Consumers are ready to start their summer shopping and take advantage of the season’s sales. In fact, 56% of shoppers will start buying summer goods as early as May or June. And 51% say a sale is more likely to drive their purchase decisions.
Do you know what that means? It’s time to amp up your marketing strategy to start attracting customers who are looking to have fun in the sun and capitalize on their desire for great deals and memorable warm-weather adventures.
8 Ways to Market Your Small Business This Summer
Below, we talk about some of the best ways to celebrate summer through your small business marketing campaigns.
1. Host outdoor events
Keep your business at the forefront of your mind by hosting fun summer events outdoors, such as picnics, fairs, or community gatherings. These could include food festivals, live music, workshops, or sports events.
Hosting summer outdoor events can help you attract local potential customers and create a community-centric brand image. There’s just something about face-to-face interactions that helps build strong customer relationships and foster loyalty.
Chick-fil-A regularly hosts events for the summer. For example, customers can participate in family game nights and craft activities, which are fun, family-friendly experiences that foster community engagement.
Source: Facebook
2. Add summer slogans to your marketing messages
Incorporate catchy, summer-themed slogans in your advertising and promotional materials. You can use phrases like:
- Soak up the savings this summer
- Hot deals for hot days
- You’re one in a melon
- Tropic like it’s hot
- Fun in the sun
- Seas the day
- Cool savings
Using these slogans across various marketing channels evokes the carefree and joyful essence of summer. That way, you’ll have better chances of attracting potential customers looking for summer fun and savings.
Pro tip: If you plan ahead and create blog content around these topics, you can capitalize on search engine optimization wins.
3. Use summer-themed hashtags on social media
Utilize popular summer hashtags to increase the reach of your social media posts. These hashtags can help more people who are interested in summer activities, and products discover your content across social media platforms.
Some of the most popular hashtags include:
- #SummerVibes
- #HelloSummer
- #Summer2024
- #SummerSale
- #Summertime
- #SummerFun
- #Summer
You can also create your very own summer-themed branded hashtags to boost engagement with your target audience. Encourage them to share their own social media posts using your hashtags.
This user-generated content (UGC) can create high engagement as everyone joins in and adds their own unique perspective and creativity to the conversation.
You could even throw in incentives for users to participate, such as featuring the best posts on your official page or running a contest where the best post wins a prize. Just make sure you create a hashtag that’s easy to remember, unique to your campaign, and represents what summer is all about.
For example, GoPro did it seamlessly with its #GoProSummer campaign. The camera manufacturer combined its brand name with the word summer, creating a simple hashtag that’s easy to remember and share.
During the campaign, GoPro encouraged users to share their summer moments on Instagram. Every two weeks, the brand would select a winner, who would receive a GoPro Kit and prizes from its partners.
Prizes included a trip to the Florida Keys, $2,000 in Hipcash redeemable at any Hipcamp location, Traeger Grill, $2,000 travel voucher from Get Your Guide, and more.
Here’s one of the winning posts for the campaign, an epic Instagram Reel of a skateboarder. It’s quite an impressive post because it had to be pretty difficult to film.
Source: Instagram
4. Celebrate summer holidays
One of the best ways to ring in the summer and promote your business during the warm months is to celebrate holidays.
This includes planning promotions and events around summer holidays such as Independence Day, Memorial Day, Father’s Day, or Labor Day.
Those are some of the most popular summer holidays. But you could also share promotions and host sales for lesser-known holidays like:
- National Donut Day: Offer a special promotion such as “Buy One, Get One Free” on donuts or a free small coffee on any donut purchase. Don’t own a coffee or donut shop? Partner with local businesses that offer these products.
- World Environment Day: Host a beach or park cleanup event to protect local environments.
- National Best Friends Day: Encourage target customers to share photos with their friends at your business using a branded hashtag.
- National Nursing Assistants Week: Offer a special discount or free service to nursing assistants as a token of appreciation.
- First Day of Summer & Recess at Work Day: Host an outdoor event or picnic-themed gathering for customers and employees.
- National Postal Worker Day: Offer postal workers a discount or free item as a thank you for their service.
- National Ice Cream Day: Offer a discount on ice cream treats or partner with a local ice cream shop to offer coupons on their products with purchases from your store.
- National Lollipop Day: Host an outdoor event where customers can enjoy free lollipops while exploring your products or services.
For example, this company combined American and Canadian Independence Days into a special sale themed around the holidays.
5. Launch a summer sale
Offer special discounts and limited-time promotions, drive more sales, and clear out seasonal inventory. Consider creating value-added bundles, package deals, or gift sets that appeal to summer shoppers and provide added incentives for larger purchases.
Plan and schedule your sales and events to coincide with peak shopping periods, holidays, and seasonal trends when consumer demand is high. Spread the word on a variety of channels, including emails, social media posts, digital ads, and store signage.
WestJet, a Canadian airline, uses X (formerly Twitter) to promote its discounted summer flights. In the post, it uses fun summer language (Ready, set, sun sale!), relevant emojis, and a compelling CTA.
Source: X
6. Collaborate with influencers & brand ambassadors
Energize your summer marketing efforts and amplify your reach by collaborating with content creators.
As a small business owner, you might be concerned about the costs of working with an influencer, but it’s definitely possible to find a creator who charges a reasonable fee but will still bring value to your business.
For example, nano- and micro-influencers still generate great engagement on social media and probably won’t cost as much as larger influencers.
Just make sure their target audience interests align with your target market. And don’t limit yourself to social platforms. You can find influencers and brand ambassadors on multiple channels, including personal blogs and podcasts.
Collaborate with these creators to develop interesting and authentic content that hits the mark with their target audience while featuring your brand, products, or services.
Here are some summer influencer content ideas to consider, depending on your brand and industry:
- Summer product reviews and recommendations
- Healthy summer recipes and nutrition tips
- Summer reading lists and book reviews
- Summer beauty and skincare routines
- Outdoor adventure and activities
- Fitness and wellness challenges
- Summer DIY projects and crafts
- Travel and destination guides
- Festival and event coverage by event photographers
- Summer fashion lookbooks
7. Incorporate vibrant summer visuals
Are your marketing visuals capturing the summer vibe?
They need to evoke the energy and vibrancy of the sunny season. If not, your promotions could fall flat and blend in with the regular summer marketing noise.
So, grab attention with bright and colorful visuals. In those visuals, make sure you feature fun summer activities to foster a positive emotional connection and enhance engagement with your content.
Take a look at Bath & Body Works’ homepage. Notice the beautiful, vibrant colors it uses, along with a rubber duck relaxing on the beach. Adding the duck to its imagery brings a playful and whimsical touch that conveys the theme of relaxation and summer fun.
The combination of vibrant colors and seasonal visuals creates a positive user experience because it makes for a welcoming and inviting atmosphere on the brand’s website. Utilizing professional event photography can help ensure these visuals are high-quality and truly capture the essence of summer.
As a result, customers are more likely to be excited to shop for fruity, refreshing, and light summer scents at Bath & Body Works.
Source: Bath & Body Works
8. Send out easy, breezy summer email newsletters
Craft email newsletters with a light and fun tone that represents the relaxing summer vibe. Keep your target audience informed about seasonal promotions, new products, and updates.
Make sure you include calls-to-action (CTAs) that direct subscribers to your website, social media pages, or physical store location.
To boost engagement and deliver targeted content and offers, segment your email list. Break it into small groups based on customer preferences, behavior, or demographics.
Incorporate eye-catching visuals, branded graphics, and optimized layouts that enhance readability, support your message, and align with your brand’s visual identity.
Starbucks does a great job of this in the email below. It still uses the color green, which stays true to its brand, but it also includes vibrant summer colors.
The email works because it provides an offer (50% off drinks), features a relaxed summer-appropriate tone, and includes a fun CTA (See you Friday!).
Source: Really Good Emails
Takeaway
Summer is always a good time to power up your small business marketing strategy.
During the summer months, consumers often don’t mind spending more, whether they’re booking a flight, shopping for a beach getaway, or buying equipment for unforgettable outdoor experiences.
Take advantage of this opportunity by tapping into your customer base’s deepest desires to have fun and soak up the sun. It’s never too late to allocate your marketing budget to a summer campaign.
Whether investing in content marketing (read: blog posts) or other forms of digital marketing (read: Google Ads), use these tried and true business marketing strategies outlined in this article to find the best return on investment and score big time with your ideal customers.
It’s all about providing the best possible customer journey to a purchase. Good luck and happy marketing!
Author Bio
Ryan Robinson is a blogger, podcaster and (recovering) side project addict that teaches 500,000 monthly readers how to start a blog and grow a profitable side business at ryrob.com.
