Spring is in the air! The Cabin Fever is breaking and people are itching to get out for various reasons. Here’s some ideas you can plan in advance to give them a reason to visit your store. Get your copy ready and checked, get your materials designed and proofed, and set those social media posts to auto publish.
Below is a printable calendar for May 2023. Hopefully this easy reference can help you plan events, sales, and marketing. You certainly don’t need to create something for every day, do what feels right for your store.
6th – Free Comic Book Day (First Saturday in May)
Free comic book day is a staple holiday with comic book stores. https://www.freecomicbookday.com/ This day is a day that brings serious comic readers in for exclusive covers, issue #0’s, and to try a comic sample that they would not normally try, all for free.
6th – National Play Outside Day
This is a day focused on kids to play outside for fun and exercise. Playing outside is fun and the more often kids play outside, the healthier they are likely to be. If you are a store that sells outdoor activities such as Disc Golf, be ready to set up a community meetup or tournament. It is also a good day to plan a Pokemon GO event.
1st – Chocolate Parfait Day
A delicious frozen treat made from eggs, sugar, and cream. Layered cream with flavors, chocolate on this day, make a quick to make and tasty treat. With the relatively low cost of this dessert, it’s something you can add on as a free treat with purchase, a give away, or partner with another company to be able to create a day for your customers. Here is a recipe we found and liked [ https://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/chocolate-parfaits ]
2nd – National Brother and Sister Day / Siblings Day
Dedicated to your siblings, planning an adventure, lunch, a phone call, or even an activity together for today. Retailers could plan a duo’s event such as Two-Headed Giant for Magic the Gathering or duo’s in Apex Legends. Publishers should highlight their catalog of two player games or two player team games.
2nd – International Harry Potter Day
Prime Minister David Cameron declared May 2nd while in the UK office as Harry Potter Day. Perfect to celebrate the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and create a marketable day involving wizards and Harry Potter merchandise. Have customers cosplay as their favorite wizard for entry into a prize, or offer discounts to merchandise. Just don’t forget to take some photos and videos for your social media.
3rd – Paranormal Day
The day is designed to share stories of your local haunted house or fabled monster that lives in the woods. Advertised correctly, it could be a great day to bring some Halloween into May. Share a ghost story, focus on paranormal games such as Betrayal at the House on the Hill.
4th – Star Wars Day
This should be a must use advertisement, marketing, and sale day for anyone that carries Star Wars products. “May the 4th be with you” is a take on the iconic movie line, “May the Force be with you.” Anything Star Wars is a safe bet, this should easily be a home run for brand building via social media and possible home run for a sales event. If you carry Star Wars games, I’d consider running a special event as well.
4th – National Teachers Day
Teachers day is a day to pause and appreciate those who spend their lives teaching and educating. Today is a great day to run a fundraising event for a school activity or raising supplies for schools in need.
5th – Star Wars Day Part 2
“Revenge of the 5th” is a take from the Star Wars title, “Revenge of the Sith.” Take today to continue your marketing for Star Wars or start a new social media push focusing on the popular Sith Lords.
5th – Cinco de Mayo
This is a widely popular holiday. Celebrating the Mexican Army’s improbable victory over Napoleon’s French Imperial invaders, it was popularized in America thanks to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in order to improve relations with Latin American Countries. Often celebrated with Mexican cuisine and drinks. Every bar and restaurant will have some sort of special promotion for these items on this day and it is easy to ride the coattails of major brands advertising Cinco de Mayo.
5th – National Hoagie Day
If you serve food and tacos and margaritas are not your speciality it is also National Hoagie Day. Traditional Hoagies are usually a mix of Italian meats, cheeses, and veggies, topped with oil and vinegar.
4th – World Password Day
Use this as a reminder that your passwords should be changed often. Remind your staff and your customers that they should be changing their passwords.
7th – National Package Design Day
This day is designed (I’m sorry!) to celebrate the art and design of packaging. Board Games have some of the best art on their covers to help grab customers’ attention and pique interest. Publishers, take a moment to send some love to your art and graphic teams.
7th – National Lemonade Day
Lemonade has been around for almost as long as written history has existed. Lemonade Day has been created to help teach the youth on how to own and operate their own business, a lemonade stand. https://lemonadeday.org/
14th – Mother’s Day
Today is one of the busiest days of the year in the restaurant world. Most people take the time out to call their mothers and take them out to lunch or dinner. If you are a restaurant style store with seating, don’t forget to advertise to your customers that Mother’s day is coming and not to forget a reservation.
13th – Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive
The NALC (National Association of Letter Carriers NALC.org) uses the Postal Service to drive food into food banks across the country. Place non-perishable food in your mailbox and the mail carrier will do the rest. This can easily be done on a larger scale with your community by hosting a food drive tournament where the entry fee is a non-perishable goods, which is then donated on this day.
9th – National Lost Sock Memorial Day
For those socks eaten by the dryer goblins, for those socks lost at a friends house, for those socks who lost their twin for an unknown reason, today is the day to say goodbye. As a light-hearted National Day, today is the day to clean out your dresser drawer of all of the unpaired socks owned. It is a great way to get creative and have an art day within your store using those socks. Make a sock puppet, fill them with rice and make a door stop, or collect them all and donate to a shelter in need. Non-matching socks are better than no socks.
10th – National Clean Your Room Day
While intended for more of a general spring cleaning, garage culling, or re-organizing closets, it is a great way to advertise that you buy collectibles while people are already looking to downsize their winter horde of stuff. Old collectibles like Pokemon, Magic, and Yu-Gi-Oh. Video games and systems, and even toys, depending on what your business merits. While advertising to buy collections, it is also important to remember that you also need to go into your storage area and get rid of the dead inventory that has been there since last November. It hasn’t sold, it’s time to throw it out or donate it.
18th – National NO Dirty Dishes Day
Thought to be a motivation to make sure everyone reset’s their kitchen sink and does all of the dishes that day, it can be made into a marketing advertisement for take out lunch and dinner. If you serve food and are able to offer take out, advertise for No Dirty Dishes with your special for that day.
20th – Rescue a Dog Day
Today is a great day to make an effort to do some good in your community. Raise money, awareness, or accept donations to help your local animal shelter. Possibly work with them to create an event to help dogs become adopted.
21st – Talk like Yoda Day
This commemorates the day we first saw Yoda on the big screen in “Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back” With the hit show the Mandalorian, interest in Yoda has only grown in recent years.
23rd – Lucky Penny Day
Want to be lucky? Give away a lucky penny. At the cost of $0.01, you could be hanging out the magical lucky penny! Talk up how lucky these pennies are, use them for a special one off Dungeons and Dragons campaign where players need to flip a coin to break a spell. You could also do a lucky penny hunt around your store. Possibly reuse some of the campaign marketing materials from your one cent day.
24th – Scavenger Hunt Day
Depending on your location, it might be possible to set up an actual scavenger hunt designed to point people into your store. It also may be possible to set up a community day designed on Geocaching, searching for some near by Geocaches.
25th – National Wine Day
While most adults don’t exactly need a reason to drink wine, today is a great marketing day for the restaurant or tavern style store.
26th – Paper Airplane Day
Paper airplanes are sometimes the start of a child’s creative and design thought process. How can I make this fly further or longer? Create an event where people make paper airplanes and give out awards for longest flight, coolest design, or randomly awarded.
28th – Indianapolis 500
The Indy 500 is one of the world’s greatest car races in the world. Taking place in Indianapolis, Indiana, cars race around a 2.5 mile oval track for a total of 500 miles. Being this is one of the largest sporting events, if you are located near the area, plan accordingly around or with the Indy 500.
28th – National Hamburger Day
Celebrate an American Classic today, advertise, market, and sell some burgers.
29th – Memorial Day
Remembering those who gave their lives fighting for this country in the Armed Forces. Memorial Day is always a Federal Holiday so don’t forget about banking needs on the Friday before the weekend. Memorial Day usually brings massive three day sales by big box stores. Take advantage of the huge marketing budgets of the mass market stores, who are priming your customers to be on the lookout for deals and discounts. Mark down the last of your spring cleaning.
