Advertising year-round.

It is important to understand the seasonality of your business and your industry as you plan your annual advertising budget and strategy. Many industries have peak times of year when they earn most of their revenue. If you are a seasonal business, the best time to advertise your business heavily is in the weeks leading up to and during the peak season for your business.

Know your season.

Often the most effective way to spend your advertising dollars is to invest a larger percentage of your annual budget before and during your peak season (or seasons—some industries have up to four). This amount can be anywhere from 45% to 75%, but it should be proportionate to the amount of sales you make during your peak season.

Make the most impact when your customers are likely to buy your product, then use your remaining budget to maintain a presence in their minds throughout the year. In other words, “fish when the fish are biting.“ Advertising when your customers are more likely to buy increases the effectiveness of your campaign.

To help determine your peak seasons, analyze your sales from last year on a month to month basis. Or, compare your business to similar businesses in your category. After identifying your peak seasons you can develop an annual marketing strategy.

Below are some well known business industries and their advertising seasonality:

Home and Garden: The spring planting and cleaning season is big for this industry, while winter is a major downtime for advertising.

Real Estate: Early spring is the peak advertising season as people look to move during the summer months.

Sporting Goods: There are three peaks for this industry, including the spring soccer season, the fall and back to school season, and holiday gift-giving at the end of the year.

Know your strategy.

Once you've determined your peak seasons and the amount you want to spend during those seasons, you need to build a strategy for your entire annual advertising spending. Different businesses use different annual strategies to make their advertising successful. Below are three main ways companies advertise throughout the year.

Flighting

This is the most common form of advertising and popular with businesses that have heavy seasonality with one to four major sales peaks each year. A large portion of the advertising is spent at the peak sales times in the year, and then little to no money is spent for up to three months at a time—until just before the next big sales push.

Benefits:

• Advertisers can outspend their competitors over a short period of time
• Advertising is focused during the peak business times, driving more immediate response

There are three peak times of year for jewelry sales: the winter holidays are at the top of the list, followed by Valentine's Day, and finally Mother's Day (which is also close to graduation season).

Continuity

Businesses or services that are non-seasonal advertise more evenly throughout the year. Service providers and packaged goods sellers whose products are used year round benefit from continually staying top of mind with customers. Generally the amount of advertising is distributed across all twelve months, with short gaps without advertising—e.g., three weeks on and two weeks off.

Benefits:

• Advertisers that keep a consistent awareness in their prospect's mind create a demand for their products and services
• Advertising continuously allows for better negotiation of airtime discounts as well as best choice of available airtime

The legal industry is great example of a non-seasonal category. Continuously advertising ensures top of mind awareness when a need arises.

Pulsing

A pulsing strategy combines flighting and continuous scheduling by maintaining a low level of advertising all year round, and increasing to heavy advertising during peak selling periods. Product sellers that see business year round but surge in sales seasonally often use this strategy.

Benefits:

• Allows for a less expensive continuity option, or a more powerful flighting option
• Top of mind awareness is reinforced with promotional advertising during peak sales periods

Fitness centers advertise heavily during January, when New Year's resolutions are still fresh. The next big push is just before summer swimsuit season. The final major advertising time is back to school, when moms have more time to begin working out. They use seasonal promotions during those seasons with consistent advertising to drive memberships year round.