What's working on Country Living right now: 5 tips for your summer marketing

 Every week, we track what lands with Country Living readers across our website, newsletters and social media. For artisans selling on the Country Living Marketplace, these audience patterns offer an excellent roadmap for your summer marketing. Here is what readers are engaging with right now, and how you can adapt your own messaging to match.

1. Frame your products around the heatwave

Practical, weather-driven content is currently bringing in some of our highest pageviews of the month, especially articles on protecting gardens, wildlife and homes during hot weather.

Because readers are in a problem-solving mindset, it helps to frame your product around its utility rather than just its appearance.

• Home goods, candles, or crafts: Focus your messaging on keeping a home feeling fresh and airy rather than just how the items look on a shelf.
• Outdoor gear: If your products offer outdoor comfort or hydration, put those benefits front and center.

2. Highlight wildlife-friendly features

Bird-focused articles, ranging from how to help robins survive a heatwave to creating finch-friendly gardens, have ranked in our top five most-read pieces for two consecutive weeks. This interest is sustained, not a temporary spike. If you sell nature-adjacent products like ceramics, garden accessories or woodcrafts, state plainly how they benefit or coexist with wildlife. Don't leave the connection implied.

3. Keep promoting interiors and vintage items

There’s a conventional assumption that interest in interiors and antiques slows down once the weather warms up, but our data shows otherwise. A recent piece on collectables losing value was our single best-performing article of the week. If you sell vintage or interior items, don’t pause your summer marketing. The audience is still actively looking to buy.

4. Use punchy hooks for your marketing but keep product titles clear

Our strongest performing articles all share a common thread: a punchy, opinionated perspective right in the headline, rather than a generic description of the topic. An authentic, bold perspective will almost always outperform a neutral description when you are trying to grab attention.

You can easily apply this to your own marketing copy, but location matters:

• For social media, ads and newsletters: Stop using flat descriptions and start leading with a hook. Instead of posting "Hand-crafted garden bench for sale," try a curiosity-inducing angle like "Why your garden needs a dedicated shade spot" or "The number one mistake people make when styling a summer porch."
• For your actual product listings: Keep the title literal – like "Hand-Crafted Wooden Garden Bench" – so search engines can find you. Then, drop your punchy hook right into the very first line of the product description to hook the buyer.

5. Prioritize Instagram and video over Facebook

If you have limited time and need to choose where to focus your social media efforts, the data is clear. Instagram and short-form video content are driving consistent engagement, while Facebook traffic has lagged. If your time or budget is tight, redirect your resources away from Facebook and into Instagram; that is where this audience is currently spending their time.