As summer fades and the school year approaches, businesses across various industries gear up for the back-to-school rush. While retail stores often steal the spotlight with promotions on school supplies and clothing, service-based businesses have just as much potential to thrive during this bustling season. We’ve put together a number of ideas to help ensure your service business can capture attention, drive sales, and build lasting relationships with your customers as they prepare for the new academic year as well.
Understand Your Target Audience When It Comes To Back To School
Before looking into specific strategies, it’s important to understand who your target audience is. Generally, you need to approach 3 separate audiences IF they apply to your business: students, teachers and parents. Different services appeal to different demographics, for example: food & beverage services can target students, parents and teachers looking for meal planning options; fitness & wellness services may focus on teachers, students and parents looking for stress-relieving and health related businesses; cleaning services can appeal to busy families, teachers, and college students moving into dorms or apartments. The list goes on and on once you start thinking about it.
Think about your existing customers, categorize them by possible theme, identify their needs and how you can tailor your marketing efforts to meet those needs for new customers and, bam, you’ve got a good start to your marketing plan.
Developing a Back-to-School Theme For Your Campaign
Creating a theme for your back-to-school marketing campaign can make your promotions more memorable. Consider using themes like “Adventure awaits”, “Back-to-School Made Easy”, or “Study Smart, Live Well” that can apply to a variety of services. A strong theme will help unify your messaging across different platforms, throughout all your marketing materials, and it gives your creative team something to run with visually.
Offer a Student And/Or Teacher Discount For Your Service
We don’t often recommend discounts but, who doesn’t love a discount? Especially when buying all that back-to-school stuff the kids need (or think they need) is so dang expensive. This back-to-school season, create a discount for students and/or teachers. From the elementary level to college students, offering a discount of any sort creates customer loyalty that lasts. But, be sure that your promotions have clear terms and are easy to redeem. If it’s too complicated or a person has to jump through too many hoops to redeem it your hot idea will fall flat. A few ideas to get your brainstorm started include:
- Early Bird Discounts: Offer special rates for those who book services before the school year starts.
- Bundle Deals: Create packages that combine multiple services at a discounted price.
- Referral Bonuses: Encourage existing customers to refer friends and family by offering them discounts or free services.
Create a Customer Loyalty Program For Students And Teachers
When school starts, people are often really busy and struggle to find time to take care of their health and everyday service needs. It’s your job to give them a reason to keep coming back. This fall, try creating a customer loyalty program to encourage students, teachers, and parents to continue using your services. This could be something like a punch card for free sessions or a mobile rewards system offering discounts or special offers. You might even go as far as offering a bring a friend or referral aspect into it. Every person in your audience has an audience after all.
Bonus Offers Bring In New Customers
Trying to think of a simpler way to say “thank you” to teachers, students, and parents this school year? Purchase school supplies with your name and logo printed on them to give to your customers with every purchase. Consider offering a gift card that can be used towards a complimentary service when purchasing a bundle of services or scheduling monthly appointments. Or make your services more affordable with a pay-as-you-go plan that allows clients to pay for services as needed, without the fear of long-term commitments. Trial offers provide free or discounted trial sessions to let potential clients experience your services firsthand which sells them into loving what you have to offer so you don’t have to sell them anything yourself.
Stand Out From The Crowd! Launch Your Campaign After School Has Started
In the weeks before school has started and soon after, back-to-school offers are everywhere. Why not wait until classes have begun to make your campaign stand out? For health and wellness services, appeal to teachers who are already stressed out. For home improvement companies, target parents who now have more time on their hands to do the things they’ve been putting off. For food and beverage services, encourage post secondary students to practice “adulting” now that they’re living on their own and buy a multi-visit package before they spend all their student loan money.
It’s not always necessary to offer a discount, sometimes just being in the right place with the right message can sell your services. Run outdoor ads close to schools or target your digital advertising audience using a back-to-school focus to reach your goals. Remember, with digital advertising on Facebook and Instagram you can target not only by geographic location but, also by behaviour or demographic where you can target by age and by the school they attend in some cases.
Take Part In School-Related Events And Sponsorships
Back-to-school means the return of school functions. From school dances and fundraisers to sporting events and award ceremonies, the school year calendar is jam-packed with various events your business can take part in. Offering prizes, sponsoring awards, or advertising in programs can showcase your business to new customers.
You can also provide promotional materials or even sponsor a club and/or sports team. While you’re providing items and donations they need, your business is getting great exposure. Host a fundraiser night where percentages of earnings go to that school or club organization, or donate to your local sports team and in return get your logo put on promotional items or on their website.
Appeal To Your Social Media Followers With School-Age Children
Social media platforms are perfect for reaching your audience with engaging content. Make back-to-school your focus by:
- Creating Valuable Content: Share tips, advice, and insights related to your service. For example, if you’re a law firm, post tips on dealing with shared parental responsibility for separated couples.
- Engaging with Your Audience: Post about back to school issues and ask your followers to comment about their experiences or add a quiz in your stories about how parents feel about kids going back to school.
- Hosting Giveaways: Run contests where participants can post their craziest back to school story to get a discount for your service, increasing your brand’s visibility and engagement and encouraging new business.
- Visual content, like images and videos, performs well on platforms like Instagram and Facebook. Create a video featuring your target audience with a back-to-school theme. Maybe it’s a Dad who now has time for the other person in his life – his roofer. Or a photo of a teacher taking advantage of your food delivery service while marking papers.
- Get meme-y; jump on a trending sound or create humorous content themed around the kids going back to school, or things you’ve heard your teens say about your industry now that they’re back in school. Maybe it’s even a post about what your teen or college student said when you asked them X about your industry.
Measure and Analyze Your Back-to-School Marketing Efforts
Finally, make sure to track how well your marketing campaigns are doing so you can improve them in the future. Use analytics to check things like website traffic, social media engagement, and email open rates to see what’s working. Ask your clients for feedback on your promotions and services to find out what could be better. This information is super helpful for tweaking your strategies to match what your customers actually want.
By gathering customer data, you can personalize your future communications and offers, making sure they really hit home. By constantly analyzing and adjusting your approach, you’ll keep your marketing efforts effective and relevant, helping to build stronger customer relationships and grow your business.
Your Service-Based Business Can Take Advantage Of Back-To-School, Too. Call Us Today & Let’s Brainstorm Together
The back-to-school season is a prime opportunity for service-based businesses to shine. By understanding your audience, leveraging social media, and offering promotions and discounts, you can craft a marketing strategy that not only boosts sales but also builds lasting relationships with your students, parents and teachers.
Interested in taking advantage of back-to-school marketing but don’t really have the time? Give us a call! At 3SIXTY Marketing Solutions, we can help you put a back-to-school marketing plan into place so you can get your business name in front of a whole new audience. Our team can not only help you come up with ideas but, can also create all your marketing assets needed, execute the campaign, optimize the campaign, and report back to you on results too! You don’t have to do it all yourself, call 647-250-1494, or book a free consultation today to get started.
