This year I’ve been fascinated by the momentum marketing holidays have been gaining. Stuff like:

• Black Friday
• Cyber Monday
• Amazon Prime Day
• Small Business Saturday

Naturally, BF/CM have the most wind in their sails, but these others are taking the behaviors around consumers and building on them. Expanding them.

Wanting Marketing
This idea, that a group of people can create days where people are expecting marketing – perhaps even waiting for or welcoming marketing – is fascinating to me. Most days we’re trying to convince folks that now is a good time to open their wallets.

But on these days?

Those wallets are already open.

Now, creating such a day can feel like a daunting task, but I’m also reminded of a story from my marketing journey.

Tuesday Trivia
Back in the day I was selling home snowmaking machines. And one winter, 2008/09 to be exact, the economic downturn had left me with more inventory than I was expecting that year. Inventory that I really needed to sell to hit not just my goals, but have enough money to pay rent.

I can’t remember all the specifics for how I designed this concept, but the gist was this:

• On a regular schedule (weekly, I think), I would create a snowmaking trivia question
• I gave it a name (something like “Trivia Tuesdays”)
• I’d send this question to my email list of ~2,500 home snowmaking enthusiasts
• They’d reply with the answer
• If they got it right, they’d save $75 on a snowmaker.

Within a few rounds of this, it started to become something people were looking forward to. Waiting for, even. And, as a result, I started getting a surprising number of people trying to get the right answer. Not all of them used their coupons, but on a single day I think I sold 4 or 5 snowmakers based on this promo.

While it wasn’t “Prime Day”, I had created my own, small moment with a few similarities to this.

What If
The idea that every marketing message can’t be promotional is a common one. Instead of non-stop offers, you mix it up with inspirational, interesting, or useful content in between.

But I want to propose an idea: what if you make the days or times or whatever when you send the promotional stuff a thing? You give it a name. You make it a tradition. You create a moment when your audience is expecting and, maybe even waiting for, an offer.

• Maybe it’s stuff you’re already discounting like midweek tickets.
• Maybe it’s something new/rare like a limited run of retro logo Ts.
• Maybe it’s a cheap lesson they can gift to a friend.
• Maybe it’s the usual free night when you stay 3 deal.

Call it Marvelous Monday Deals, I dunno, but I wonder what would happen if you could create a weekly or monthly tradition among your guests. Days where they’re not just seeing your marketing come into their feeds or inboxes, but waiting for it.

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.