12 Essential Father’s Day Marketing Tips for Your Product Business

Father’s Day! Are you ready for it? Is it relevant for your business even? 

In today’s episode, we’re going to be diving in to all of the different things that you could do in your business for Father’s Day and to reflect on whether or not they’re right for you. 

Hi, I’m your host. I’m Catherine Erdly. I’m also the founder of the Resilient Retail Club, which is my membership group and mastermind for product businesses. You can find out more at resilientretailclub.com. 

And so let’s jump in Father’s Day is coming. It is happening on the 16th of June this year, and it is the last big gift giving occasion really before Christmas. So it is not generally speaking as big as Mother’s Day in terms of spend, but it’s still significant and it is definitely worth exploring.

What I’m going to do today is run you through some of the things that you could be considering doing in your business. In fact, I’ve got 12 ideas for you, 12 marketing ideas for you in your business when it comes to Father’s Day. 

Welcome to the Resilient Retail Game Plan, a podcast for anyone wanting to start, grow or scale a profitable creative product business with me, Catherine Erdly. The Resilient Retail Game Plan is a podcast dedicated to one thing, breaking down the concepts and tools that I’ve gathered from 20 years in the retail industry and showing you how you can use them in your business. 

This is the real nuts and bolts of running a successful product business, broken down in an easy, accessible way. This is not a podcast about learning how to make your business look good. It’s the tools and techniques that will make you and your business feel good.

Confidently plan, launch and manage your products and feel in control of your sales numbers and cashflow to help you build a resilient retail business.

#1 Highlight what collections you have for Father’s Day

Catherine Erdly: So the first thing for Father’s Day is to make sure that if you have products that would be suitable, that you are highlighting Father’s Day collections on your website.

Make sure if somebody comes to your website, it is really clear between now and Father’s Day, what you’ve actually got for them and what is on offer. 

Which brings me to an additional point, which is really, well, what is right for Father’s Day? And obviously this is about gifting, it’s about male gifting, so you can be pretty broad in your categories.

There are, as always, some product trends that are cropping up a lot in terms of what people are giving for Father’s Day or what people are talking about as being hot product trends. I’m going to run through through these now. 

If they don’t fit for you, then I would say anything to do with male gifting could still have an opportunity to be shown as a Father’s Day item.

2024 Trending Categories for Father’s Day

Catherine Erdly: So here are some of the hot categories, if you like, for Father’s Day 2024. We’ve got travel. So this is something that we’ve seen a lot. And Dana Isom Johnson, the Etsy trend expert who spoke at the Retail ROAR Summit in February. She spoke about travel as a key driver for Etsy this year as people are looking to get out there and start exploring the world again after the bumpy COVID years and general feeling of adventure being something that is really we’ve seen post COVID to grow in momentum.

Health and wellness. This is something that has been an ongoing trend for It’s several years now, but it’s really growing in the male sphere as well. So men are very much interested in mindfulness and caring for you physically, mentally, spiritually. So there’s definitely a growing interest in the men’s health and wellness section.

Experiences. Now this may not be relevant for you, but definitely anything to do with workshops. Those are really popular experiences, learning new skills, and that’s all really popular. Doing things as a family, for example, those are super popular experiences for Father’s Day. 

Challenges. So this kind of fits under the health and wellness, and this is also linked to the growth of MAMIL which stands for middle aged men in Lycra.

I don’t make this stuff up. I just report on it. But lots of men taking on things like biking, running, all these types of physical feats. So anything that relates to that. So certainly if you’re somebody who sells hobby related products for men, then this would be the perfect time to showcase those for father’s day. 

Male grooming.

So again, just like health and wellness, this has been around for a while now, but it’s a growing trend where men are interested in toiletries and treating themselves, in caring for themselves. Things like beard oil and men’s toiletries have shown real growth over the last few years. 

And then personalization.

So personalized gifts is a key category for Father’s Day. And if you are somebody who makes any kind of personalized products, I highly recommend you look into what you can offer for fathers, grandfathers for Father’s Day. 

So these were the sort of hot categories. Some of the other things I think that are always really popular are certainly things like clothing, men’s clothing, making that really giftable and easy.

And also things like food, food related products are often really popular for men for Father’s Day as well. So whatever your business, have a think about what you can offer and put it in its own category. 

#2 Curate Gift Bundles

Catherine Erdly: So the second idea then, so first idea is highlight your Father’s Day collection. Second is curate gift bundles.

So make it super easy for people to shop. If you are offering Father’s Day gifts, then make sure for example, if you mostly have lower priced items, make sure that you’re putting them together into an easy to purchase bundle so that people don’t have to click around the website and try and work out what they could buy for Father’s Day.

You want it to be simple, you want it to be something that they can quickly add to their cart and checkout and they don’t have to spend too much time thinking about it. 

In stores, you can replicate that by having maybe a table with some gifts on it. 

Incidentally, you may be thinking, well actually I have a pretty much a strong female following. I don’t really have a male following. Is it really worth me going all in for Father’s Day? I think it’s always worth trying these things. I think that it’s always good to experiment. Don’t assume that because you have a predominantly female following that you couldn’t sell anything for Father’s Day. Now, clearly, if you only sell products for women, then it may be trickier.

But for example, if you’re a lifestyle shop, you could be worth just experimenting, just buying a very small number of items that could work for Father’s Day. Because ultimately, women make a lot of purchasing decisions. Statistically, I know that is definitely a generalization and it’s not true in every, every situation, but often women are making purchasing decisions.

So if you do have a female following, then just trying something for Father’s Day, would they buy it from you? It’s worth just finding out because if you can add it to your calendar, it’s another great gift giving opportunity that could certainly help break up the long stretch between say Mother’s Day and Christmas. So it’s always worth trying. 

#3 Gift Guides

Catherine Erdly: Gift guides. So point number three is gift guides. And you’ve no doubt looked at these at Christmas, or maybe you’ve done them for Valentine’s or Mother’s Day, but they can certainly work well for Father’s Day. It’s a great way to really showcase what your offer is. If you do have Father’s Day products, you can put them into a gift guide, which you can then share on social media.

You can email out your list, you can house on your website as a blog, and it is a really good, clear way to offer value to your customer to show them what you’ve got, showcase a range of price points, for example, talk about your products and just generally make it really clear that you are participating in Father’s Day.

#4 Emphasize Personalization

Catherine Erdly: Point number four is emphasizing personalization. So. This could mean different things to different people. If you have got a giftable item for men like small leather goods and you do offer personalization in terms of maybe adding initials or something like that, make sure you are absolutely shouting about it at Father’s Day.

It could also be something if you normally charge for it, you could think about doing some kind of offer where you get free or reduced cost personalization for Father’s Day. 

If you are somebody who creates personalized products, then definitely think about shouting about those around Father’s Day and what you can offer, as I said, is that gift for dads or grandfathers.

#5 Introduce New Products

Catherine Erdly: Point number five or marketing idea number five for Father’s Day would be introducing new products. So this is particularly useful if you’re somebody who has a, uh, has an extensive male following or Father’s Day is something that you really want to promote. emphasize this year. Maybe you’ve tried it in the past and you’ve proved that it works.

So you want to really lean into it this year. So that could be then an opportunity for you to launch something new pre father’s day. It could be tied in with the season. It could be something new for summer, but it could be a new range of gifting, but it just gives you that double whammy, something new to talk about.

In the run up to the event and also another reason to shout about what you have as an offering for Father’s Day.

#6 Lean into Dad and Grandad Personalized Items

Catherine Erdly: Idea number six is lean into the whole dad or grandad or daddy personalized items. So, It’s not to say that if you want to have a Father’s Day range, you have to have everything with the word dad on it. In fact, for most people, that is not going to be appropriate, and you don’t want to create too much stock that is going to expire effectively after Father’s Day.

I mean, #1 Dad is something that you could give all year round, but let’s face it, it’s going to have its biggest market at Father’s Day. But certainly have a think about things that, could work for you? Could it be incorporated into your offering. If you offer personalization, as I’ve talked about before, could you create specific themed products that are overtly talking about Father’s Day and use those as a hook to really show your customers that you’re in the business.

#7 Engage Wholesale Clients

Catherine Erdly: Idea number seven is engaging your wholesale clients. So this is all about reaching out, especially if you’re, for example, a card company. Make sure that you look back at the people who ordered from you last Father’s Day. If you’ve got a new range, make sure you’re shouting about it. Maybe use it as an opportunity to get back in touch with people who’ve previously bought from you in previous occasions.

And maybe you haven’t heard from them this time around. So don’t forget to include wholesale clients in part of your outreach or your marketing for Father’s Day. If wholesale is one of your sales channels. 

#8 Special Promotions

Catherine Erdly: The eighth idea I have is special promotions. So again, this doesn’t have to be discounts at all.

It could be things like upgrades, such as free gift wrapping, free shipping, free express shipping as you get closer to the big day itself. It could also be things like free personalization, but just generally think about Is there an offer that you can put out there for your customers that is themed around Father’s Day that is going to give them another reason to come and buy from you and buy their gifts from you?

#9 Additional Father’s Day Incentives

Catherine Erdly: So a ninth idea is to have, perhaps even additional incentives. So you could have an offer such as an upgrade or some kind of additional service But you could equally have a gift with purchase type promotion, which could work really well for father’s day, too. 

So this could be something for example, if you buy a t shirt, do they get free socks?

If they’re buying beard oil, do they get free facial moisturizer or free samples with that as well? So what could you add that is a nice additional add on which again has that gift giving feel to it And is another reason for people to come and buy from you at father’s day 

#10 Keep an eye on seasonal inventory

Catherine Erdly: Number 10 is keep an eye on your seasonal inventory So if you have gone ahead and bought in or created products that do say number one dad Happy Father’s Day, anything that really overtly references Father’s Day, then this is the stuff that you want to keep a really close eye on.

As you get closer to the event itself, you may want to consider if you want to discount those items so you can clear through them and then that way you are not going to be left with them after the fact. So this is not necessarily something that you will have to do unless you have that real overt Father’s Day product, but it’s always well worth keeping an eye on your seasonal stock as you go through and trade an event like this.

And just make sure that if it’s getting to the last few days or the last few days before you have to cut off posting. If you do feel like you’ve got stock left, you maybe went a bit too heavy or a bit too hard on some of your Father’s Day specific products, make sure that you are actually taking action against it now because a well placed discount of maybe 20, 25 percent off could entice people to buy, whereas post the event, it’s very, very hard to shift this kind of product until the next time that Father’s Day rolls around.

#11 Giveaway Competitions

Catherine Erdly: Idea number 11. Giveaways, competitions. This is a really great opportunity to have a feel good theme around Father’s Day for your seasonal selling. You could have a competition where you’re getting people to submit why their dad’s the best. You can tie in with the, an opportunity to win some of your Father’s Day gifting, which gives you an opportunity to then shout about that Father’s Day gifting.

And it’s really a brilliant way to celebrate Fathers, to have a feel good message, but then equally to showcase what you’ve got and make sure that your customers are really clear that you are in the game for Father’s Day. 

Also, I just want to say if you’re listening to this and you are a small creative business owner who does have male products or products that are unisex or made with men in mind or the kind of thing that you happen to know tends to be typically bought by men. Then I do really suggest that you get behind this father’s day and push it because I think generally speaking if you look at all of the creative small businesses that are out there, there are more that are servicing women and fewer that are really even offering anything for men. So I think that if you’re somebody who has a lot of product that, as I said, that would work really well, then I think just go for it and really make sure that you are pulling out all of the stops this Father’s Day and thinking about those competitions.

Could you collaborate with other brands? Could you really engage your audience? Could you really get them to send in pictures or Send in stories or tag their dad, shout their dad out, talk about why they deserve this gift. And so it becomes this really good feel good celebration. But then also, as I said, the key thing here is that you’re also putting it really front of mind that number one, you’re in the Father’s Day business.

And number two, you have some great products that they will absolutely love. So it’s well worth giving it a go and seeing what happens. 

#12 Promote Gift Cards

Catherine Erdly: And then the final one is promote your gift cards. So gift cards are the perfect opportunity for people to pick something if they’re not sure what their dad wants or if they’ve just left it a bit late and you’ve got e vouchers, things like that.

Don’t forget to shout about them. Don’t forget to talk about last minute gifts. 

And that actually goes for everything. If you can offer express shipping as you’re getting closer to the day, don’t forget about all those messages. Like don’t forget it’s Father’s Day. If you’ve left it late, Don’t worry, we can still get it to you in time.

And then as you get even closer, if you’ve got those e vouchers and you can even send something out on an email out on the day, for example, to your customers and say, don’t forget, we have e vouchers. You can still get something for your dad, print it out, put it in the card. 

 Just remember that it’s worth giving it a go.

Catherine Erdly: If you’ve never really tried Father’s Day in your business before, then it’s I think it’s well worth having a think about whether or not there’s anything that works for you. Now it may be that Father’s Day is a no go for you, it’s not a non starter, but I would say if there’s at all any ambiguity in it where it maybe could work, then I just think try it.

Even if it ends up being a small celebration for you or a small gifting occasion for you and your business, It’s still interesting to lean into it and to give it a go and to see if anything that you have in your range or anything that you could create or curate would work for men. Can you really showcase what you’ve got?

Can you Try some new things and it’s worth just kind of shaking up and giving it a go. If it’s your first time doing this and you’re not sure if your customer is really there or is going to buy from you for Father’s Day, then absolutely do not go crazy. Maybe you just do a small trial. If you are, for example, a ladies clothing brand, then this is probably not the podcast episode for you or something that is very specific that you don’t think you’re going to be able to introduce additional products into that in a way that will work.

Then, you know, there are times that you do have to sit this out, but if it’s at all ambiguous, then think about do you have anything that fits under travel, that health and wellness, food, clothing for men or unisex, experiences, anything that really supports people in challenges in sport. Things that would work for male grooming and also that whole personalized gift category.

Like, is there anything that you have that would fit into that? And could you give it a go and at least talk to your customers and see if they’re interested in Father’s Day? And if Father’s Day is a big thing for you, then Make sure you’ve got everything lined up, ready to go, that you’ve got all of your social media, that you’ve got your emails ready to go, and that you’re pushing it, talking about it, making sure that everybody knows that the best Father’s Day gifts that are out there are to be bought from you.

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