Why you should be using National Days in your Marketing Calendar…

Jumping in on the ‘National Days’ hype can be a great way for your business to spread awareness about a cause, as well as being a great tool for marketing and really boosting those engagement rates.

Whether it’s International Women’s Day, National Pet Day or even National ‘Leave the Office Early’ Day (yes, it actually exists), there’s certainly no shortage of things to celebrate with the internet celebrating something different almost every single day of the year.

Though some of the national days may be too ‘silly’ for your business, from pets to food to diseases, there’s certainly no shortage of times to celebrate, which is why we’re here, to give you some insights into why they may benefit your business and if you’re lucky, we may even give you some ideas how you too could bring some of these events to life!

So you may be now wondering, ‘why should I consider joining in on these national days?’ or even, ‘what could these possibly bring to my business?’. Well, I’m glad you asked because the short answer is ‘a lot’.

Customer loyalty is changing

With more people taking to social media for questions, business updates, and complaints, it is obvious that consumers at home have become more interested in wanting to connect with businesses and brands. Though you can’t guarantee positive feedback from customers on social media, it is a great way to reach out to your customers with an added personal touch other than just using adverts.

There are approximately 500 million tweets a day, and on average 10 million users are active each day, the potential reach on just Twitter alone is huge. Being capable of targeting this amount of people on one platform and ignoring the potential would just be a schoolboy error.

With the size of your potential audience in mind, National Days can be a fantastic way to raise awareness about a specific cause or event. Perhaps you’re doing something for charity to raise awareness or were going to be launching a new product, coinciding with the launch of these could increase the response you get from it, ultimately, helping you reach your goal.

As well as this, on the lighter side of things, National Days can be a great way for your business to show personality as sometimes, this is difficult to always get across in a way where your audience can truly appreciate it.

However, you should proceed with caution. Like everything, national days also have their downside.

With it being easy to get a little carried away with using National Days within your marketing strategy, they can have a negative impact on your business. Using too many can make your audience feel slightly annoyed and may ultimately affect their view of your brand.

How to choose which days to get involved in:

Choosing which days to get involved in can be difficult. But here are our top tips and things you should avoid to help you out.

• Make sure that the day directly relates to your business or the industry you’re in.

• The day gives you a chance to express your business’s personality.

• It provides an interesting topic of conversation for your audience.

• Avoid ones that don’t align with your business’s personality or values.

• Avoid ones which may offend your target audience.

• Avoid ones which may interrupt a promotion/campaign you’re already running.

• Avoid anything too controversial or in poor taste.

How your business can get involved…

Plan ahead

Ensure that you have enough time to create an amazing campaign and truly get the most out of celebrating it. Preparation is key to success so giving at least a month’s notice before the event allows customers to buy into the campaign's purpose.

Use Social Media

Social media is hugely powerful with being able to reach so many people within seconds of posting. As well as this, clever campaigns tend to be appreciated on social media, and could potentially end up going viral.

A great example of a clever marketing strategy for World HIV/AIDs Day on December 1st was created by the (RED) charity. They partnered with some of the world’s most iconic brands such as Apple and Durex to spread awareness of HIV and AIDs and to date, (RED) has generated over $600 million for the cause.

Apple

Apple not only created (RED) products but Apps for (RED) as well, incorporating a sense of luxury within the world of donating to charity. Their campaigns for the products started in March, ensuring that a certain buzz was created and awareness was raised about the charity. In total, they have raised more than $130 million for the cause.

Durex

In the run-up of World HIV/AIDs Day, Durex partnered with (RED), on November 2nd 2018, to educate younger consumers about the disease and encourage safe sex. They created the hashtag (#GAF) that was catchy and was targeted especially for the younger audience. As well as this, they worked alongside some popular celebrities to help spread the message (as seen in the advert above).

Yours Clothing celebrates every National Day with great success, empowering their customers and communities to join them in the celebration by offering discount codes and unique promotions related to the event. This form of marketing builds a loyal customer base and ensures the brand remains noticeable and memorable even if a product is not the centre of attention.

Paid Advertising

Paid ads on social media and search can be hugely beneficial to your business. Not only are they a cost-effective way to show your campaign to as many people as possible, but also they have the ability to be highly targeted to ensure that your target audience can see it.

Events

If you’re considering hosting an event, you may want to check to see if you could coincide it with a national day. This could help to get you more recognition and may even boost the number of people who are coming.

Host a competition

We’ve all seen those competitions on social media like ‘Like and share this post and be in with the chance to win your dream holiday’. Well, having your competitions run alongside a national day helps to improve relevancy and could increase the chance of your competitions being hugely popular and helping your brand spread around the world.

In summary, use national days as a clever marketing tool to boost engagement and to add a fun twist to your social posts.

Keep in mind that not every national day will be suitable for your business, and focusing on the fact that its quality, not quantity may help you when choosing which days to celebrate.

Now that you’ve become National Day pros, and can use them to your business’s advantage, you can download our free guide to add to your Google Calendar for 2019.

Contact our marketing engineers who can help you make the most out of including national days within your marketing strategy!