Rainy rainy days. When will it stop? May 2021 is one of the rainiest months in history. We researched to understand the impact of the weather on marketing and bumped into different interesting studies of the impact of weather on retail & your marketing. Here you can find the main conclusions and our advice to respond cleverly to weather with your communication. 

Weather is the most primal and universal factor in consumer decision making. It affects where we go, what we wear, what we eat, what we buy – and crucially, how we feel. This makes weather an important factor in your day-to-day communication strategy. It is a real-time data-set available to marketers which provides an insight into a consumer’s mood, desires, and purchase intent at any given moment. 

The most important impacts of weather: 

• Weather is the 2nd biggest influence on consumer behaviour after the state of the economy
• Exposure to sunlight has been proven to increase our willingness to spend money on products/services by up to 56%.
• Research suggests that severe or extreme weather conditions ultimately have less impact on retail sales than longer periods of bad weather. For example, ten days with 7 centimetres of snow are much worse than one day with 70 centimetres of snow. (source: https://www.ecommercenews.nl/extreem-weer-goed-voor-ecommerce/)

Weather-drive demand & how it affects your mood

Weather is a fundamental driver of consumer spending habits. However, many of us don’t realize just how pervasive weather’s impact on the sales of goods and services really is. Forget about umbrellas and ice cream – the relationship between weather and product demand spans across nearly every industry including Food & drinks, clothes & fashion and health & beauty. 

Weather targeting is not just about tying a particular product to the weather (although this is a big part of it). Weather data can also be used by marketers to tap into the consumer’s psyche at any given moment in time. Understanding the customer’s mind frame, and tailoring marketing messages accordingly, will result in a much more potent campaign strategy. A message that delivers timely and relevant information, in a tone that resonates with the consumer’s mood, will elicit far greater purchase intent.

How to implement current & forecasted weather in your communication strategy? 

Current weather 

The weather that an individual is experiencing at any given moment has the most immediate and salient influence on their mood and purchase behaviour. How to tap into a sudden change in weather? 

• Create Instagram stories based on the current weather 
• Change your webshop look & feel according to the weather. The first header image can be sufficient to quickly adapt
• Boost your most sunny post for 1 day! (when the weather is excellent!) 

Future weather 

Forecasts offer an excellent way to prepare communications with customers whilst providing a value-add which affirms the consumer’s need for the product or service.

For example

Timberland sends weather forecast emails advising subscribers that good weather is forecasted over the next few days, with the tagline ‘looks like a great weekend for a hike’ and a promotional discount on hiking boots. 

Source: The Complete Guide to Weather Based Marketing by the weather unlocked.com

Extra tips to prepare for the upcoming sunny period:

• Prepare your email marketing with content that taps into the forecast
• Facebook marketing: adapt campaigns & focus on collections and product categories that fit the season. Especially if your items are season-specific. Adapt your Facebook & Instagram shop with the most summer-proof collection. Learn more about facebook shops in this article. 
• Google extensions: we add google extensions to highlight the most weather-relevant products and categories. 
• Share your most sunny items on your social media channels. Create an Instagram guide: get ready for summer 
• Last but not least via a weather API as “Weatherunlocked” you can connect your dynamic advertisement to this tool, which will show the sunniest items on sunny days or rainwear on rainy days. 

Want to learn more? Contact us!