The 4th of July has come and gone. If you have not yet begun your marketing agency clients’ 2024 holiday marketing planning, you may want to get going. After all, holiday sales can generate a critical amount of revenue for many businesses.
Read on to find out why starting early enables you to help your clients achieve a successful holiday shopping season – without stress headaches!
Many people try to get their holiday shopping done early. If your clients aren’t ready for holiday customers, you may just hand that business to their competition.
Launching holiday promotions and campaigns early allows you to influence and convert early shoppers before some of your client’s competition even begins their marketing efforts. This extended sales period can significantly boost your client’s revenue and overall holiday performance.
In other words, many of your B2C client’s customers want to shop early for the holidays; help them to do that.
The better you can manage your client’s budget, the more impact you can have on their bottom line over the holidays. By spreading out expenses over several months, you can avoid the financial strain that often comes with last-minute campaign preparations.
Keep in mind that advertising costs can markedly increase over the holidays due to higher demand. But if you plan early, you may be able to buy placements at a lower rate.
Not only that, but when you plan early, you give yourself the time to negotiate better rates with vendors and create or invest in high-quality creative assets without the inflated costs that come part and parcel with late planning.
If there is ever a time that you want your B2C clients to stand out, it’s at the holidays. If you start your client’s 2024 holiday marketing planning early, you allow yourself the time to brainstorm, develop and refine innovative concepts without the pressure of looming deadlines. This pays off in videos, images and copy that grabs attention and converts. It also gives you the time to test and tweak.
Marketing is much more effective when you integrate your messages and campaigns across all your channels. In other words, for greater impact, deliver your same or at least related message in multiple places such social media, email, website and ads. It’s a lot harder to do this if you are throwing your campaigns together at the last minute.
Effective marketing campaigns often build. If you plan ahead, you can build anticipation by running teaser campaigns to get people’s attention and build anticipation. It also gives you time to test to see which of your efforts are the most effective so you can focus on those as the holidays draw closer.
No doubt you have already performed competitive analyses of your clients’ competition. But early planning gives you the time to update your research on holiday trends, industry trends, and your clients’ competitors before starting your 2024 holiday marketing planning in earnest.
One of the biggest advantages of doing your 2024 holiday marketing planning early is it enables you to leverage data and analytics to inform your strategy. By starting in July, you can review and analyze past campaign performance, identify trends and make data-driven decisions.
You can also set up tracking and measurement systems well in advance, allowing you to monitor campaign performance in real-time and make adjustments as needed. This data-driven approach ensures that your holiday marketing efforts are optimized for maximum impact and ROI.
For many small businesses, the holiday season is the busiest time of the year, which can put a strain on supply chains and inventory management. You need to plan on what products and services you want to feature over the holidays in order to assure adequate inventory. By anticipating potential supply chain issues and addressing them proactively, you can help your clients avoid stockouts, backorders and disappointed customers.
If you start early, you have time to gather customer feedback and take surveys that can help guide your holiday marketing efforts. This feedback can help you to personalize your marketing to current clients.
The holiday shopping season can be hectic. Not only does last-minute planning affect your client’s budget, but it can also be stressful for both you and your client. When you plan ahead, you enable good management and calm, more effective work processes. You can avoid chaos and last-minute changes with early and thorough planning.
For marketing agencies serving small B2C businesses, starting holiday marketing planning in July is a strategic move that can yield significant benefits. From beating the competition and maximizing budget efficiency to enhancing creativity and building stronger customer relationships, early planning sets the stage for a successful holiday season.
But you don’t have to do it alone. You can look to Umbrella’s white label marketing services experts. For a free consultation, contact Umbrella through our website or call (866) 760-2638.
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