July Holidays and Newsletter Ideas — 2024

[Nick_S]

July is a tough time of year to stay in touch with your audience—between vacations, travel, and beating the summer heat, you’ll need something attention-grabbing (or cooling) to give them a reason to engage.

Luckily, there are a lot of opportunities and inspiration in July to help you stay connected with your customers while beating the heat.

Maybe it’s because Independence Day (July 4th) is celebrated in the U.S. this month, or maybe it’s just the sunny weather, but July is always chock-full of picnics, farmers’ markets, garden parties, community events, and fireworks. Even outside of the U.S., in Australia, Show Days in Alice Springs, Tennant Creek, Katherine, and Darwin are held on weekends in July.

Did I mention that July is National Picnic Month and National Grilling Month?

So serve up two scoops for National Ice Cream Month, make plans to fix up that dog house, because it’s Dog House Repair Month, polish up your best jokes for International Joke Day (July 1st), and get ready to talk about all the great things to do with your community this month!

July holidays — 2023

• July 1st — American Zoo Day.
• July 2nd — Made In The USA Day. U.S. businesses can celebrate local creators on this annual celebratory day.
• July 4th — Independence Day (USA).
• July 8th — Be a Kid Again Day.
• July 10th — Teddy Bear Picnic Day.
• July 11th — National Free Slurpee Day, aka 7-Eleven Day. Talk about great branding!
• July 12th — National Pecan Pie Day. A good opportunity for bakeries and restaurants to share the sweet love.
• July 15th — National Pet Fire Safety Day. Make sure your readers know how to keep their pets safe.
• July 17th — World Emoji Day. The perfect time to send an email expressing your brand through pictures… tiny ones.
• July 17th — National Hot Dog Day
• July 18th — Nelson Mandela International Day.
• July 20th — International Chess Day.
• July 23rd — National Vanilla Ice Cream Day.
• July 24th — National Amelia Earhart Day.
• July 31st — Harry Potter’s Birthday. A day even muggles can celebrate.

 

July newsletter ideas

Like I said, “picnics, garden parties, community cookouts, and fireworks.”

This makes the month of July the perfect time to use a section of your newsletter to:

• Be a resource for your readers
• Be part of your community
• Be relatable to your customers

Be a resource for your readers

There’s a lot going on this month, but that doesn’t mean everyone knows everything that’s going on in your community. Use your newsletter to help get the word out.

If you don’t know what you don’t know, contact your local Chamber of Commerce, Town Hall, or Volunteer Fire Department to gather any information that your community should know about.

Then:

• Share a list of events and link to any relevant event pages
• Write a blog post on one of the events and share an excerpt in your newsletter
• Provide information or maps to the best places to see the fireworks from
• If an event doesn’t have its own event page, include the “where, what, and when” in your newsletter
• Create a landing page with a list of local events that includes the details for each, and share the link in your newsletter

 

Be part of your community

While you can host an event in your local community, you don’t have to be the host in order to be part of what’s going on.

• If there are any local street fairs or community sales happening, join in and promote the event, and your involvement, in your newsletter. Then keep everyone up to date via social media and SMS text messaging.
• Talk to the coordinators of any existing events and see if they can use some help, then volunteer to help out, ask your employees to join in and share what you’re doing with your readers.
• Getting involved could be as simple as organizing a clean-up crew to help restore your community after the fireworks or other local events. Ask your readers to join in the effort and think about offering free t-shirts to participants — you’ll likely get more volunteers, and you’ll get some promotional bling out in the wild as well.
• Host your own mini-event in partnership with other local businesses. Think about having a sidewalk sale, challenge your neighboring businesses to a chili cookoff, or have a community scavenger hunt that requires participants to find things in each participating location. Then, announce the event in your newsletter and send out reminders via email and SMS/text messaging.

 

Be relatable to your customers

While July is about community gathering together you don’t have to be in the thick of it to be part of your community. Instead, build relationships by thinking about how you and your customers can relate.

• Storytelling marketing is one of the most powerful tools there is when it comes to creating bonds between a business and its customers. To tap into its power, write a blog post telling one of your summer stories and share a teaser in your newsletter that drives traffic to the full story on your website.
• If you don’t know who to ask about what’s going on in your community, admit that in your newsletter, then start a “local events” post on social media and ask your readers to post any local event information that they have — from neighborhood garage sales to farmers markets and Shakespeare in the Park performances.
• If all else fails, in honor of International Joke Day (July 1st), share your best — or worst — joke. Then challenge your readers to come up with a better joke and bombard your social media page with them. Or challenge them to come into your shop and tell you a joke, and if they can make you laugh, give them a discount or a freebie like a summer-themed promotional item (think; floating key ring with your logo on it).

Whatever holiday you highlight in your newsletter this month, whether you issue a challenge, offer advice, or ask your readers to share, include a branded hashtag and a custom hashtag — along with a corresponding post on social media — so you can easily find and like what they post!

 

July newsletter subject lines

• “Just wing it” – International Chicken Wing Day (July 1st)
• “It’s a bird, it’s a plane,” – Preheader: “It’s our…” World UFO Day (July 2nd). Great for introducing a product.
• “Curiouser and curiouser!” – Alice in Wonderland Day (July 4th) or any other Alice in Wonderland quotes that might fit your business. (Tea party, anyone?)
• “Let Freedom Ring!” – Independence Day (July 4th) Perfect for offering something for free or to help your readers be free of something.
• “We swear, it’s the absolute truth” – Tell the Truth Day (July 7th) For sharing a story or being totally honest with your readers.
• “Chocolate makes everything better.” – World Chocolate Day (July 7th)
• “We’re not kitten around” – National Kitten Day (July 10th)
• “Pretty please, with cherries on top?” – National Cherry Day (July 16th) This can be used when asking your readers to complete a survey or volunteer for a good cause.
• “Show us your ink!” – National Tattoo Day (July 17th) This is great for starting a campaign on social media or giving discounts for great ink.
• “We’re listening” – World Listening Day (July 18th) Try this when asking for feedback.
• “It’s okay, you can wine about how cheesy we are.” – National Wine and Cheese Day (July 25th) If you’re in the charcuterie business, this is a great way to share ideas and boards designed for picnics.
• “Save for a rainy day” – Rain Day (July 29th) Whether you sell insurance, savings bonds, or just want to offer a sale on umbrellas, this one’s for you.
• “I want my paperback, paperback” – Preheader: “paperback book” Paperback Book Day (July 30th) For sharing a love of paperback books, a list of great summer reads, or having a book drive.
• “It’s mutt-ing fancy” – Preheader: “But we’d like you to come” National Mutt Day (July 31st) For inviting readers to any number of dog-themed events, like a dogwash fundraiser, a mutt-adoption special at the shelter, or a mutt-inspired pet parade.

For more July holidays and ideas on what you can do to share them with your customers, download the graphic below.

Or, plan out the rest of your year with our Online Marketing Calendar, complete with a free template and a list of holidays you can use to plan a successful year.