Get ready for the back-to-school sales season! People are seeking great deals on essentials and fresh fits and accessories for the new school year, like clothing, stationery essentials, and customized backpacks.
Grow your revenue with 15 back-to-school marketing ideas from mid-summer to early fall. Grab the attention of students, parents, and teachers with unbeatable promotions.
Back-to-school consumer trends
Let’s look at some back-to-school shopping statistics to adjust your marketing efforts with profits in mind.
Every year, back-to-school shoppers increase their spending by billions. Last year, people planned to spend $41.5 billion on school supplies, surpassing every other niche during that time.
According to the National Retail Federation, 68% of school shoppers wait for holiday sales discounts to do their shopping. This is your chance to reach a new target audience and surprise loyal customers with exclusive back-to-school deals and school products.
Before we list our back-to-school campaign ideas, explore these 2023 trends to build a foundation for your back-to-school sales.
- The average US household spending was $890 for school items.
- The biggest spenders for back-to-school shopping are in the 35-44 age group.
- The majority of customers who planned to shop online reached 55%.
- Apparel and shoes were the main product categories for 96% of buyers.
- Electronics made a rise in demand, reaching 69% of shoppers.
- The global eLearning market is expected to reach $848 billion by 2030, increasing demand for ergonomic products like chairs and mousepads.
- 35% of back-to-school shoppers turn to social media to find the best deals when shopping online.
Keep an eye on online shopping trends and use them in your back-to-school marketing campaigns to catch the broadest audience of back-to-school shoppers.
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Essential strategies for a successful back-to-school marketing campaign
Keep up with the back-to-school rush with attractive student deals, bundles of school products, and timely marketing.
Explore our 15 unique strategies for developing a successful seasonal campaign and promoting your back-to-school products.
1. Start your back-to-school campaign on time
Get ready ahead of time and research when the back-to-school season starts in your market region. Even in the US, the first day of school varies from state to state.
Most school shoppers planned to look for supplies and essentials from July to August. A good rule of thumb is to prioritize your campaign in early July and early August for the broadest reach of potential customers.
However, the school year begins at different times across countries. Here are some key regional differences:
- Australia and New Zealand: The back-to-school season starts in January and February.
- Malaysia: The back-to-school season carries through November and December.
- Europe: More staggered school dates with longer summer sales periods, particularly in countries like Germany.
Use our Marketing Calendar to see all of the important sales dates and plan your marketing campaigns early. Prepare your store and customers for school in advance.
Strengthen your back-to-school marketing campaign by researching and defining your target audience. Consider who you’re selling to and why.
- Students: Tailor your products and promotions directly to students.
- Parents: Highlight essentials and convenience for younger children.
- Academic Personnel: Offer specialized products and discounts for educational professionals.
- Relatives and Friends: Consider those who purchase supplies or gifts for students.
2. Launch back-to-school products
Stack your virtual shelves with everything local schools, parents, and students might need as the new school year begins.
Electronics, clothing and accessories, shoes, and school supplies make up the largest share of back-to-school shopping category expenses.
Browse our back-to-school products for essentials like backpacks, notebooks, lunch boxes, apparel, and footwear.
Give your back-to-school shoppers more choices by including our bestselling t-shirts, journals, socks, and tote bags. Appeal to responsible and eco-conscious customers with ergonomic mouse pads and eco-friendly school essentials.
Personalized clothing and accessories should be a must-have in your store. Still, school-specific products, like stationary, give your catalog more legitimacy and let you create back-to-school bundles and promos.
3. Create back-to-school bundles
Offer a personalized product bundle of back-to-school essentials to give your customers everything they need for the new school year. It’s a win-win situation – you sell more products, they save time and get a great deal.
Customize your back-to-school bundles by choosing a specific customer base. Teachers, parents, and back-to-college shoppers will respond to different online marketing strategies, so adjust your products and deals accordingly.
Promote your back-to-school bundles as an affordable alternative to buying things separately.
4. Update your storefront to match the seasonal aesthetic
Match the back-to-school aesthetic by redesigning your storefront with seasonal messages and visuals for your banner image, background, and theme.
Use this opportunity to update your catalog listings for your target audience. Place promos, discounts, and appropriate products at the top of your catalog for higher visibility.
Here are a few standard back-to-school themes:
- Classroom designs: Add images of blackboards, lecture podiums, and notebooks with chalk or cursive letter fonts and formats.
- Grading systems: Use graphics with grades and images of diplomas, exams, and countdowns for deadlines.
- Seasonal images: Enrich your background images with fall colors and pictures of schools or a college campus.
- Character profiles: Include images of children with backpacks, college students, and teachers from stock photos or product models.
- Supplies and stationary: Add collages of school essentials like calculators, rulers, protractors, globes, chemistry sets, and textbooks.
5. Organize a sales event, contest, or challenge
Nothing entices consumers to buy like a promise of a free prize.
Back-to-school sales are an excellent opportunity to gather user-generated content, positive feedback, reviews, and testimonials from happy shoppers.
- Create raffles where people share posts, tag people, or jump on a catchy trend.
- Organize a photo or video contest that features your products.
- Offer a prize for spending a certain amount of money in a specific category or time frame.
These campaigns will increase your sales by creating excitement and a sense of urgency during the back-to-school season.
Set up a tangible reward that your customers can look forward to, like special discounts and deals or a chance to customize their own product.
6. Follow trends
There are many ways to jump on trends and include them in your social media campaigns. If used correctly, viral trends can improve your online sales.
From TikTok videos and viral songs to challenges and memes – use global trends to stay relevant, appeal to your target audience, and gain a competitive advantage among the many businesses offering similar products as the school year begins.
7. Create valuable resources
Creating seasonal content has the potential to increase your rankings on search engines, which is a necessary part of managing good website SEO (search engine optimization). Master your keyword research to create valuable guides, lists, and how-to articles and increase the popularity of your brand without significant expenses.
Some relevant ideas for back-to-school marketing content include:
- Shopping lists: Provide a list of basic school supplies and the best back-to-school picks for parents and students.
- Survival guides: Select the essential supplies every student needs.
- eBooks and articles: Deep dive into topics surrounding education and how to prepare for the new school year.
- Fashion lookbooks: Show shoppers the latest fashion trends for the new fall semester.
- Educational resources: List the do’s and don’ts of buying back-to-school supplies online.
Your trove of original resources will encourage more traffic and sales and give you the authority to team up with educational institutions and organizations.
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8. Team up with an organization that supports education
Consider how your back-to-school marketing campaign ideas can support education through fundraising initiatives and goal-oriented partnerships.
Help a local organization or give some profits to a good cause to foster education and make it more accessible for local communities.
When done with good intentions, corporate social responsibility can humanize your campaign and give your store an edge over competitors. Think about initiatives for diversity, academic freedom, better conditions for teachers, or workshops that involve and motivate students to learn.
As an award for participation, consider providing deals and discounts for back-to-school shopping.
9. Offer special deals
A special discount is the backbone of good back-to-school marketing campaigns. Finding a good deal is a rewarding experience, encouraging return purchases and fostering word-of-mouth advertising.
Explore some tried-and-true offers for back-to-school products:
- Percentage-based or cash-off discounts: The most common offer you can provide is a percentage or cash discount for a limited time or season. Discount specific products or offer bundle deals for a better price.
- Free shipping: High shipping costs are a common reason for abandoned shopping carts. Remember to include the shipping fees in your retail price to avoid losing profits.
- Promo codes: Promo codes are great for affiliate marketing campaigns and limited offers. Offer them through your newsletters, partnered organizations, or social media posts.
- Student discounts: Personalize your discounts for specific demographics. Many people search for student discounts when online shopping.
- Teacher discounts: Show appreciation for the hardest workers of the back-to-school season.
- Returning customer discounts: Offer discounts for shoppers in your customer loyalty program or with a purchase history.
- Last-minute deals: Create a sense of urgency and increase sales with last-minute offers that are too good to pass.
10. Include a gift with each purchase
Adding a small free gift with your order will make your customers smile and secure returning shoppers.
Your gift doesn’t have to be grand – just meaningful enough to encourage future purchases and appeal to existing and potential customers. A small discount, free shipping, or a custom bookmark and a school sticker can significantly increase your brand’s reputation without breaking the bank.
11. Get in on influencer marketing
You might not know what the kids are into these days, what parents have to deal with, and the struggles of a middle-school teacher. It’s hard to understand every demographic’s favorite back-to-school items.
Partner with social media influencers who have an audience within your target demographic to save time and resources on research.
There are influencers for every audience who can combine online trends and informational content to bring you more customers from their audience.
Here are some influencer content ideas for your back-to-school marketing campaign:
- Showcasing your products and their features
- Latest clothing and accessory fashion trends featuring your products
- Affordable supplies for families on a tight budget
- Essentials for home and in-person learning
- Customizable products and gifts for teachers
12. Organize a giveaway
Giveaways are one of the most straightforward marketing methods that generate high engagement without costing more than the prize for the lucky winner. The prize, however, must be substantial enough to attract potential participants (a custom backpack, water bottle, notebook, and more).
A great example is Staples’ “Restock Your Classroom” giveaway, where any teacher can win a surprise box with $500 worth of school supplies just by signing up.
Design your giveaway and select a series of requirements to enter. You can ask potential participants for:
- Follows, shares, replies, and retweets
- Social media challenges
- Testimonials for a product or service
- Subscriptions to your newsletter
- Specific hashtags in related posts
Social media channels like TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook are great for experimenting with various giveaway offers.
13. Offer coupon codes for future purchases
Your work doesn’t end with a successful sales campaign. Grow your business by encouraging return purchases with future-use coupons. Back-to-school season shoppers often make their first purchase, then return for extra essentials and forgotten supplies for a new class or course.
Coupons with discounts or promos can offer a cash-off deal or free shipping for a limited time. They don’t necessarily need to match the back-to-school theme, as they can be a great way to keep new visitors around after the end of the seasonal period.
14. Create fun, interactive quizzes with shareable results
If you’re likely to sell to younger shoppers, we encourage more entertaining methods of back-to-school engagement.
Make a fun quiz for students to identify their clique, niche, or personality type, such as “What kind of a back-to-school shopper are you?”
Quiz results should be easily shareable on social media and contain a call-to-action to inform users of your products or special deals for the season.
15. Create a back-to-school campaign newsletter
All these back-to-school marketing ideas work well together and provide a lot of content for an email newsletter.
Engage in back-to-school email marketing and send out weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly newsletters to advertise seasonal sales and new releases.
Let’s look at some examples of back-to-school email newsletter content.
- Exclusive Discounts: Offer discounts on back-to-school items. Send a coupon code for 20% off school supplies or apparel.
- Product Highlights: Feature best-selling or new products. Showcase backpacks, notebooks, or tech gadgets with images.
- Tips and Guides: Provide shopping tips, checklists, or guides. Create a “Top 10 Must-Have School Supplies” list.
- User-Generated Content: Encourage customers to share purchases on social media and feature their posts in newsletters.
- Bundle Deals: Promote bundle deals for essentials like a backpack, lunchbox, or water bottle.
- Countdown to School: Create a countdown series with different product promotions leading up to the first day of school.
- Loyalty Rewards: Reward loyal customers with early access to products or extra loyalty points for purchases.
- Personalized Recommendations: Use past purchase data to send personalized product recommendations.
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Other things to keep in mind
Knowing where and how to present your back-to-school campaigns for maximum visibility is just as important as creating original and relevant content.
Look at some practical marketing methods to keep your back-to-school shopping promotions successful.
Omnichannel marketing
With omnichannel marketing, you create a seamless experience for your customers by using multiple marketing channels in a unified way.
Unlike multichannel marketing, where each platform is managed separately, omnichannel marketing simply distributes the same or similar content over multiple channels.
How can it improve your back-to-school marketing strategy?
- It increases your brand reach, promoting your sales across multiple platforms.
- It ensures consistent branding on all outlets, strengthening brand recognition.
- It builds loyalty among customers, knowing that your brand stays true and consistent through all media channels.
If you’re wondering why many retailers advertise their businesses on multiple platforms at once, here’s the answer. Customer satisfaction is 23x higher in companies that participate in omnichannel marketing.
Social media marketing
Even without offering free prizes or discounts, social media channels are excellent outlets for spreading the word about your campaigns during the back-to-school season.
- 4.9 billion people use social media. A large part of these people are consumers ready for some back-to-school spending.
Use clever campaign ideas to attract parents, students, and teachers alike with a unique and convenient back-to-school offer that’s too good to scroll by.
- Around 77% of businesses use social media for their promotions and campaigns because it pays off.
Pick your favorite media channels and utilize their vast, global audiences to boost sales and expand the reach of your back-to-school marketing campaigns.
20 Back-to-school marketing phrases and slogans
Explore some ideas for back-to-school marketing slogans and phrases to use in your back-to-school promotions. Adjust them to your brand to attract customers and boost sales throughout the season.
- Embrace the new school year with brand-new gear…
- Get your back-to-school bundle…
- Sharpen those pencils…
- Books and stylish looks…
- Elevate your education…
- Straight outta summer…
- Back-to-school bonanza…
- Shop smart for back-to-school…
- The new student haul is here…
- From ABC to OMG…
- Kickstart the year with new back-to-school gear…
- Surprise your classmates with…
- Class is back in session…
- Ace your back-to-school looks…
- Time to stuff your backpack with…
- Restock your classroom…
- Restock your closet for the new school year…
- Get your new semester essentials…
- Look cool for school…
- Gear up for the new school year…
Back-to-school marketing: FAQ
Some of the most popular ways include email newsletters, giveaways, gifts, and special deals with a purchase, organizing challenges or contests, and utilizing the latest trends and influencers on multiple social media platforms.
Most consumers start looking for back-to-school deals and supplies in early July, so prepare your marketing strategies early. August is the official back-to-school month, so your campaigns should be out already.
Back-to-school marketing covers activities and approaches merchants use to promote their products during the back-to-school season. With parents, students, and teachers alike looking for new attire, supplies, and daily essentials for the upcoming school year, it’s an excellent time for merchants to boost their sales with clever slogans, deals, and events.
Collaborate with education-supporting organizations and trusted influencers, or hop on the latest trends. Use relevant back-to-school slogans, offer discounts and special deals, or create fun events with a prize, like a giveaway, challenge, or contest.
Benefit even if you’re not selling school supplies
You don’t need to plan a streamlined campaign or sell school supplies to gain profits during the back-to-school season. Get in on the fun simply by offering seasonally-themed products or student discounts.
Celebrate the new semester with fall-themed store designs, engaging community posts, and acts of kindness to keep your business active and authentic all year round.
Final thoughts
Everyone needs to prepare for the back-to-school shopping season. Busy parents, teachers, college and school shoppers – all want to save money.
Start your back-to-school marketing campaign on time with marketing content, discounts, gifts, and back-to-school contest events made for everyone involved.
Serve the millions of people looking for the best deals before the new school year starts and grow your sales with back-to-school promotions and online marketing.
