Posts Tagged ‘seasonal marketing’

Posted by: Ashley Watson, Account Specialist

Whether you’re a ClickBank affiliate or vendor, it can be very easy to become stagnant in your marketing activities. Once you’ve found a particular niche or method of advertising that works for you, it can be very difficult to change your methods. Why would you want to fix something that isn’t broken, especially when any change could potentially lower your profits?

The important thing to keep in mind is that digital products, like any other market, fluctuate based on seasonality and trends in the outside world. Even highly successful products that pertain to a wide audience experience these sales fluctuations, so you need to take these changes into account if you’re going to maximize your profits.

What influences changes in market activity?

Many different factors contribute to the market being in a constant state of change. Some of these factors aren’t surprising, such as the state of the economy or seasonal changes. However, some things are less obvious, such as the current sports season, school semesters and breaks, and holidays. It’s important to ensure your marketing campaigns are taking these factors into account so you can get the most out of your efforts.

What can you do to maximize on current trends?

So, what can you do to capitalize on an ever-changing market? First, I would suggest taking time on a regular basis to research current events. What is going on in the world to influence sales trends or cause higher levels of interest in certain subjects?

Here are some specific examples of events that affect sales, and the types of products that are influenced by these factors.

State of the Economy: We are in a recession. Consumers are spending their money more carefully, so they look for products that offer a high return on their investment, or that save them money. Some products that sell well in a recession include alternative energy solutions, foreclosure guides, guides to making money at home, and even e-books on manifest reality.

The New Year: New Year’s resolutions are extremely popular every year, and lead to a big increase in sales for health-related products such as diet programs and fitness guides. The spike in sales is temporary, but significant.

Valentines Day: Romantic guides become very popular in the US market every February.

Sports Seasons: Some product types, such as fitness products or sports betting guides, tend to sell better during a particular sports season.

School Semesters: Products that may help you capitalize on the seasonality of the educational system include computer maintenance software, study guides, guides to teaching abroad, and guides for school applications.

Holiday Season: During the holiday season, customers are slightly less inclined to buy digital products, as they save to purchase physical goods as gifts for their loved ones. However, products that address pressing needs tend to be less affected by this trend. There are also products that deal directly with the holiday, such as recipe e-books and gift idea guides, which sell well during the holiday season.

There are billions of potential customers, all of whom are unique and who are affected by cultural and seasonal trends in different ways. By staying aware of these trends, and being proactive about changing your marketing methods to stay in tune with these changes, you can maximize your efforts and be more profitable than ever.

Posted by: Dush Ramachandran, VP of Business Development

Every time I go to a large department store, I think the seasons are coming earlier and earlier. The weather outside is a balmy 90°F and the fall fashions are already on the shelf. Almost before the ghouls and goblins of Halloween displays are put away, holiday music seems to flood the stores.

But when you think about it, seasonal marketing makes a lot of sense. Even on ClickBank, where a number of products have year-round appeal, there are products whose appeal is definitely seasonal. Capitalizing on these seasonal trends can be a very lucrative approach for both affiliates and publishers.

For instance, looking up searches on Google Trends for specific seasonal terms like ‘Halloween costumes’ or ‘Christmas ornaments’ shows not only the time of year when these searches peak, but also the top 10 geographic areas from which these searches originate. This knowledge allows affiliates to not only plan their spending on AdWords and SEO efforts, but also to geo-target their advertising by having their ads shown in specific geographical markets.

Just as an example, I looked up ‘ski fitness’ on Google Trends and found that, predictably, the searches started in middle of the last quarter of the year, peaked from around the end of the year to the middle of the first quarter of the following year, and remained flat at zero volume for the remainder of the year. The top four countries these searches came from were UK, Australia, Canada and Switzerland. Doing a search on the ClickBank Marketplace for ‘ski fitness’ yielded a number of fitness products, including one that is specifically aimed at ski fitness.

So with a little forethought and planning, you could have a series of different promotions for each season, geographical area and topic of interest.

‘Tis the season to promote, it would seem.