Creating Your Own Holiday: A Profitable Idea

Create your own holiday to boost your sales during months that do not have big and profitable holidays. See how other companies have successfully created a holiday to increase their sales.

Valentine’s day, Christmas, Easter, the Fourth of July – these are all holidays that the average retailer is able to make use of in order to boost their sales a little bit. Christmas is, of course, the Holy Grail for marketing around the nation, and many plan for the season a full year in advance.

But what about the times when there are no, or few, holidays? How can you boost sales and bring in more profits during the months that do not come with a ready-made holiday? Easy – you make your own!

Creating Your Own Holiday

The idea of creating your own holiday sounds a bit strange to some, but when you think about it, most of our holiday celebrations revolve around marketing campaigns.

Who decided that Valentine’s Day should be the one day of the year you break down to send your loved one roses and shower them with candy and sappy cards? And when was it that hot dogs, fireworks, a trip to the lake or a day by the pool, and red, white, and blue tank tops came to represent the fourth of July?

Many of our most popular holiday images were brainchildren of some opportunistic entrepreneur, so why not create your own holiday? Others have.

A Successful and Profitable Idea

Tons of successful companies have gone on to create their own holidays when the season was causing their sales to lag. Take, for instance, the company Eden Florist and Gift Baskets. Created in 1981 as a small one-person florist in downtown Miramar, these days they work with a network of providers to ensure worldwide customer service.

This site is an extremely popular one for anybody who wants to send flowers using the convenience of the internet. When a customer asked for their help one day in ‘getting out of the doghouse,’ though, a new and profitable idea was born. After some legwork, they created their own holiday! July 16th is now known as National Get Out of the Doghouse Day, and larger providers like 1-800-FLOWERS.com call it one of their most successful.

This is a day where you can send flowers to someone you care for in order to resolve a conflict. With increased visibility in their own community and throughout the U.S. (thanks to blogs and Chase’s Calendar), sales are up, and they are credited with creating this amazing holiday.

Eden Florist and Gift Baskets isn’t alone in this practice. Hundreds of successful companies have done it in the past. Even writers and book sellers regularly create their own holidays in order to boost sales.

Fern Reiss was launching a book entitled “Publishing Game”. In order to get people interested in the book, she created National Write-Off Day, which fell on April 15th, the day that everyone’s taxes are due. She used the day to create a contest that asked people to come up with their best reasons why they shouldn’t have to pay taxes. Hundreds visit the site every year as a result.

Shel Horowitz created International Frugal Fun Day to promote his book The Penny-Pinching Hedonist: How to Live Like Royalty with a Peasant’s Pocketbook. With some creative press release marketing, he had more publisher leads than he’d ever had before.

Your Turn

Now it’s your turn to create your own holiday. Have fun with it! You can create any kind of holiday you would like. The key, however, is to make sure that your holiday has something to do with your product or service, much like Eden Florist and Gift Baskets did.

Once you have chosen your holiday, alert the media and your current customers. Make it fun and interesting, and you will have more business than you know what to do with.

Like this? Share it with your network:

I need help with:

Got a Question?

Get personalized expert answers to your business questions – free.

Affiliate Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning we get a commission if you decide to purchase something using one of our links at no extra cost to you.