Marketing Ideas for April 2024

4th

• National Carrot Day
  • Started in 2003 with the intention of celebrating a staple salad ingredient, today is a great day to celebrate the sweeter side of carrots, like carrot cake! If you have carrots in your menu, featuring them as a side would be great as well. Don’t forget to use it in your social media!
• Happy Birthday Robert Downey Jr.
  • Best known as Tony Stark and Iron Man from Marvel, today is a great day to wish him a Happy Birthday and maybe show off some Iron Man things you have in your business. 

5th

• Deep Dish Pizza Day
  • While I am a New Yorker and don’t understand how people enjoy their sauce on top of the pizza, I know that deep dish is wildly popular and worth starting the New York versus Chicago social media war. Start the debate, engage with your customers. Possibly hold a poll or vote and throw the winning choice at a pizza party in your store. It’s also a good day to surprise your workers with some pizza. 
• First Contact Day
  • In Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek, our future history in the year of 2063, Humanity has its first contact with the Vulcans. Spend today sharing Star Trek trivia, hosting events, or offering a sale on any Star Trek merchandise you may carry.

6th

• New Beer’s Eve
  • Store’s with beer licenses, this one’s for you. April 7th is National Beer Day (see below) and is a great opportunity to partner with a local brewery or push for an extra discount on cross-promotion advertising with your beer distributor.
• Twinkie Day
  • Started on April 6th, 2012, what is believed to be the anniversary of the invention of the Twinkie created by James Dewar. Today makes a great day to feature Twinkies or Twinkie clones like a vanilla cake or cupcake with a vanilla filling or frosting. 

7th

• National Beer Day
  • Welcome to National Beer Day! If your store already sells beer or your local laws allow beer to be introduced into your store for a limited time, this is a holiday for you. National Beer Day is the day that President Roosevelt took the first steps to ending Prohibition. It allowed people to brew and sell beer as long as it was below 4.0% alcohol by volume. Cross-promote with a local brewer or host an event at the brewery if you are not in your own store. Be sure to talk to your soft drink distributors for offers of non-alcoholic drinks to also promote. 
• National Walking Day
  • This is a day to promote being healthy and active by walking. It’s a great chance for community building with the power of Pokémon Go [LINK TO POKEMON GO]. Plan a walk to hatch eggs, hit local stops. and a take over of some gyms. Pokémon GO is a F2P (Free to Play) game, so adding a service fee is possible if you are looking to monetize. It also helps that the beginning and end of the walk is your store, thus having potential customers visit twice in one day.

8th

• National Zoo Lovers Day
  • People love zoo’s and the work they do in preserving wildlife and saving endangered species. This is a great day to host a fundraiser and donate to your local zoo, or to the WWF (https://www.worldwildlife.org/) if you don’t have a local zoot. Be sure to check with your local government for non-profit charities that help preserve wildlife in your area.

12th

• National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day
  • Grilled Cheese Sandwiches are one of the top comfort foods in the United States. If you are a game cafe model store, having a high profit margin item is a great way to market a special product. Feel free to make a very special “today only,” or “this week only” variant of the sandwich. 

13th

• National Scrabble Day
  • Scrabble is a great game! It can be used as a teaching tool to expand vocabulary and strategize for the triple word scores! Be sure to focus on the classic or branded versions of the game like the ones from The OP. [https://theop.games/brands/scrabble/] While games of Scrabble are quite long, try and offer a demo of the game by playing one round, or explaining the basics of the game. Don’t forget to highlight your add ons or upsells of accessories.

15th

• Tax Day
  • Every business is different. Please consult your CPA or lawyer on your specific needs. April 15th is when most personal income taxes need to be filed by the Federal Government. Most States align with this date as well. 

• Happy Birthday Emma Watson
  • English born Actress first known for her role in Harry Potter, she has also played as Beauty in the live action movie, “Beauty and the Beast”. 

18th

• Animal Cracker Day
  • Originally created in England from many different bakers and finally arriving in the United States sometime in the mid 1800’s, Stauffer’s Biscuit company began to mass produce and sell these cookies. Shortly after The National Biscuit Company, aka Nabisco, started to make and package the cookies based on PT Barnum circus train cars and animals. This became wildly popular and took over as #1. In 2018, the packaging changed slightly and the animals were set free from their package cages and now roam free on the savannah. Use today as an excuse to do a small giveaway to customers for free or with a small purchase. It will create dialog and will be a well received surprise gift if kept secret. Package of the original Nabisco cookies are here for about $0.50/pack [ https://amzn.to/4bkAvlR ]
• Happy Birthday David Tennant
  • His breakout role was The Doctor in Doctor Who, but he has also had roles in Harry Potter as Barty Crouch and in the Marvel series, “Jessica Jones.”

19th

• National Banana Day
  • Bananas are one of the most consumed fruits in the world, let alone the United States. While extremely popular, they inspire games and food of all kinds. It’s also a great day to cross promote with a bakery for Banana Bread or Banana Cream Pie. 
• Happy Birthday James Franco
  • Actor that has played many roles in his career, for the game and hobby industry, he is known for his role in Sam Raimi’s Spiderman as Harry Osborn.
• Happy Birthday Hayden Christensen
  • Canadian actor and producer who is known for his role in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Cones as Anakin Skywalker.

20th

• 420 Day
  • Agree with the use of Cannabis or not, 420 day is a widely advertised and popular day. Marketing around or to 420 and Cannabis users can be slightly tricky depending on your local and state laws. As a reminder, Cannabis is still outlawed by the Federal Government as of writing this. 
• Cheddar Fries Day
  • Convenient that it is the same day as 420 Day, Cheddar Fries day is a pretty straight forward day for those who serve food. Fries and Cheddar are common ingredients and most likely in your kitchen already. 

22nd

• Earth Day
  • Earth Day is a great moment to have your business do good for a cause. Plan a day to walk a neighborhood and do a community clean up, hold a fundraiser for a non-profit organization aligned with Earth Day, or plan a tree planting event with your community. Even if your event or fundraiser isn’t a huge draw for your community, every bit helps when it comes to trying to help the environment.

23rd

• World Book Day
  • Books are knowledge. Knowledge is power. Books inspire many of the games found in the hobby retail industry. Adventures of the poor girl who found out she was a powerful sorcerer and defended the city from the evil necromancer exist in the pages of imagination. Books hold all of our stories and history. World Book Day is a great way to highlight stories or adventures of popular characters. It is also a perfect day to team up with your local school and get books donated to their library or better yet, help raise money for them.  
• Take a Chance Day
  • This day is normally about taking a chance, making a major risk, or flipping a coin on a decision. With some creativity, you could turn this into a random discount day. Please consult your lawyer about the legality of a random discount based on your city and state laws. You could also turn it into a new game day. Take the chance on a new board game, card game, miniatures game, or comic! For the restaurant style stores, take a chance on a chef’s special or craft beer. For the roleplaying stores or book stores, take a chance on a new adventure, story, or dungeon dive.

26th

• National Arbor Day (Last Friday in April)
  • Trees are sometimes called the lungs of the Earth. Today is a day celebrating and planting trees. They help topsoil from eroding, provide oxygen, and are where wildlife thrives. Consider doing a community project of planting trees or fundraising for a local arbor non-profit organization. You can also raise money to donate to The Arbor Day Foundation (https://www.arborday.org/)

27th

• Babe Ruth Day
  • Babe Ruth had an amazing career and still has legendary status among baseball fans. He was one of the first five men to be inducted into the baseball hall of fame. On this day we celebrate his legacy and his contributions to baseball history. Stores that sell sports cards should at least use this day for social media posts and engagement with customers. Looking for a spring event? Host a baseball day and have fans show off their favorite baseball players’ photos or memorabilia. Add a sale on Red Sox, Yankee, or Brave’s merch as well, as those were the three teams he played for.

28th

• National Superhero Day
  • “Heroes are ordinary people who make themselves extraordinary.” ~ Gerard Way
  • Today is a big day for comic stores! Today celebrates all superheroes! Throw a party, share an event, have a cosplay contest. Anything that gets your customer base excited for superheroes!

30th

• Happy Birthday Gal Gadot
  • Aside from being a model, she is known for her role as DC’s Wonder Woman.