Yes, You Should Start Planning Now for Holiday Sales
Wait, wait, you mean we’re supposed to start planning for holiday sales this early? Even though we just got the kids sent off on their first day of school a few weeks ago? Isn’t it a little bit early to start thinking about Santa and stocking stuffers when most of us are still wearing sandals?
This kind of thought process is natural. After all, the holidays are hectic and even though they usually bring in a lot of revenue for our businesses, it’s something that we don’t want to stress over until the time is appropriate.
Well, the time is now appropriate. And if you start your planning now, then a fantastic holiday advertising campaign and holiday sale doesn’t have to be stressful. In fact, you’ll be setting yourself up for much more success.
Let’s take a look at why holiday planning should start soon rather than later!
You Want To Give Yourself Time To Plan
A successful marketing campaign takes time. Think about everything that goes into a marketing campaign: You have to determine your goals, and then you need to figure out your target audience and what problems you’re offering a solution to, as well as what special offer or incentive you can use to get them to act.
And all of that is just for one campaign—you’re probably going to be having more than one marketing campaign going throughout the holiday season. You’ll be targeting more than one type of shopper, as well as offering specials for different occasions, such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday, the last Saturday before Christmas, or even a New Year’s sale.
Plus you might want to take different approaches to your marketing. Do you want to reflect a sentimental tone or a fun tone instead? Is your emphasis going to be on spending time with family, or are you encouraging people to buy presents for children?
Plus, what’s the medium you’re using to share your message? Will it be email blasts? Facebook posts? All this content needs time to create and schedule. You need to write the copy and design the graphics. You also might need a few revisions or feedback sessions. If you want to get all of this ready by November, it’s not unreasonable to start now!
You’ll Keep Up With Your Competition
Remember that you’re not the only one who is trying to win over customers during the holiday season. Every business out there is trying to get some kind of message to consumers. The holidays are a busy time for everyone, not just retail businesses. Everyone is in demand for the holidays.
But what happens if you’re planning to wait until the week before Thanksgiving to launch your first advertisement, and suddenly your primary competition launches theirs on November 1? And it looks as if their ad is getting a lot of attention!
If you’ve been slow to plan, you might not have any choice—you simply have to stay on schedule until you’re ready. But if you have an advertising campaign that is ready to launch, you can choose to go live a little bit earlier than you expected.
You Want To Meet The Demands Of Early Shoppers
Some shoppers just want to get their holiday plans in place and their shopping done as early as possible—it’s less stressful for them that way. So they could be inquiring about what you have to offer as early as October. This doesn’t mean you need to give them any special discount or any holiday products early, but you should at least be prepared to answer their questions and give them a general idea of when your holiday stuff will be available.
You Can Focus On Actually Running Your Business
Even though there are emergency situations that sometimes call for it, nobody wants to have to build the metaphorical plane while they’re trying to fly it. Sure, if you know what you’re doing, you can rise to the occasion and manage it successfully. But why put yourself in that situation in the first place? More importantly, think about how much better your pilot skills would be if you weren’t trying to be a builder simultaneously.
It's the same way with running a business during the holidays. Can you plan out an effective holiday marketing strategy while simultaneously running your business during the busiest time of the year? Sure, you could probably manage it. But why put yourself in that situation if you don’t have to.
When you have all of your marketing efforts planned out and in place well ahead of November, you can focus on doing what you need to do—running your business. Because it just gets increasingly busy between the beginning of November all the way through New Year’s Eve, and when you can give your daily operations your undivided attention, everything will run much more smoothly. Your store will be more organized, your customers will be happier, and your employees will feel supported.