary, Frito-Lay’s (Pepsico) Kurkure came up with an ad campaign, ‘Muh Kurkure karo’, during the same time, which said that rather than having excess sweets this Deepawali, try the ‘Kurkure’. Mr Jain adds “We had thought of coming out with heart shaped soaps during Valentine’s Day. This year we are hoping to contact corporate to set up our stalls in their premises during festival times.” You can also develop innovative ads and campaigns like these to have an edge over others this festive season.
2. Special Offers and discounts: During the festive season, people are interested to buy new things and you should target on this propensity of your customers to introduce some very attractive offers. This could be in the form of discounts, free samples, buy-one get one free offer, discount on second purchase and so on. You could launch an offer on Holi as ‘Holi Special’ where you can introduce some combos and packages, etc. It depends on your product and your unique idea that creates the difference.
3. Greeting cards and gifts: Giving or sending greeting cards and gifts, calling over phone to greet or sending SMSs across your customers is the oldest and the best method to network with your clients and customers. Use greeting card, gifts, e-cards, phone calls and SMSs as a means to inform your clients and customers of the new schemes, offers and your latest product launches or some other update. “We have plans this year to design gift packs that would reflect the season. For example, we would design different gift packs of our soaps for Diwali season and different for Christmas.” mentions Mr Jain.
4. Sponsoring celebrations/events: As you know, we Indians celebrate and enjoy the festivals by having a get-together with friends and relatives. You can cash in on this opportunity and provide them a platform to do so and at the same time you can ensure that your company and products are promoted through it and during it. You can also keep some contests, quizzes and a host of competitions to further promote your brand at the event.
5. Keep communicating: Most of the people think that corporate clients and your customers would be busy during festivals. But this is not true for all. It is this time that they get the least calls for business development and a good time for you to pitch. So, keep regular touch with your clients and customers during and after the festivals.