As the summer months roll around, your business may either be picking up or on the decline. It all depends on what your industry, target demographic, and product are! 

Whether it's the busiest or slowest time of the year, we’re here to help you navigate Q2. Keep reading for our insider tips on how both summer and winter brands can get the most out of the second quarter! 

What Should Your Outdoor Brand Do During Q2?

First and foremost, Q2 marks the second quarter of the year, and lasts from April 1 to June 30.  There are plenty of holidays and events that you can use to inspire or guide you, such as:

• Easter
• Earth Day
• Tax Season
• Graduation Season
• Mother's Day
• Memorial Day
• Father's Day
• Juneteenth
• & more!

Off-Season Marketing: Winter Brands

For winter brands, unfortunately, the days of skiing, snowboarding, and other cold-weather activities are coming to a close in many places. That’s okay! There are plenty of things you can do during the off-season to prepare for the months ahead.

Since you may not be selling products or services as often as usual, now is a great time to reflect and analyze data about the previous season. Consider an internal audit to evaluate your brand’s performance. Ask questions like:

• What strategies worked and what didn’t?
• Did you meet your marketing goals? How did spending influence this?
• What channels brought in the most conversions?
• Were you able to connect with all target audiences? Did you struggle to connect with a certain demographic?
• What does success look like next year?

After gathering these thoughts and analyzing data, you’ll be in a much better spot to evaluate your next quarter’s (and season’s) goals and whether they’re realistic. 

Peak Season Marketing: Summer Brands

Summer brands, it’s your time to shine! As Q2 introduces the summer season, it’s likely that you’re anticipating or already starting to see an increase in engagement and sales. While it can be exciting, and you likely have big goals ahead for the season, it’s still important to consistently re-evaluate your marketing strategy. 

Now is a good time to do a final check-in with your teams to make sure everything is fulfilled and ready for the upcoming season. This means finalizing the following:

• Product stock
• Marketing strategies across channels
• Sales projections
• Ad spend projections
• Cashflow
• Other aspects relevant to your peak-season performance

Q2 Marketing Examples for Winter Brands 

While you may not have as much business as during the holiday season, Q2 is still a valuable time for many reasons. Here are a few examples on how you can keep prospective and current customers engaged. After all, you don’t want them to forget you exist!

Rewards Programs

Incentives are a great way to generate conversation, especially when they award repeat customers. There are plenty of ways that you can reward customers through relatively simple or straightforward ways. You can think outside the box of just tallying points for each customer.

One example is to create an email flow that rewards customers or website visitors who subscribe to a newsletter. This way, you build community. You can use email marketing as a way to both showcase your products and values and offer a discount or promotion. This is also a good way to use urgency or exclusivity messaging, and customers can feel that they’re part of something bigger than just an online transaction by learning more about your brand.

Create Valuable Content

This is another relatively straightforward way your winter brand can stay relevant during the summer months. With lots of content published nowadays, you want to make sure that what you’re putting out there is valuable to your customers. Educational content specific to your brand’s niche or market is an excellent way to provide value and establish yourself as a credible source.

If you can optimize this content for social media and search engines, you’re in an even better spot. See how Alogfy can help with your SEO needs on our service page! 

Let’s use an example. If your brand sells high-quality ski goggles, you could write content about the importance of protecting your eyes on the snow, how to choose the right goggles, or even where you can ski during the summer. It’s all about knowing what your audience cares about – this creates trust in your brand.

Build Your Social Media 

The off-season, as we mentioned, is the perfect time to conduct an internal audit and see where you can focus more effort on new or existing platforms. Consider venturing into a social channel that you may not have had time to explore before. There are so many options! Consider:

1. Instagram & Facebook 
2. Pinterest 
3. Reddit or other Community-based Forums
4. TikTok
5. Snapchat
6. LinkedIn

In addition to posting organic content to these accounts, you can generate conversations in other ways. Custom hashtags, spotlighting user-generated content (UGC), working with influencers, and promoting the content we mentioned earlier are just a few.

Q2 Marketing Examples for Summer Brands 

While you likely have your marketing strategy and goals carved out for Q2 already, it never hurts to improve your game wherever possible. Here are a few ideas:

Experiment with Video Content

Video can have massive value if you’re not already taking advantage of it. Creating videos is an eye-catching marketing strategy to show off your summer product or even give customers more information about your brand. More than 90% of people report watching explainer videos about a product, with 86% swayed to make a purchase!

While YouTube is certainly a strong platform for video content, it can be hard to navigate if you’re just starting out. Instead, you could create TikToks, Instagram reels, stories, and other formats to still utilize the eye-catching and informative effect of video content on platforms you may already be using.

Get Creative with Your Assets

Because it’s pretty simple, this is one of our go-to tips that you have seen before in other articles, like this one on spring break marketing. We can’t help it– it’s too good! Summer is a time where you can easily play with vibrant colors, copy/phrasing, and even including certain elements. Think beaches, waves, the sun, mountains, palm trees, and more.

Test these ads, and when you find elements that work well together to convert, re-iterate them!

Conclusion

No matter what part of the year is your brand’s time to shine, Q2 is a valuable point in the year. As you approach the halfway point, it’s a great time to build community and focus on your brand’s goals and needs post-holiday season!