Do you know about National Get Over It Day?
Do you listen to podcasts? I absolutely love them (you can see ten of my fave here). So it’ll come as no surprise that a few weeks ago I found myself avidly reading all the posts on the ‘gram and LinkedIn about International Podcast Day. Yes, it’s a thing now; September 30 is International Podcast Day.
But have you ever wondered who made this up? Who decided that September 30, rather than September 28 should be the day we all take up our earphones (or ear plugs) and rejoice in another podcast recommendation?
National / International days have become a bit of a marketing ploy. There’s National Donut Day (June 5), National Walk Around Things Day (April 4), National Buy Nothing Day (November 23), National Dress Up Your Pet Day (January 14), National Get Over It Day (March 9) and even National Pizza With The Works Except Anchovies Day (November 12).
But apart from being a bit of a novelty, do these days actually help business in any real way? Are they simply a marketing trigger for generating social media content or can they actually help you build a connection with your audience and increase sales?
Here are three examples of businesses who utilised a national day to get people talking (and spending!).
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1 National Lipstick Day
Makeup giant MAC has been giving away a free lipstick every National Lipstick Day for the last few years. The trick? It's a gift with purchase, meaning people have to pay (at least $25 in the US) to be eligible. In addition to massive media take up, the brand has enjoyed high volumes of social conversation about the "free" lipstick on lipstick day and crowds of make-up lovers flocking to their stores (cha-ching $$$).
2 National Doughnut Day
Initially started by Dunkin Doughnuts and Krispy Kreme in the US, National Doughnut Day has become a fixture for all doughnut shops, with a large majority now offering a free doughnut with any hot beverage purchase. This has had such great take up, you can now find more than 1m+ results for the search term 'where to get free doughnuts on national doughnut day'. An easy tactic to get people to bypass their standard cafe in favour of your doughnut shop.
3 Small Business Saturday
It may come as a surprise (particularly for anyone like me who uses the hashtag #SmallBusinessSaturday on the regular) but this national day (officially the first Saturday following Thanksgiving in the US) is actually the brainchild of American Express (who even trademarked it). Given many small businesses in the US (and elsewhere) uitilise American Express for POS, the brand decided to create a 'national day' way back in 2010, to "help" small biz owners in the lead up to gifting season - and no doubt, profit a truckload as a result.
National days can be a source of content ideas and sales campaigns for many small businesses, as long as they actually reflect what you offer and the interests of your business. If you’re keen to look at which “days” might be useful for your biz , simply Google your industry + national days ie. 'national days for makeup brands' (which will result in lists like this). You can also find generic lists on many of the social media platform tools such as Later, SproutSocial and Hootsuite.
Who knows, you might just end up with so much engagement you create a national day for your own small biz.