We’ve put together this calendar of UK marketing and retail events which we’re using ourselves here at Primary Image, but we’re sharing it to give you a few ideas for running marketing campaigns in your own company in 2014!
Obviously not all of these dates will be suitable for every business sector, but there’s certainly a few key events in here that most businesses should use as an opportunity to celebrate!
January
- January sales
- New Year promotions
- Health & fitness (lose weight campaigns!)
February
- Clean Out Your Computer Day! (10th February)
- Safer Internet Day (11th February)
- Valentines Day (14th February)
- Winter Olympics 2014 (7th – 23rd February)
March
- World Book Day (6th March)
- Formula 1 racing season starts (16th March)
- St Patrick’s Day (17th March)
- Sports Relief for Comic Relief (21st – 23rd March)
- Mothers’ Day (30th March)
- World Backup Day (31st March)
- Start of Spring
April
- April Fools’ Day (1st April)
- Grand National horse racing (5th April)
- Easter (Easter Sunday April 20th)
- International Jazz Day (30th April)
May
- Our Primary Image birthday! (7th May)
- Biographers’ Day (16th May)
- FA cup final – football (17th May)
- European and Local elections (22nd May)
- UEFA Champions League final (24th May)
- National Wine Day (25th May)
June
- Summer begins
- FIFA World Cup – football (12th June – 13th July)
- Fathers’ Day (15th June)
- Wimbledon (23rd – 30th June)
- Armed Forces Day (28th June)
July
- School holidays
- Independent Retailers’ Month
- Tour de France – starts in Yorkshire (5th July)
- British Formula 1 Grand Prix (6th July)
- FIFA World Cup final (13th July)
- Commonwealth Games 2014 in Glasgow (23rd July to 3rd August)
August
- Back to school campaigns
- End of summer
- World Wide Web Day (1st August)
- National Book Lovers’ Day (9th August)
- Premiership football season starts (16th August)
September
- Autumn begins
- Apple iPhone 6 launch
- Talk like a pirate day! (19th September)
October
- National Curry Week (13th – 19th October)
- World Food Day (16th October)
- International Internet Day (29th October)
- Halloween (31st October)
November
- Movember to raise awareness of mens’ health
- National Sandwich Day (3rd November)
- Bonfire Night / Guy Fawkes Night (5th November)
- National Fast Food Day (16th November)
- Black Friday (28th November)
December
- Cyber Monday – online retailers offer discounts (1st December)
- Small Business Saturday (6th December)
- Christmas (see our blog post on this!)
- New Year’s Eve (31st December)
Obviously this is just a guide and some dates are subject to change. We can’t be held responsible for any errors or omissions in this list and recommend you check the dates yourself!
Can you think of any other key retail marketing dates that we’ve missed out? Let us know in the comments box below and we’ll update this page!
Mike founded Primary Image in 2010. He specialises in the WordPress website platform and speaks regularly at national web design conferences. Mike became a member (MCIPR) of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations in 2015.
Comments
Cheers James – we’ve corrected the date, not sure why we had the week before on there! We look forward to taking part again in Small Business Saturday. Your link shows what a superb success the event was in 2013! Mike
Hi guys – the second national Small Business Saturday will be hitting the UK on Saturday, December 6th.
armed forces day is 28th of june according to the website
Hi Ben, You’re very right – thanks so much for letting us know. I’ve now corrected that! Many thanks! Mike