Using Calendar Events to Boost Your Marketing

Today is National Pi Day. Not peach, blueberry or apple, but the math pi---the 3.14 or the 22/7 kind that you learned about somewhere along the way. If you are still stuck in yesteryear when math wasn't seen as a cool endeavor, math is now super cool and Pi Day is now a thing. There are a lot of great websites devoted to Pi Day, schools hold special math events and there's even a rap video about Pi.

The more you know about Pi, the more interesting it gets. Did you know everyone's birthday month and day can be found in Pi? Albert Einstein was born on March 14th? The curiosities of Pi abound and so do the stories surrounding Pi.

This combination of being global, outside of politics, intimate through personal experience of a shared education and universal truth, makes Pi a marketing goldmine. While many brands are trying to find these common grounds from which to make personal connections to individuals, it seems there are too few "safe zones" that we can utilize to connect people together.

The smart brands that can see the value of Pi Day and connect it with their brands are winning out. I have had several offers in my inbox today that all have leveraged Pi Day for special offers and a way to cut through the email clutter that now is the norm for the email user.

One of my particular favorites is from Restaurant.com who uses the snappy headline of "Pi Day Deals in Your Radius". The preview text then goes on to offer $15 certificates for only $3.14 and urges me to have Pi Day My Way.

Not only has Restaurant.com utilized a very neutral and pleasanttype of global, shared "holiday", but it has also not been afraid to use a subject line that not all people may understand. Restaurant.com has taken the risk and in doing so, their results of who click on the offer probably provide them an additional behavioral insight on the people who enjoy word play and have some interest in math.

Associations need to start leveraging opportunities such as Pi Day to tease out insights within their member and non-member populations as a way to get to know individuals at a deeper level. Restaurant.com does a great job in just the subject line and preview text of using content marketing techniques to learn just a little bit more with every digital interaction.