Marketing – 2023 It’s Time to Plan!

Earlier this month on ThinkTank Thursday, we discussed marketing and promos for the first quarter of 2023. If you missed it, click here to watch.

Have you ever missed out on a sales or promotional opportunity because you found out about the dates too late? Or have you ever had to scramble at the last minute to put a promotion together? Been there, done that, right? Stop missing out on revenue opportunities and avoid the last-minute rush by creating a marketing promotional calendar.

In addition to all the great first quarter promos, here are some tips to help you start 2023 with a bang. It’s time to review and clean up your marketing and set yourself up for success!

• Make sure your marketing is fresh. Review your collateral, give it a fresh re-do. Even the same info can look appealing if presented in a new format. Make sure to leave white space, and when in doubt, less is more.
• Review your pricing structure and simplify it for your guests. This is the time to make changes or corrections to your pricing.
• Review your website! Make sure that it is an extension of your marketing collateral. Does it look fun? Does it show people having fun? Does it have typos? Is it dull? You don’t need a brand new one. Just review it and make changes that will make it easy for your guests to navigate. Don’t bury important information. Do a heat map, and make sure you are studying the traffic.
• Don’t forget to do the same for social media. Make sure you have a consistent method of posting fun, engaging posts. Make short videos, have your team as brand ambassadors, or have a savvy social media influencer help with some fun posts. Try a new SM channel in 2023.
• Check out our 2023 Reach Calendar. It’s chock-full of holidays and fun “days” for your center.

Before You Start, Grab Your Copy of the 2023 Reach Calendar & Sales Planner

I’ll walk you through our 5 steps to show you how to create and fill out your entire calendar so at the end of this blog post, you have all your promotions planned out for the year.

1. If you don’t have the 2023 Reach Calendar, purchase it now for immediate download. Review all the monthly promotions and fun holidays.
2. Decide which promotions your center can easily achieve. Think about the promotion, logistics, and coupon codes you will need.
3. Start your marketing calendar. Take it one quarter at a time. Plan the event/promos and work on getting it all on the calendar first.
4. Review your calendar with your team and fine tune it. Work with your marketing/graphics team to set up your promotions/flyers/social media posts/invitations.

How To Brainstorm Your Marketing Promotional Ideas

So now that you’ve downloaded our 2023 Reach Calendar, you can start brainstorming ideas for your sales.

Look Back At Last Year

To start planning your promotional calendar, you’ll start by looking back at your past year. Ask yourself:

• What kind of promotions did you run?
• Were they run around certain holidays or seasons?
• What went well?
• What didn’t do well and why?

And then, finally, you need to determine which of those promotions you want to transfer over to this year’s calendar. But how can you keep track of them all? There are many tools you can use, but one of the easiest is to create a Google Marketing Calendar. Here you can organize your promotions, add links, images, and documents.

Here are some ideas for the first quarter. Go through the 2023 Reach Calendar and complete promotions for each month, and then add them to your calendar.

January

• Start your Birthday Club with a Birthday Party! Host it for your center and for your Birthday Club guests! Throw a fun mock party!
• Encourage retail stores to have an event this month. Most did not get to have a holiday party!
• It’s National Pizza week. Do you sell pizza? Have some pizza promos/fun games/create your own pizza party!
• Don’t forget to start thinking of the Girls Scouts. They have their jamboree in March, so it’s a great time to reach out.

February

Show your guests some love.

• Start planning for Spring Break. Before you know it, it will be here. Call your daycares and promote some spring break packages.
• Plan a fun Valentine’s event for the kids; father/daughter or mother/son night, and do some fun giveaways.
• Don’t forget about a Superbowl event for the whole family!
• Did you know it’s Make a Friend Day on the 11th? Have fun with it. Host a social event for kids – or heck, for adults. Lots of fun, single parent mixers as well.
• It’s Fat Tuesday! Have a party and celebrate.

March

• Spring Break starts this month. Make sure you are aware of the dates with your local schools. Set up a photo booth, prepare fun giveaways/contests. Bring on Spring!
• Call schools for field trips, start your summer planning, and make sure your summer camps know about your awesome packages.
• Prepare for Easter. Host an egg hunt, Breakfast with the Easter Bunny!

I hope you have a great first quarter. Please let us know what promotions or events you are planning for your center.

If you are interested in planning out 2023, don’t forget to purchase your 2023 Reach Calendar with all of these holidays, tips, and so much more! While you’re at it, get the 2023 Ultimate Sales Planner as well.