Great summer marketing facts and figures

Summer marketing is thinking about your customers in a new way for the summer. Here are some great summer marketing facts and figures that will help. There are several things that impact on summer marketing: the weather, Christmas shopping season, back-to-school shopping, people taking holidays, and changes to consumer spending.

Think about the weather

The weather is warming up. People are wearing different clothes and wanting different things for the summer. They have different needs. They behave in different ways.

Research from British email marketing company Pure360 showed that businesses should consider the weather when implementing their email campaigns.

Hot, sunny weather increased the effectiveness of campaigns promoting summer-related products or services. Recipients of emails promoting festival tickets were twice as likely to open them on a sunny day as opposed to a rainy day.

They also found that consumers are far more likely to be thinking about major purchases such as cars or houses on a day with poor weather. Campaigns promoting restaurants are twice as effective on days with bad weather.

Their statistics showed:

• Email open rates for summer-related products on hot days was 15% (3% on rainy days)
• Click through rates for summer-related products was 27% in good weather (12% in bad weather)
• Holiday industry emails open rates were five times higher on hot days
• In hot weather, campaigns promoting satnav systems had a 48% click through rate (23% on bad weather days)
• Campaigns promoting business-related events and products had a click through rate of 27% (12% when raining)

Think about Christmas in your summer marketing

Some US statistics from last year (2010 source is in brackets)

• 19% of U.S. consumers planned to shop on the day after Christmas, December 26, 2010 (International Council of Shopping Centers, ICSC)
• 43% percent of people planned to make a purchase on December 26^th (American Express Spending & Saving Tracker
• 47% of U.S. consumers said they would be doing more shopping in the week between Christmas and New Year’s (ICSC and Goldman Sachs Group)
• 77.3% of shoppers planned on buying at least one gift card during the holiday season (NRF)
• 23 million people were shopping on Christmas Eve (ICSC)
• 31%-34% of shopping dollars generally change hands in the 10 days prior to Christmas (ShopperTrak)
• $36.4 billion was spent online by Thursday, the day before Christmas Eve, which was 15.4% more than 2009 (MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse)

Think about back-to-school shopping

A US study undertaken last year showed the key back-to-school buying behaviours.

Back to school shopping includes: general school supplies, clothing (including shoes and uniforms), books, USB flash drives, laptop computer accessories (software, speakers), calculator (basic, scientific, graphing), mobile phone/smartphone, sporting goods, and netbooks.

While shopping for children’s school supplies parents are also thinking about themselves. It is important to note that back-to-school spending can also drive non-school-related purchases.

• 51% of consumers will leave their shopping until the last minute to take advantage of price drops, while 49% will start shopping early to spread the cost out.
• 56% of consumers planned to spend more than US$250 on back-to-school items. 31% of consumers planned to spend more than US$500.
• Most consumers planned to spend at least $250 on back-to-school shopping for their elementary, middle/junior high, or high school student or college/junior college student.
• 14% of consumers say their economic outlook will influence their back-to-school shopping compared to last year.
• 17% of consumers will compare prices from their mobile phones when back-to-school shopping in-store.
• Shopping at discount stores (60%) and printing online coupons (33%) are the top back-to-school money savers.
• 21% of consumers feel influenced to make non-school-related purchases for themselves while shopping for back-to-school items.

Summer marketing consumer trends

In a report the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed how we are changing our preferences for household appliances. We are spending less time washing up and more time on the computer. We are spending less time listening to our stereos and presumably more time listening to our iPods or MP3 players or watching DVDs on our home theatre. These may influence your summer marketing plans. Statistics showing proportion of consumer goods in households:

• dishwashers have increased by 9 per cent since 2005 (42% in 2005 to 51% in 2011)
• top loader washing machines decreased from 83% in 2005 to 68% in 2011
• front loader washing machines increased from 13% in 2005 to 31% in 2011
• DVD players increased from 72% in 2005 to 83% in 2011
• stereo systems dropped from 78% in 2005 to 41% in 2011
• laptop (at least one) increased from 38% in 2008 to 61% in 2011
• desktop computer (at least one) increased from 55% in 2008 to 60% in 2011

POSTSCRIPT This post on summer marketing from 2011 although the information is dated, the findings are still valid. There was a lot of research for the original report but links to original reports no longer available. However, the metrics all show that the weather significantly affects buyer behaviour.