Spring in Canberra is a bit of a reset button. One weekend you are defrosting your windscreen, the next you are picnicking by the lake, wandering Floriade or finally booking that lawn bowls session you kept promising the office. Local food markets lean into fresh produce, venues throw open their outdoor areas, and winter tourism pivots to blue-sky getaways. When businesses treat that momentum as an ongoing program rather than a once-off push, they set themselves up for marketing results that roll all the way into summer, Christmas and well beyond.
At Threesides, we see this shift every year. For example, clients like The RUC, change up their content to reflect how their clientele change with the season, enticing people back to the greens for barefoot bowlers and to soak up the sun and the latest Spritz. In Thredbo, Lantern Apartments start hosting and promoting to a different audience – skis are swapped for hiking boots, mountain bikes and picnic rugs. And every Saturday, the Capital Region Farmers Market becomes a changing showcase of the season itself, promoting the latest and most colourful produce.
That is the rhythm seasonal marketing taps into, but it does require planning ahead. The good news though is once you have a successful campaign plan, the tactics become somewhat repeatable, reducing the year-on-year effort.
Why seasonal marketing still works
Seasonal campaigns increase demand and shift media costs to increase conversion rates, based on what is happening around us at the time. Black Friday is the obvious one coming up this quarter, pulling Christmas spending into November but Canberra has its own seasonal triggers too. Longer evenings change how people spend their time and money – a weeknight drink outdoors suddenly feels possible again. Spring events and Floriade bring visitors and locals into the city, venues draw diners into their outdoor seating and bookings for Christmas parties spike.
It is only sensible that your marketing tactics tap into this seasonal behavioural change and target specific products, services and offers that entice an interested audience to make the most of the season. That might mean enticing locals out of the house more and giving them more reasons to eat or drink before heading home for the day or educating tourists on the benefits of staying a little longer and eating, drinking and spending more while visiting the nation’s capital at the best time of the year.
A spring campaign playbook
A repeatable seasonal plan saves businesses from starting from scratch every year. Here’s how we approach seasonal campaigns with two very simple examples from our friends at the RUC and Capital Region Farmers Market.
1. Warm up your audience
Start four to six weeks out by capturing first-party data. Short video content works a treat here – nothing says spring like a group of mates laughing in the sun over a bowls match at The RUC, or a grower at Capital Region Farmers Market proudly showing talking about the first berries of the season. These teasers build anticipation and can be paired with membership sales or signup offers for future email direct marketing.
2. Create fresh landing pages that convert
Sending seasonal traffic to a generic, year-round website page is like rocking up to Questacon on a school holiday – technically fine, but not the best experience. A good seasonal landing page feels like it belongs in the moment and a limited time offer only. It could be as simple as swapping in seasonal photography, adding booking tools, or updating proof points to reflect this year’s results. Our role is to make sure campaign landing pages are not just seasonal in look, but also built to perform – fast loading, clear calls to action and conversion-focused so the audience doesn’t lose interest and leave the page before they have converted.
3. Activate the season
Line up your campaign timing, budget and offers with what your data is already telling you e.g. in our example clients, search spikes with terms likes “Canberra lawn bowls” or “farmers market near me” are easy signals to know when is the right time to switch on a campaign.
4. Extend the tail
Line up your campaign timing, budget and offers with what your data and insights is already telling you e.g. in our example clients, search spikes with terms likes “Canberra lawn bowls” or “farmers market near me” in previous years are a good indication to know when the right time is to switch on a campaign this year.
5. Don’t forget the mid-season peaks
The change in season is one thing, but November is also a frenzy for very specific well-timed campaign/s. Black Friday collides with Christmas party bookings, gift enquiries and a higher interest for summer products that have long lead times (e.g. air conditioners). It might feel like the competition for attention is fierce, but so is the number of intent-driven buyers. Stand-alone campaigns for these peak times are just as important as the seasonal campaigns. This is when we monitor impression share on priority products and services and keep budgets flexible so they can rise on high-intent days, then ease back once the rush slows.
Do you have a campaign in mind?
When campaigns are timed well, measurable, and tied to what customers are actually experiencing, they do more than fill a single weekend. They build momentum that carries into the next season so if you are ready to plan your next season, get in touch with us early!
Photo credit: Our very own Rachel Wright