Looking for St. Patrick’s Day marketing ideas for your business? You got ‘em! Because in this article, we’ve compiled a list of strategies that will put the spotlight on your business while celebrating Irish culture.
So if this sounds good to you, let’s get started!
Outline
- Why Is St. Patrick’s Day Celebrated?
- St. Patrick’s Day Marketing Campaigns
- 01. Dingle Crystal: St. Patrick’s Day Gifts
- 02. Allbirds: Highlight Your Efforts To Go Green
- 03. Bottom Line: St. Paddy’s Day Social Media Contest
- 04. Robert Barakett: Send Some Emails & Nail The Subject Lines
- 05. Woman’s Day: Publish A St. Patrick’s Day Blog
- 06. Blackstone: Share Some St Patrick’s Day Recipes
- 07. Good Protein: Last Call After St Patrick’s Day
- 08. Zippo: Launch A Holiday Related Product
- 09. Disturbia: Announce A St. Paddy’s Day Sale
- Bonus Tip: Wear Green
- Use These Marketing Ideas For St. Patrick’s Day To Spice Up Your Content Strategy
Why Is St. Patrick’s Day Celebrated?
Image Credits: Wbur
St Patrick’s Day or colloquially called “St. Paddy’s Day” is widely celebrated across the United States because a huge portion of the US population come from Irish origins. In fact, as of 2021, 31.5 million Americans have Irish ancestry – a whopping 9.5% of their entire population.
No wonder why St Patrick’s day is such a big deal for the entire nation.
Every March 17, St. Patrick’s Day celebrations are conducted to honor the death and sacrifices of Saint Patrick – the patron saint of Ireland.
When he was just 16 years old, Saint Patrick was captured by Irish raiders and he spent six years of his life as a slave. When he managed to escape, he returned to his family in Britain but later felt a calling to serve the Catholic church. Because of that, he returned to Ireland as a Christian missionary and is credited with bringing Christianity to its people.
It was initially a religious holiday in Ireland. St. Patrick’s day celebrations with parades and festivities started in the United States and the first recorded St. Patrick’s day parade in history took place way back in the 1760s in New York City. This celebration was organized by Irish immigrants who wanted to celebrate their heritage.
Image credits: Statista
Because of this Irish heritage ingrained in American culture, St. Patrick’s Day is amongst the national holidays when people are prepared to spend. In the past year, Americans spent $6.9 billion to celebrate St. Paddy – an all-time high since 2007.
The willingness of American customers to spend this much money presents an opportunity for your business to take its share of revenues. Therefore, it is important that you have a marketing campaign lined up for this festivity.
St. Patrick’s Day Symbols And Traditions
St. Paddy’s day would not be complete without the symbols and rituals that form part of the entire tradition. As a business, it is crucial that you understand these in order to resonate to your audience in your marketing campaigns.
You can use these St. Patrick’s Day symbols in your social media posts, newsletters, and other marketing assets. If you plan to release seasonal merch, these can be used as elements of your products so you can relate them to the holiday.
Let’s enumerate some of the important symbols and traditions of St. Patrick’s Day:
Images Credits: Sky News
- Festive Parades: These colorful parades feature marching bands, dance troupes, and elaborate floats.
- Green Theme: The color green is heavily associated with St. Patrick’s Day celebration; that’s why celebrants dress themselves in green clothes, accessories, and even temporary hair and face paints.
- Corned Beef and Cabbage: Being part of traditional Irish cuisines, corned beef and cabbage accompanied by potatoes and Irish soda bread are enjoyed on this day.
- Leprechauns: The mischievous leprechaun is an Irish figure that is believed to bring good luck.
- Traditional Irish Music: the holiday spirit is not complete without the lively tune of traditional Irish music played with fiddles, accordions, and bodhrans.
- Shamrock: The shamrock symbolized the three-leafed plant St. Patrick used to explain the concept of the Holy Trinity. Nowadays, it is worn to symbolize Irish pride.
- Celtic Cross: It is a prominent symbol in Irish culture because it represents the fusion of Christian and Celtic spirituality
- Irish Flags: Among the most important symbols of St. Patrick's Day, Irish flags are often displayed throughout the celebrations – symbolizing unity between Catholics and Protestants.
St. Patrick’s Day Marketing Campaigns
Because a huge portion of Americans are Irish descendants, it is important to show your audience that you also value the celebrations that are meaningful to them.
In the process of doing so, this also presents an opportunity to promote your online business and generate some extra revenues from the occasion.
Below are some St. Patrick’s Day marketing ideas from other businesses that you can also execute on your own.
01. Dingle Crystal: St. Patrick’s Day Gifts
Images Credits: Dingle Crystal
Nearly two-thirds of Americans celebrated St. Patrick’s Day in 2023. Assuming that the trend will remain the same, this gives you an opportunity to generate huge revenues this year.
Dingle Crystal, an Irish family-run crystal company, has this Celtic Shamrock Hanging Ornament in their collections. As these are one of the symbols of the holiday, they can market these as St. Patrick’s Day gift ideas to their Irish customers.
Since this is a special holiday, announcing a unique product with limited supply can help your business grab attention from its online followers.
Of course, it is important that the product resonates with your audience just like this ornament. Thus, it is important that you do your market research prior to the launch.
💡 Quick read: 10 Father’s Day Campaign Ideas That Will Set Your Brand Apart
02. Allbirds: Highlight Your Efforts To Go Green
Images Credits: Allbirds
Allbirds is a footwear brand that is known for their sustainability-focused business approach. As such, they use eco-friendly and sustainable materials in creating all the products that they sell.
To further their cause of leaving a zero carbon footprint, they even launched the Allbirds ReRun program where consumers can trade-in their slightly used Allbirds shoes for a new one. Those who want to save money can then buy these pre-loved shoes at significantly lower prices compared to new ones.
Green isn’t only the main theme of St. Patrick’s Day, it’s also the color that is closely associated with the environment. Thus, if your company has a policy for eco-friendly operations, this is also a great time to announce what you are doing for the planet.
03. Bottom Line: St. Paddy’s Day Social Media Contest
Images Credits: Bottom Line
Bottom Line is a sports bar located in Canada, hence, the maple leaf. For their St. Patrick’s Day campaign, they made a green Maple Leafs cap – a fusion of Irish and Canadian colors and symbols.
In their X (former Twitter) account, they announced their social media contest in which the lucky winner will win the unique cap just in time for St. Patrick’s Day.
Social media giveaways can be an effective marketing strategy if you want to improve your social engagement and increase brand awareness.
Since your competitors might also have their marketing strategies lined up, it is important that your St. Patrick’s day campaign is interesting and exciting enough for your social followers. Therefore, make sure that the product that you are giving away is something that they will surely love.
04. Robert Barakett: Send Some Emails & Nail The Subject Lines
Images Credits: Robert Barakett
Email campaigns should always be part of your strategy if you want to increase your sales conversions. Compared to ordinary social media posts, emails like these can be designed to match the theme of the holiday. Additionally, you can add high-quality images, calls to action or CTAs, and you can even include product codes for those special deals.
You can also categorize your audience when sending email campaigns. Thus, you can send VIP discounts to win back customers, or you can send coupons to encourage first time buyers.
The most important element of emails are the subject lines. That is why if you plan to launch an email campaign, you should learn how to write catchy subject lines that will hook your customers into reading more of your offers.
One good example is Robert Barakett’s subject line, “You’re In Luck”, as it’s very relevant for St. Patrick’s day.
Some good Shopify apps for email marketing are Mailchimp, Omnisend, Avada, and Klaviyo. All these have free plans available and you can create your own St. Patrick's Day email template with these apps.
05. Woman’s Day: Publish A St. Patrick’s Day Blog
Images Credits: Woman’s Day
If it isn’t yet in your list of St. Patrick’s Day marketing ideas, publishing a blog can be an effective strategy to attract potential customers to your website weeks or even months leading to the holiday.
As you can see above, this article by Woman’s Day was published in January – two months before St. Paddy’s day. And that’s the good thing about blogs. You can publish holiday-related blogs ahead of time in order to intercept early searchers.
One important thing to note when writing blogs is “search intent” – meaning the intention of your target audience when looking for something on the internet. In the example above, the search intent that this blog is targeting is “people who are looking for St. Patrick’s Day gift ideas.”
As such, it was published in a listicle form so that their readers can get as many ideas as possible.
Shopify stores can also be used to publish blogs. Thus, if you are using one for your online business, you can easily publish one.
When publishing a blog, make sure to target the right keywords. Lastly, seize the opportunity to (casually) promote your products and provide some links so your readers could easily find your items.
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06. Blackstone: Share Some St Patrick’s Day Recipes
Video Credits: Blackstone
Blackstone is a popular brand of griddles and pizza ovens. They have portable and affordable griddles and they also have these multi-functional and industrial grade ones for those hardcore users.
For St. Patrick’s Day of 2021, Blackstone published a Reuben sandwich recipe on their YouTube channel. Of course, they put their own spin on this Reuben sandwich using their Blackstone griddle. The video amassed more than 16,000 views and reading the comments, most, if not all, of their viewers like the idea.
Food is always a part of festivities. Thus, publishing some St. Patrick’s day recipes could be an opportunity to highlight your brand – especially if you are in the food business.
It doesn’t even have to be a YouTube video. Nowadays, Facebook and Instagram reels are getting a lot of engagement from social media users. Therefore, you should take advantage of this opportunity to go viral this holiday.
07. Good Protein: Last Call After St Patrick’s Day
Images Credits: Good Protein
If you’re receiving occasional emails from your favorite brands, you might have noticed that some of them are still sending ones even after the holidays. And that’s because there’s still an opportunity to get some sales even after the holidays – especially if you offer discounts.
Therefore, if you are launching an email campaign for St. Patrick’s Day, make sure that your audience is up to date with your promos before the holiday, and you should also consider sending some form of a final announcement or last call for those last-minute buyers.
Take a look at Good Protein. This particular email was sent on March 21, 2022 – four days after St. Patrick’s day.
08. Zippo: Launch A Holiday Related Product
Images Credits: Zippo
Zippo is known for their windproof lighters, stylish designs, and lifetime warranty. They make sleek and classy lighters with different designs that will surely fit anyone’s needs.
Their Clover High Polish Chrome design is available year round but it can attract more potential customers in this upcoming St. Patrick’s Day event because it bears the clover leaf symbol of the holiday with a touch of textured green color.
Do you have special product lined up for St. Paddy’s day? If you don’t have one yet, you should consider launching one to attract holiday buyers. Regardless of your products, a little creativity could go a long way when doing so.
Alternatively, you can throw in some St. Patrick’s day freebies alongside your regular products to attract more customers.
09. Disturbia: Announce A St. Paddy’s Day Sale
Images Credits: Disturbia
Disturbia is a fashion brand that sells Goth and Grunge clothes, footwear, and accessories. Needless to say, these are really well-designed products.
To most people, this fashion is more related to halloween rather than St. Patrick. But that didn’t stop Disturbia from executing their St. Patrick’s Day marketing ideas.
For their St. Paddy’s Day promo, they launched a collection of dark green St. Patrick's Day outfits that can be availed at a 20% discount. Their reel also got quite a lot of likes and engagement.
Instagram is truly a powerful and cost-effective marketing tool if used the right way. Thus, make sure that you are using it in your marketing campaigns.
To further leverage Instagram to your advantage, you can post shoppable products in your feed by simply integrating VIBE Shoppable Instagram Feed with your Shopify store. This tool will allow you to tag the products featured on your posts and this will enable your customers to shop directly from your Instagram – thereby reducing the hassle that they have to go through when shopping.
Bonus Tip: Wear Green
According to a research conducted by the National Retail Federation in 2020, 79% of consumers planned to wear green for St. Patrick’s day. The percentage is way bigger than consumers who planned to make a special dinner or attend a party at a restaurant.
This goes to show the wide influence of wearing the color green on St. Patrick’s Day event. Another reason is perhaps wearing green is the easiest thing to do and the most cost-efficient way to celebrate the holiday.
Thus, if you don’t have any special promos or marketing campaigns aligned for St. Patrick’s Day, implementing a green theme on your website may already be enough to show you Irish consumers that you are celebrating with them.
If you own a retail store, encouraging your staff to wear green is also a good idea. Adding some St. Paddy’s day symbols like leprechauns, shamrocks, and Irish flags will also surely be appreciated by your Irish customers.
Use These Marketing Ideas For St. Patrick’s Day To Spice Up Your Content Strategy
Nowadays, running an ecommerce business is all about executing an effective content strategy.
YUP! Gone are the days when you can just casually use social media because your competitors are maximizing these platforms to their fullest extent.
Your target customers won’t come naturally if you don’t make a conscious effort to attract them. Think of fishing without a bait – the chances of catching a fish is close to nil.
And that is the essence of having a marketing strategy – to lure in potential customers. This also applies to any occasion that is celebrated throughout the United States.
By planning your content strategy, you can resonate with your target audience. After all, being relatable is one of the most important rules of marketing.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
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