February may be the month of love for many, but in marketing and retail it's one of the most dreadful periods of year. I remember very clearly my professor in university saying that in most industries February is a dead sales month because people are miserable, the weather is cold and everyone has spent way too much over Christmas and New Years. So I thought, today, we'll look at the type of content that will help you beat consumer depression and get more loyal customers for your brand.
Inspire and Lift Up
Apart from the fact that inspirational posts make up a good portion of successful content marketing in 2018, they are also a perfect way to encourage your audience to feel better and spend with you. Promote self-care and how important is to love yourself so others can love you too. Make people understand that investing in themselves will lift their spirit up and add more value to their personality. If you are a clothing brand, for example, promote a healthy body image, which doesn't mean skinny, nor fat. Now is the time to collaborate with a health and fitness business and take advantage of crossposting on Facebook and Instagram to inspire your consumers and motivate them to make the changes they need to feel good about themselves.
Relate
The best tactic for any business to register more sales is to relate to their audience. First you will have to know them really well. Remember the importance of extensive research? Once you are aware of the general mood of your crowd, their likes and dislikes, struggles and goals, create content that relates to these bits. Let's take Valentine's into account. Millennial consumers who are not married or just got married will be excited to celebrate with their other half. If that's who you are targeting boost up your romantic, cheesy and heartfelt posts. Of course, there will be many in this group who are single or just broke up with their partner, some may even be going through a divorce. Balance your content with posts about self-love and fun images, gifs and videos that would make these individuals feel they are not alone and the situation they are going through is not unique to them. And here come your slightly mature married couples who have been together for over 5 years, probably too busy with kids to remember Valentine's gifts. The best content strategy for a target audience like this is entertaining and personal posts. Share similar experiences about yourself (if your brand allows it), people you know or just a couple you "met" the other day.
Excite
How could you excite someone who is feeling down and generally not in the mood for spending? Bring up something new, something exclusive and something free. Did you see what Kim Kardashian did with her Kimoji fragrances? She introduced a brand new collection of three different perfumes, sent gifts to selected individuals who were all recorded while opening their presents (building up the sense of exclusivity) and then announced that these fragrances are here only for a limited time and will not be restocked. As you can imagine, her sales skyrocketed and two out of the three fragrances are already sold out. In just 3 days!!! No, it isn't just because she's famous, it's mainly because she has great marketing strategists.
All that said, it's a great time for you to bring up your freebies and special offers. Also, talk about exciting events coming up soon and things that your target audience may be looking forward to like half term holiday, International Woman's Day, Mother's Day, spring holidays, the FIFA World Cup, and of course, the summer!
In everything you do, don't forget the importance of video content! Social media posts and blogs are great but they won't get you as much engagement as videos. The more engagement you get, the more conversions you are likely to make, which is what business is all about in the end.
