12 Back-to-School Marketing Tips for Retailers

Back-to-school season is one of the busiest seasons for retailers—it’s the second-biggest event on the retail calendar, after the winter holidays. The National Retail Federation (NRF) recently released its back-to-school retail trends report for 2022, and the trends show a shift toward savings-focused shopping behavior. Based on this, we list back-to-school marketing tips below, along with the retail trends we gathered.

1. Start Doing Promotions & Sales Early

According to the NRF, 56% started shopping for back-to-school items in early July of this year, a 5% increase from 2021. If you want to be ahead of the game, plan your promotions and do marketing campaigns earlier, like around June. Families are more likely to plan their spending and look for better deals—and 64% of consumers are planning to shop around sale events.

Here are some tips to consider:

• Make sure your merchandise is on point to prepare for this and compete with big retailers like Amazon. Using your POS or retail management system, you can look at your store history to check which items were bestsellers from last year’s back-to-school season.
• Check your products’ price competitiveness to see how other retailers are pricing the same products you sell to give you an idea of what deals to offer. Use the data to map out your pricing and merchandising strategy. Learn how to price products strategically.
• Monitor rising retail trends to help you keep track of which items or promotions are trending so you can adapt.
• Announce your promotions and sale events early to garner attention online so that shoppers can plan. According to a back to school study, 71% of US shoppers are willing to wait over two weeks before buying if they know of a sale, deal, or promotion.

If you can’t do early promotions, don’t get discouraged. According to the NRF 85% of consumers still have half of their shopping remaining. The top reasons they have not checked items off their list are because 42% have not received their school lists and expect them to get released by the end of July.

2. Ensure a Well-Stocked Inventory

The demand for school-related items (electronics and gadgets, clothing and accessories, school supplies, and dorm furniture) will be high during the back-to-school shopping season. This means you need to determine which items are in demand and will most likely be bought and ensure your inventory levels can meet the increase in demand.

Here are some tips to consider when evaluating your products:

• Know local school requirements. Get accurate school supplies, athletic gear, and uniform lists from your area school districts, and make your stock purchases accordingly. Nothing is more frustrating for shoppers or store owners than processing returns because something didn’t match a school requirement. So, stick to the list to ensure your products get sold.
• Stock up on bestselling essentials. Don’t be afraid to stock up on basic and other fast-moving essentials when purchasing back-to-school stock. However, be wary of splurging on specialty or seasonal goods.

3. Run Special Discounts & Events

With the increasing inflation, 84% expect to see higher prices when doing back-to-school shopping this year. As such, more people (42%) are shopping for sales more often compared to last year (36%). Twenty-four percent are also using coupons more this year.

Target back-to-school shoppers by giving them special discounts. Here are some specific back-to-school promotions to help you get started:

• Bundle deals (such as back-to-school kits you can create depending on your store’s offering)
• Coupons and promo codes
• Contests and giveaways
• Sale events, pop-up shops
• Bigger customer discounts and pre-sales offerings for those under your loyalty program

4. Simplify the Shopping Experience

Back-to-school season is hectic for shoppers, especially parents with multiple school children. Help them shop by streamlining the shopping experience.

Generate Shopping Guides & Checklists

One of the ways to simplify the shopping experience for shoppers is to provide guides or checklists. These help consumers know which products to buy and find items easily in-store. For example, Target and Walmart have specific back-to-school supply lists personalized per school city or ZIP code. As a small business, you can provide a particular category in your online store for back-to-school items or create a blog post with a downloadable checklist.

Target lets shoppers search for supply lists by ZIP code, school, and classroom to purchase all supplies at once. Small retailers can work with local school districts to get supply lists and offer bundles for different grade levels or classrooms.

Offer Social Media Shopping

Setting up a Facebook Shop and shoppable posts on Instagram can help consumers check out back-to-school items faster and more efficiently, especially since 31% of consumers discover products on social media. They don’t even have to visit your online shop to check what you sell—all they need to do is browse the shop on your profile.

5. Show Product Value by Demonstrating Its Relevance

The common trend in the savings-focused shift in shopping behavior shows that more consumers (35%) are not loyal to brand products and will buy more generic products as long as they see the value.

Aside from creating shopping guides that showcase products, try to highlight your product’s importance for back to school. For example, if you are in the food industry, you can put together a resource on how to cook snacks for school children in less than 30 minutes using products you offer. Meanwhile, if you provide furniture, consider creating a video tutorial on assembling furniture or showcasing how a dorm room looks with your furniture.

Though mattresses aren’t a typical back-to-school item, mattress brand Casper connects sleep to studying in its back-to-school advertisement.

6. Provide an Omnichannel Buyer Experience

Consumers prefer an omnichannel shopping experience, and this back-to-school season proves no different. Over 50% check for in-store delivery online before going into the store. Moreover, 38% of consumers expect to take advantage of BOPIS (buy online, pick up in-store) when available. Consider the following:

• Improve store pickup experience. Customers can shop online and come to the store to finish the transaction by paying in person, taking advantage of the buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS), or opting for the curbside pickup solution. If you do not offer this yet, learn how to set up click and collect for your retail store.
• Use local inventory ads and other local advertising ideas to promote store products to nearby customers. According to a Think with Google study, more than half (60%) of back-to-school shoppers still plan to do a portion of their shopping from small businesses this year—and local campaigns are a good way to drive traffic. Also, invest in local SEO to boost your website’s rankings.

7. Have a Mobile-friendly Online Store

An interesting tidbit from the recent NRF back-to-school retail trend report is that consumers plan to concentrate their shopping in one destination instead of spreading it out across stores. Surprisingly, the top shopping destination is still online (50%). Start an online store for your brick-and-mortar shop if you haven’t yet.

It’s not enough to just have an online store, though. You also need to make sure that it is mobile-friendly. More people are choosing the convenience of shopping with their smartphones as they find it easier to research products and price comparisons using phone apps, allowing them to make a corresponding purchase.

Offer Free Shipping for Back-to-School Items

Consumers expect free shipping, and sellers who offer it see higher sales and fewer dropped carts. If you don’t already provide free shipping, try offering it for a minimum purchase. This encourages buyers to increase small orders for free shipping, and you can market it in your back-to-school promotions. As you prepare for the rush, ensure you get the best rates on every shipment by using top shipping rate comparison software.

8. Do Your Marketing Online

Forty-three percent of shoppers are doing more comparative shopping online, up from 30% last year. Your deals must show up where people are looking—so try to implement some of these online marketing strategies:

Display Back-to-School Products on Special Webpages & Menus

Create unique back-to-school landing pages on your site to highlight back-to-school features, specials, and discounts. Also, try adding special back-to-school categories to your store menu to help buyers navigate the product types they want and shop quickly. Add prominent links to these special sections from your homepage and blog, and include them in email and social media marketing.

Office Depot’s back-to-school campaign is featured on its homepage, which also leads to a back-to-school section featuring popular deals.

Add Social Media to Your Marketing Strategy

Deloitte’s back-to-school survey (2022) shows that 35% of back-to-school shoppers plan to use social media to assist in shopping. Shopping directly from social media platforms is becoming increasingly popular, but it is not the only reason your retail store needs to show up more on social media.

Of people who already use social media, 46% visit retailers’ social media pages to find out about brand promotions—up from 35% in 2021. It is also a way to engage with customers, update them with the latest offerings, and show them how to use your products (through product photos or actual customer reviews—social proof).

9. Create Smart Displays Using Strategic Product Layouts

Even with half of the shoppers doing their purchases online, don’t forget your brick-and-mortar shops! Compared to previous years, shoppers are more confident shopping in stores, with 45% of shoppers planning to turn to department stores for their back-to-school shopping.

Turn your power walls and other prime in-store real estate into back-to-school blowout displays that lure your customers in and entice them to buy. Maximize these key selling spots using tried-and-true retail store layout methods to keep your space organized and easy to navigate. Use must-buy back-to-school essentials to draw buyers in, allow ample room for movement on busy days, and keep your impulse-buy areas well stocked with inexpensive add-ons.

10. Offer Financing, Repairs & Upgrades for Electronics

Electronics is still the top back-to-school item this year, with 63% of shoppers including a gadget in their back-to-school shopping list. It’s a great time to offer customer financing to potential buyers who can’t purchase your products outright. Aside from increasing the number of visitors to your store, it can also increase the average purchase amount per customer.

Upgrades and repairs go hand in hand. If you offer upgrades, you end up with an older smartphone, laptop, or PC model that you can refurbish or break apart for parts. This will allow you to offer repair services as an additional income stream for your business.

11. Have Special Campaigns for Education Personnel

When it comes to the back-to-school season, teachers need to prepare themselves as much as students, so retailers should not forget educators in their target market. However, unlike students, they might have different priorities and budgeting concerns that affect their buying decisions.

This allows retailers to differentiate themselves by giving special attention to teachers when offering discounts.

Here are some discount ideas you can try:

• Start a loyalty program that allows them to earn points for each dollar they spend; they can use them to save money on their next purchase
• Create a one-day exclusive sale for them during back-to-school season
• Offer them special discounts for customer referrals

Target does a great job with this by holding its yearly Teacher Prep Event where a 15% discount on select back-to-school items is offered at its stores.

12. Create Specific Back-to-School Campaigns for Your Business

Even if your retail business is not offering back-to-school-related items, you can still leverage the season to increase your sales. Here are some examples for specific industries:

Bottom Line

Even with a shift toward savings-focused shopping, US households still plan to prioritize back-to-school shopping, with each family projected to spend close to $1,200 on back-to-school items. Retailers should capitalize on these trends such as savings promotions, omnichannel experience, mobile shopping, and social commerce. You should also employ marketing strategies that build on the overall buyer’s experience with a seamless transition from online to in-store purchasing and an emphasis on product value and savings.

Back-to-school season is a great time to increase revenue and build loyalty among customers and employees. As this year shows that people like to shop earlier, we recommend planning and thinking outside the box for marketing so that your business can take advantage of the second biggest spending season.

You May Also Like…

• Cyber Monday sales strategy
• Black Friday, Cyber Monday statistics
• Online shopping statistics
• Retail statistics for brick-and-mortar sellers