Weather-Based Marketing: A Perfect Storm

Here in snow-battered Minneapolis, where we just barely survived a brutal, record-breaking February (fourth snowiest month ever—yippee!), the weather seems to be on everybody’s mind all the time. And mine more than most, possibly. Which is why when I was thinking of topics for this blog post, I let my mind lead me to, what else? So I typed “marketing” and “the weather” into Google, and hey, it turns out that weather-based marketing is a real thing. Instant blog topic!

If you’re anything like I was before I consulted Professor Google, you’ve probably never heard of weather-based marketing. Well let me tell you, it’s actually pretty interesting stuff. So grab your gloves and your long johns and read on!

First thing’s first. What the heck is weather-based marketing?

It’s basically a type of marketing that combines geo location technology, weather-driven sales trends, and weather data to generate customized marketing messages based on weather conditions.

Now, we all know marketing is about tapping into emotions to motivate our audience into taking action, whether that’s signing up for a newsletter, making a purchase, or something else. Add to that the fact that weather affects our moods, emotions, and behaviors at least to some degree (no pun intended)—including our spending and you’ve got the perfect storm (no pun intended) of factors influencing your customer.

Here are some creative ways to use weather-based marketing:

• Use past, current, or forecasted weather signals to trigger a particular marketing message. For example, an ad for iced tea that only appears when the mercury hits 80 and the sky is mostly sunny.

• Trigger a specific marketing message that acknowledges the current weather conditions. Like a headline that says, “Hot enough for ya?” on days when the temperature rises above 92 degrees.

• Trigger a message that provides a specific solution to a specific weather-based problem. Such as showing an ad for winter coats during a cold snap.

Pretty cool, huh? (No pun…oh, who am I kidding? Of course it was intended!) Anyway, if you’re interested in using geo location technology to do some super-targeted, super-strategic marketing, be sure to include weather-based marketing in your arsenal. You can reach your audience in some really fun ways.

And to everyone who lives here in Minnesota: hang in there, folks. Spring is on the way!