![\"back](\"https:\/\/shippingeasy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Back-to-school-statistics.png\")
<\/p>\n
Back To School: A Huge Summer Selling Opportunity<\/h2>\n
Actual Back-To-School (BTS) dates vary considerably around the United States, ranging from late July to post-Labor Day<\/a>. Regardless, there is plenty of opportunity to participate and garner a piece of the estimated $37B online back-to-school spending.<\/p>\n In some states, tax holidays can also boost sales\u2014and provide their own promotional opportunities.<\/p>\n If you sell the highest-demand item categories (school supplies, electronics, and apparel), or if your customers tend to be concentrated in specific states or cities, you may find it worthwhile to take a more targeted approach to BTS selling activities, including:<\/p>\n A much simpler\u2014and for most sellers quite adequate\u2014approach is to run national campaigns based on the latest common start date, which, in the US, is the day after Labor Day. If timed and worded properly, these campaigns can appeal to any region regardless of its start date.<\/p>\n Every good marketing campaign starts with a plan. Who are you targeting? What will you be offering? What will be the progression of how you lead customers down the funnel to conversion? Let\u2019s break it down.<\/p>\n The first step to developing a back-to-school selling strategy is to identify your customers. What are their buying habits? For example, different customer segments celebrate different holidays and\/or are motivated to buy leading up to certain dates. Start by making a high-level list of the different segments you serve. If you have demographic customer data to help fill out the picture, that\u2019s great, but even just doing this exercise based on intuition is helpful. If you find your list getting unmanageably long, try listing out the customer segments you don\u2019t serve, so you can exclude those segments from your plan. ShippingEasy customers will make great use of our Customer Marketing tool<\/a> to segment these lists to message the right audience.<\/p>\n After you’ve identified the right segment of your customers to target with BTS messaging, it’s time to think about the promotion that will capture and engage them in to a buying mindset. There is a lot of opportunity to get creative with BTS promotions, and we’ve come up with a few for you:<\/p>\n\n
How to Plan for Back-to-School Selling in 3 Easy Steps<\/h2>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n