The last month of the year is here and for most businesses, December is one of the busiest months with the holiday season rush. If your marketing plan for December is not already in place, get your calendar out today and make plans to capitalise on the seasonal rush for the rest of the month. Then, once the holidays are over, be sure to hold a post-holiday marketing evaluation so that you can start planning now for next year using the pros and cons for this holiday season while everything is fresh in your mind. Now is the time to write down what worked, what was not as successful and put ideas in motion for next year’s holiday season.
Your planning guide should be something you go back to each year and adjust for changes. Creating a calendar ahead of time for your marketing plan will make the busiest time of the year much easier. The holiday rush is stressful enough without having to worry about planning and executing too. It should be a combination of things that must be done during the season and some things that are done ahead of time.
What’s in a Holiday Marketing Schedule?
The calendar you come up with should be as detailed as possible with dates, plans of execution, descriptions, and alternate ideas to be used in case a backup is needed. Here are some of the things that management and marketing departments should discuss for the holiday planning calendar:
- When will emails be deployed, what will the topics be?
- In store displays should be sketched and detailed.
- Graphics should be completed ahead of time for online campaigns.
- Coupons, discounts, and offers all written down and scheduled for start dates and end dates.
- One of the most important things to plan on though is being flexible. Do not expect everything to go as planned. Just accepting that will make your life during the holidays much less stressful and allow you to “roll with the punches” as they say.
- Concentrate on optimising sales within the short window of time you have. Capitalise on new trends and be ready to replace offers if merchandise does not arrive or is defective.
- Have lists of popular items, top sellers, and market them as buying guides.
- Send out holiday tips for your industry or ones that are relevant to your customers.
- Plan out a social media schedule ahead of time. What will the themes be themes for each week? Plan out all the topics for cascading social channel posts related to the email and advertising plan.
- Try to coordinate with to work together with complimentary or other local businesses on cross campaigns to reach more of your target audience by sharing customers.
- Stock up on supplies. Take into consideration that since this time of the year is busier, you will need more office supplies and more of everything you use to execute your marketing plan. Buying them ahead of time will ensure that you do not run out or waste time during the holiday rush making office supply orders.
- This is also a time of the year when promotional gifts are most popular. Remember to order them ahead of time and plan out a clever and useful promotional product to give to your customers or clients for the holidays.
