How retail marketers can plan and execute a successful back to school campaign in 2024

Tips, tricks, and timelines for back to school retail results.

While parents and students are deep into the dog days of summer break, retail marketers should already be planning out their marketing calendars for the inevitable back to school campaigns that are just around the corner.

Yet, few retailers have yet begun their back to school outreach. In fact, I’ve seen more early Halloween content coming my way than I have for school supplies and clothes, and I have school-aged kids. It seems retailers are planning to cram for this particular exam.

That’s concerning, given how difficult it can be to properly communicate back to school offers during a season when families are in the middle of summer activities and school supplies are the last thing on their minds.

Unlike most date-dependent marketing campaigns like Black Friday/Cyber Monday or Memorial Day sales, back to school is an entirely different beast with its own unique challenges.

For starters, there is no single date to peg campaign planning and execution around. School districts in different areas of the country start school on different dates. What’s more, different grade levels also have staggered starts between elementary, middle, and high school. That makes for one messy calendar, particularly for national retailers juggling school district calendars across the country.

Dates aside, there are vast differences in back to school details as well. The school supply list for an elementary school student is going to look a lot different than that of an incoming high school senior. Same goes for clothes, but for different reasons. All kids grow, but few keep their styles from one year to the next.

Taken together, these variables make it difficult for retailers to tailor messaging to prospective customers, let alone contact them at the appropriate time. But it’s not impossible. In fact, the only way to manage such variables is to do what retailers should be doing during less challenging promotional dates – just ask.

Simply asking customers to provide the information required to give them the products they need and the promotions they want is just smart relationship marketing. Doing so involves both an information and value exchange that allows retailers to collect zero-party data that can be used to market to the same customers year-round.

What’s more, customers are more willing than ever to provide their personal details if properly incentivized. Inflation and rising prices have caused many shoppers to pull back on their spending. They’re looking for deals and discounts. That gives retailers an awfully big carrot to dangle in return for useful data.

Such relevant data includes:

• Regional location to determine school start dates and nearest stores
• Age and grade level of all children in the household
• Previous purchases from all household membersSchool supply needs and requests (including new outfits)

Think for instance asking parents to upload their school supply list for children in each grade, in return for a blanket discount on everything that list contains. Not only does that provide a known shopping list, but also all the other data points listed above: location, household makeup, demographics, and more.

Retailers of course have motivations of their own to make this extra effort, particularly brick-and-mortar stores facing increased competition and precise pressures from ecommerce rivals. Driving sales comes down to delivering the best experience possible. And the best experiences are those personalized experiences. According to our Consumer Trends Index, 84% of US consumers are likely to engage with personalized emails containing offers tailored to their interests.

For instance, once consumers upload that school supply list for each child, follow up with an email offer customized to those items for easy one-click purchasing (again, with the discount, or free shipping). B&M retailers can go a step further by creating a special section in the store where the most common items can be found, along with additional suggestions, so parents can easily find what they need in one place.

That’s delivering personalized convenience. And if there’s anything that back to school shoppers desperately need, it’s convenience.

So enough with the theory. Now down the brass tacks. While back to school strategies will differ among retailers, there is one common reality all need to keep in mind at the execution stage — channel.

Among the different ways possible to reach consumers, email remains the most effective channel for driving sales, with 50% of customers surveyed in our Consumer Trends Index indicating that they’ve made a purchase from an email in the last year. That’s more than social media ads (48%), text messaging (24%) and banner ads (21%).

So if back to school is the test, now’s the time to start studying. Here’s a quick guide with a few important pointers to get started:

Clean your lists

Make sure your email database is clean and optimized for deliverability. Conduct re-engagement campaigns, and analyze last year’s campaigns for learnings on what worked and what didn’t.

Prep your platform

Look inward to ensure your email platform is warmed up for the increase in traffic. Start off with smaller batch sends to warm up your system in advance of the large increases. This will prevent your future emails from going straight to spam. Also, get your customer tiers and offers ready. Can your site handle dynamic shopping list creation or generate automatic discounts based on wish list details? This all depends on what questions you plan to ask (see below) so make sure you can deliver on the data before you collect it.

Gather knowledge

Begin sending out polls, questions, and requests to bulk up the zero-party data info that will allow you to follow up with personalized offers.

These are all good steps to take not only for the more imminent back to school promotional push, but will also pay dividends when it comes time to start Black Friday/Cyber Monday plans as well. While back to school shopping is often treated as a predictor of holiday sales potential, it’s also a litmus test for the state of your relationship marketing program.

And like most tests, it’s always better to start preparing early rather than cramming at the last minute.

Download Marigold’s Back to School guide here for additional tips on how to prepare today.