4 Reasons You Should Be Thinking About Your Holiday Marketing Already
If you’ve been out shopping lately, you’ve probably noticed Halloween merchandise on the shelves already. And chances are that you will be seeing Christmas merchandise making an appearance as well – long before your first trick-or-treater rings the doorbell.
As a consumer, this can seem a bit ambitious and every year often sparks endless debates about “how early is too early” for the holiday merchandise rollout. But if you’re a small business that markets to consumers, you are well aware of the revenue opportunities that the holidays bring. In recent years, “Black Friday” has become “Black Late-Thursday”, and chances are it will only get earlier as our consuming culture allows it to.
What can be interesting however, is that many small businesses find themselves in fire-drill-mode when executing their holiday marketing campaigns – because they simply didn’t start preparing early enough. After all, it’s hard to get into the holiday spirit when you still don’t need to wear a jacket outside and the leaves are all still on the trees.
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Below are a few reasons why getting a jump on your holiday marketing preparations each year might be a good idea for your small business.
Your Creative Team Needs Time to Create. When it comes to Christmas creative, much of what you will see this year has already been done before. It’s challenging to come up with new ideas that are truly creative and innovative – ideas that will stand out among the all of the other marketing that your target audience will be bombarded by this season. Your marketing team will need to rise to that challenge and it may be wise to light the spark with them as soon as possible.
Getting a Jump on Advertising Space May Have It’s Advantages. Explore the possibilities of securing advertising space earlier than usual. As a small business, seize the opportunity. Work with your ad reps to see what kind of a deal, if any, you can get for securing your needed ad space well ahead of time. This can also be beneficial for your creative team, as it may help in the creative process knowing what specific ad deliverables may need to be considered.
Seasonal Printing and Production Deadlines May Be Different Than Usual. Keep in mind that your vendors and service providers may also be entering crunch-time as the holidays get closer as well. As you start to put the pieces together with your marketing plan, keep an eye on all of those external deadlines. Do the research upfront with your vendors in regards to how their Q4 deadlines may differ from other times of the year. You don’t want any surprises there.
Seasonal Work/Life Balance Will Challenge You and Your Team. Relatives coming in from out of town for Thanksgiving? Holiday dinners to plan and family activities to organize? Christmas shopping of your own to do? You get the picture. It can be the busiest time of the year, both personally and professionally, not to mention that many people start to “mentally check out” for the year as the holidays creep closer. It’s not the ideal time of year to be doing fire-drill-marketing with so many seasonal obligations pulling us in so many different directions at the same time.
These are just a few things that your small business should be thinking about – already- to make the most of your holiday marketing this year. “Making your list and checking it twice” a bit early can be a good thing when it comes to having a successful holiday marketing season.
