44 Amazing August Promotion Ideas for Sizzling Summer Sales

August is an exciting month. People are looking to squeeze a little more fun out of summer while also preparing for what’s next—namely, back to school and the fall season.

Luckily, you have a whole month of opportunities to address these varying interests. Use these August promotion ideas to meet your customers where they are in their planning process and watch the sales come rolling in.

August promotion ideas

We’ve broken down our August promotion ideas into a few different themes to help you organize your planning an make the most of this month:

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Market smart for back-to-school sales

Back-to-school marketing is big business. US shoppers spent almost $32 billion to prepare for the 2023 school year. Catch those buyers’ attention with a great deal at the right time, and you’ll become their seller of choice.

Have a school supply drive

A school supply drive is a great way to get people in your store’s door while also helping people who need a little relief from the high cost of school supplies.

It only takes a few easy steps to do it:

Find a non-profit partner to donate the collected supplies to
Post about your event on social media
Set up a donation center in your store

Remember to ask your non-profit partner to help spread the word. It’s a great way to reach a whole new audience with little extra effort.

Offer back-to-school alternatives

Some people may need a break from the bustle of getting ready for a new school year. Advertise your business or organization as a way to destress for a bit.

This strategy can work even if you don’t sell actual experiences like mini golf or massages. Position your physical products as part of a destress event. If you sell running gear, artisanal popcorn, or beauty products, show how your customers can incorporate them into a day of self-care for parents or whole families.

Target a specific audience

Marketing works best when it’s hyper-relevant to a specific audience. Instead of a generic back-to-school promotion, segment your audience and target a niche group of shoppers.

See how this ad aims to engage college kids heading back to campus.

That’ll be more powerful than a general clothing ad vaguely aimed at all students and their parents. Also, make sure your messaging is right for each audience you market to.

Work with influencers

Want to engage a group of younger buyers? Work with an influencer.

Influencer marketing offers a way to connect with an audience in a more authentic and personal way that most brands would struggle to do alone. That’s why the youngest buyers trust this type of advertising more.

You don’t need Nike money to partner with influencers. Many micro-influencers are happy to work for free gear or a small per-post payment. Just make sure the ones you choose match your tone and have an audience that would be interested in what you sell. Gen Z and Alpha shoppers can sniff out insincerity in a heartbeat.

Offer exclusive discounts

Everyone likes to feel special! An exclusive discount code tells people “they’re in the club.”

The best part is that customers can share the code with their friends, making them feel a little extra special.

More back-to-school promotion ideas

The more back-to-school promotions you try, the more chances you’ll have at growing sales this time of year. Here are several more ideas you can use to drum up new customers:

Offer back-to-school preparation discounts (like a salon or a gym for student-athletes).
Offer early registration deals for tutoring and college prep services.
Dentists promote a deal to get cleanings or orthodonture done before the school year.
Run a remarketing campaign to engage customers who haven’t purchased in a while.

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Lean into Summer themes

Let’s get some August promotions out there that’ll attract people looking to squeeze a little more summer fun out of this month.

Have an end-of-summer clearance event

If those yellow duckie swim trunks didn’t fly off the shelf the way you’d hoped, now is a great time to get them gone with a clearance event.

This colorful ad will catch attention, and the big discount will keep it.

You can also feature a few images of clearance items. Let people know what kind of goodies they can nab at low prices, and they’ll be more likely to click for more.

Share a “beat-the-heat” promotion

Your customers have been battling high temperatures for a few months now. Use some of your August promotions to help them stay cool until fall arrives.

Indoor attractions like movie theaters, themed restaurants, and go-karting are great for this type of promotion.

But don’t restrict yourself here. You can use this theme for just about any product under the (really hot) sun.

Notice that you don’t even need a discount to use this promotion idea. Just tie your product into the theme, and you’re good to go.

Hold a summer-themed giveaway

Giveaways are great any time of year. They’re versatile, eye-catching, and adjustable; you can ask more or less of your audience with a bigger or smaller gift.

This ad makes a huge splash with a big prize: Ten grand in cash and a Winnebago. Also, notice the cool-weather images, even though this was shared in August.

That’s not a bad strategy. Your customers might be attracted to chilly scenes when temps are unbearably high.

One tip for your August giveaway promotions is to make the entry directions very clear. This one does a great job of that by giving a three-step entry process right in the ad creative.

Create inspirational visual assets

Speaking of visuals, when people scroll social media while dreaming of adventure, they’re much more likely to stop at posts and promotions with eye-catching images and videos.

This short clip is an excellent example. It’s appropriately emotional and tells a great story about camping with your best four-legged friend.

You don’t have to go full-feature film. Even a high-quality social media image of someone jumping in a pool, setting up camp, or driving down a dirt road can capture the feeling people crave this time of year.

More summer-themed August promotion ideas

Summer has a very specific vibe compared to the other seasons. Tap into it with these promotion ideas:

Offer a temperature-themed discount (like 10.2% off when it’s 102 degrees outside).
Give a summer-themed gift with every purchase (like sunscreen or inexpensive sunglasses).
Have a summer-themed flash sale and hint at it ahead of time in social media posts.
Promote your business at local summer festivals.

Start your Labor Day promotions

It doesn’t feel like Labor Day is right around the corner. But it is. And if you time your promotions right this month, you can gain a first-mover advantage on all the Labor Day sales.

Offer a Labor Day discount code

You’ll want to track your Labor Day promotions to see how they help move the sales needle for your business. A Labor Day-specific discount code is an easy way to do it.

The code also hints at urgency since one can assume the code won’t work after the holiday.

Make Labor Day promos time-sensitive

Speaking of adding urgency, there’s no better way to motivate action quickly than with a countdown timer. Adding one to your Labor Day ads will get people on the fence about buying to smash the “add to cart” button.

A timer like this is perfect for your August promotion landing pages.

Highlight your best Labor Day discounts

Labor Day is one of the most competitive times of the year for a marketer. Ad creative and clever ad targeting help get your message to the right people. But if your discount or deal falls flat, your clicks won’t turn into conversions.

Offer some of your best deals for Labor Day, and make them stand out in all your messaging.

More Labor Day Promotion ideas

Get everything you can out of this important holiday with a few more Labor Day promotion ideas:

Write Labor Day-themed copy, “Take a rest this Labor Day with these great deals.”
Use compelling calls to action to convert every shopper possible.
Write inspirational Labor Day social media posts to support your promotional messages.
Craft Labor Day email subject lines that highlight your best offers.

Get in on the Olympics hype

The 2024 Summer Olympics runs from July 26 through August 11. You’ll need to be prepared since they fly by faster than a gold-medal sprinter. Don’t miss out on the trend everyone will be talking about.

Use all the Olympic hashtags

Hashtags group social media posts so they’re easier for people to find. Make sure shoppers see your promotions when they look for Olympic hashtags.

Use hashtags appropriately for each platform. On TikTok, for example, it’s common to have a bunch of hashtags in the caption. It looks OK because captions are automatically hidden, so they don’t cover the video until the user clicks for more information.

On Instagram, however, it’s common to put additional hashtags in a comment to keep the caption less cluttered.

Get creative with your tie-ins

Connecting an athletic brand or health supplement to the Olympics is easy. But with a little creativity, just about every business can pair its products with the games.

Just using some fun vocabulary will get you there. For example, a cleaning service ad could read, “Rings are for the Olympics, not your bathtub.”

Create Olympic-themed products

If your products are personalizable, consider creating versions with Olympic themes. Just remember not to use any copyrighted logos, like the Olympic rings.

Another version of this promotion is Olympic-themed product bundles. Your three-stage skin care treatment could become your “Gold Medal Glow.”

More Summer Olympic-themed promotion ideas

Just like the Olympics themselves, your Summer Olympics promotions should be eclectic. Try a few of these ideas to get you started:

Be careful of Olympic copyrights (don’t lead people to believe you’re a sponsor of the Olympics, teams, or athletes).
Focus on France (where the 2024 Olympics will take place) instead of the games in your promotions.
Use Olympic-themed discount codes like “2024” and “Winning Gold.”

Celebrate August holidays and observances

Labor Day and the Olympics are just the beginning of somber and silly holidays and days of observance you can jump on to help promote your business.

Black Business Month

Black Business Month celebrates the diverse and growing contingent of thriving, Black-owned brands. If this is your business, share it! Ad the hashtag #BlackBusinessMonth to your promotions and let everyone know about your great solutions.

This is also a great time to promote other Black-owned businesses.

If you’re a retailer, highlight Black-owned brands in your collection. Or, if you’re a local business, spotlight some of your neighboring businesses. True, this isn’t a direct promotion of your products. But sometimes that’s better.

Family Fun Month

It makes sense that the month before school starts is Family Fun Month. Offer promotions that help your customers celebrate it in style.

You can go super simple and use a family-themed image in your promotion.

Or get more elaborate. Try an in-store scavenger hunt or an online photo contest that features your products. Make it fun, light, and family-focused.

National Dog Day (August 26)

Do pets really need another day of celebration? You bet they do! So jump on this and gather brand awareness by showing off your team’s furry friends.

And don’t forget the fun doggo puns like, “We’d be furrever grateful if you shopped our sale” or “Live is ruff without [your product].”

More holidays and observance promotion ideas

There are more holidays and observances than there are days in August. Here are a handful of some entertaining and impactful ones:

American Artist Appreciation Month
Family Fun Month
National Campfire Day (August 1)
National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day (August 4)
International Cat Day (August 8)
National Women’s Day (August 9)
International Left Hander’s Day (August 13)
World Photography Day (August 19)
National Potato Day (August 19)

Finish summer strong with these August promotion ideas

Summer may be waning by the end of August, but your sales won’t be when you connect with buyers with the right message at the right time. These promotion ideas are for filling your marketing channels with creative, timely messages that engage your ideal customer. Try them out, note what works, and double down on the winners for future months.

Looking for more inspiration? Here’s a heaping helping of marketing, messaging, and social media ideas for August:

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