10 Super Summer Promotion Ideas to Bring You Waves of Customers

Summer can feel like an awfully long season when you’re a busy business owner. While temps are heating up, your marketing ideas may be cooling down.

Trying to come up with new summer promotion ideas can leave you staring at your marketing plans like this.

Keeping your marketing fresh while gaining and retaining new customers can be a challenge. However, it’s vital to maintain fun promotional material during this time to start the second half of the year off on the right foot. Don’t sweat your summer promotions as we’ve got you covered with juicy ideas that are sure to squeeze the most out of your customer base:

1. Host your own summer event
2. Participate in your community’s summer events
3. Hold a summer lead gen contest
4. Run a social media contest or giveaway
5. Offer a summer discount
6. Embrace summer scents and flavors
7. Decorate your business for summer
8. Try out a summer partnership
9. Show how your products address a summer concern
10. Offer a summer product or service

We’ll dive into each of these ideas below!

Summer promotion ideas for your small business

Your summer marketing is sure to be a breeze with these promotional ideas. Let’s dive right in!

1. Make a splash with a summer event

Nothing will help to build your brand community more than hosting your own event! Make a splash with your customer base by inviting them to your store or office for some summer fun.

Encourage your customers to invite the whole family and include activities like a DIY ice cream sundae station or sidewalk chalk art. If you don’t have the bandwidth to do an in-person event, don’t worry! Virtual events complete with summer trivia will be just as effective.

You could even hand out samples or send out coupons to attendees. Try taking things a step further by creating a shareable summer playlist to play at the event that your customers can listen back to later.

This summer promotion idea is sure to bring you increased brand awareness, and all the photos or videos from your event can be reused for summer content later.

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Related: Labor Day presents a great opportunity for a summer event! Get Labor Day promotion ideas here.

2. Participate in local summer shindigs

If hosting your own event doesn’t sound like a fit for your business, try participating in one instead. Most communities have summer cookouts, craft fairs, and more that local businesses can participate in. You could sponsor the event or even become a vendor. However, if your marketing budget is tighter, you can still participate by volunteering or simply attending while representing your brand.

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3. Hold a summer lead gen contest

A lead-generating sweepstakes or contest is sure to heat up your customer engagement strategy. A contest asking your customers to submit their emails for a big prize will help create buzz around your business while building your email marketing list.

As a prize, you could offer a summer weekend trip. Or, encourage people to sign up with multiple winning possibilities using a series of gift cards.

What’s great is you can recycle this summer promotion idea throughout each month of the season—making it the ultimate local marketing weapon.

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4. Run a summer social media contest or giveaway

Running a contest or giveaway on a smaller scale via social media can be just as effective when it comes to your seasonal marketing.

For example, you could have your customers tag you in their best summer photo or comment back on a guessing game to get them to interact with your business. With that, a small prize like a gift card or coupon will be an enticing incentive. Alternatively, you could have a summer-themed grand prize at the end of the summer and create a buzz around the giveaway all season long.

Regardless of what type of giveaway you choose, be sure to promote it consistently on social media to help grow your following.

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Related: Get summer Instagram captions to make your promotional posts pop!

5. Offer a summer discount

A summer sale is always a go-to for businesses looking to grow. Customers are always on the lookout for seasonal deals. Try offering a percentage or dollar amount discount on specific products.

The key to this summer promotion idea is to create a sense of urgency by making it a limited-time offer. Be sure to let your customers know that the summer sale might only last through the end of August to maximize your marketing ROI on this deal.

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6. Embrace summer flavors (and scents!)

The summer season is all about fresh and fruity flavors and aromas. Appeal to your customers’ senses by offering a sweet treat with a purchase or filling the air with a summery scent. You could even partner with a local bakery or sweet shop for the food samples, or cross-promote with a local candle shop or perfume store for the scents.

When people smell or taste something that reminds them of summer, their mood may be positively impacted. This means your business can market with emotion by tapping into your customers’ excitement for summer.

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7. Decorate your business for summer

Bright colors are sure to catch the attention of your audience, so why not spice up your business’s décor with some summer accents? You could make your office beach-themed, or make your local store location look like it’s ready for a cookout.

If your business doesn’t have an in-person location that customers visit, don’t be afraid to switch your digital assets to summer themes instead. You could swap out the pictures in your business’s LinkedIn company page or Facebook business page for summery imagery. Additionally, if you’re running display advertising, try implementing summer-themed creative to give your viewers something fresh to look at.

This dental business added subtle summer decorations, but made it known to its customers by sharing it on Facebook!

8. Try out a summer partnership

Customers who already engage with other local businesses in your area have a high likelihood of being interested in your brand too. Capitalize on this by partnering up with a business that complements your own.

For example, if you’re marketing your home services business, you might partner with a local shop for customers to buy supplies from. Be sure to also tag each other on social media to share the customer wealth online too. Plus, if the partnership continues to be successful, you could keep it running throughout the year and switch off your seasonal promotions.

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9. Show how your products or services address a customer concern

Despite the endless summer fun, there is still a lot your customers may need to be wary of during this season. Your audience might be busy beating the heat, avoiding sunburns, and prepping for the busy fall season. That being said, there is plenty your business’s offerings may be able to help solve.

Provide additional value to your customers by angling your product or service around a summer problem they’re in need of a resolution for. When you do so, you’re showing that you truly care about your customers’ well-being—which can result in your brand being more likable.

This business promotes skincare year-round but angles its products to solving summer sun problems during the warmer months.

10. Offer a summer product or service

A summer-themed product or service is always a great seasonal marketing go-to for any business. This summer promotion idea won’t cost you a ton of time or resources, as you can take a bestselling product or service you currently have and summer-ify it.

For example, you might swap the colors on a product or temporarily change the name of a service offering you have. This will make your summertime customers feel like they’re taking part in something special for the season.

This business turned fragrance oils it offers year-round into limited-edition summer products.

Related: Promote your seasonal marketing with these summer slogans.

Sail into the season with these summer promotion ideas

Summer can be crucial to your marketing plan as it helps you stay on track for the remainder of the year. Make the most of your summer marketing with these summer promotion ideas that are quick and easy. If you want even more ideas, be sure to download our free marketing calendar that’s complete with holidays and seasonal tips to grow your business.