Dads are arguably easy to gift. From a Greatest Dad Mug and shaver to a tool kit or cheesy Father’s Day card, your choice of a gift isn’t going to disappoint. But of course you’re a marketer, so you’re not trying to woo your dad; you’re trying to woo the child who’s looking for the perfect gift for dad. And because dads are so easy to gift, the choices they (the kids) have are endless. Therefore, you have plenty of competition this Father’s Day.

So how do you plan your marketing strategy so you stand out from the rest? What’s the best way to get the customer to your online store so that they choose something from you instead of that mug they wanted to go with? Here are a few Father’s Day marketing ideas you need to know.

Your tone should be of utmost importance

Understanding the father and child relationship is essential to creating a message that resonates with their children. Fathers are sometimes seen as the cheesy, goofy ones of the bunch, sometimes trying to be the cool guy who knows the latest slang and music. At least to their kids, and so creating a message that reminds children of all the goofy times they had with their fathers might be a perfect way to stand out.

Your message can remind them of moments including:

  1. that time they (father and child) tried to fix the plumbing and found themselves drowning in a sea of tap water, which would be perfect marketing for:
  • Hardware retailers
  • Repair services
  • Renovators
  1. Or the day the child had a flat tire on the side of the road and dad came running, although he got lost because he didn’t have GPS, which is perfect for clients such as:
  • Smartphone retailers
  • GPS retailers
  • Onside roadside assistant services
  • Mechanics
  • Car tracking companies
  1. And that day dad was left with the responsibility of cooking dinner, and almost burnt down the house, so the family had pizza and ice cream instead, which is good marketing for:
  • Food delivery services
  • Restaurants
  • Cook book authors

Creating a story that reminds them of the good, mishaps of, times they’ve shared with their fathers is perfect to reigniting their creative need for a personal gift.

Get to know who you’re trying to sell it to

You’re going to want to know who your customers are if you’re going to sell them a product. If you sell a coffee machine, for example, it might not be as affordable to a 16 year old teenage boy as it is to a 36 year old executive woman.

This helps you make informed decisions on who best to target with your Father’s Day specials. If your product is beyond the reach of the working class, either run a competition that gives away the product and subsequently grow your audience, or sell the product at a discount. Either way, you win.

Decide on the best platform to speak to your audience

Your audience lives in the real world, but they’re frequent visitors to the online arena, so you need to find them where they’re most likely hanging out. This would heavily rely on who your target is, and if you have that down to a T, then you can decide on the best distribution model. However, you should try to integrate more than one channel into the strategy.

Couple email marketing with a social media drive; launch a paid media campaign on search to drive traffic to your site; and make your content dynamic to include video and GIF media. Remember that all your material must be viewable on almost all smart devices, as this will ensure that your message attracts your target audience and they can engage with it seamlessly throughout the day.

If they view your product in the morning on their desktop at work, they should be able to transfer that experience onto their mobile phone when they get home. This might require remarketing on your part, but as long as the experience is seamless, you’re closer to getting a sale.

If they’ve already left their contacts, give them ideas on what the perfect gift for dad would be based on their preferences and experiences online. This would obviously need a high level of personalisation and automation, but if you can do it, you have nothing to lose, but everything to gain.