You should have kicked off your holiday marketing plans last week, seriously

There is no other way to say this, you’re late planning your holiday marketing campaign (and you’re going to mess up your growth plans, piss off your coworkers & make for a miserable fall).

Here’s a simple truth. While most veteran marketers kick off their holiday marketing campaigns in March, the vast majority of start-ups wait until September to think about their holiday plans - and by then, it’s WAY TOO LATE.

Why?

A successful holiday campaign isn’t about dropping your product’s price. You need to build demand, sync internally with finance & operations, test run your ad tech, brief creative teams, deliver assets to partners & conduct run-throughs to ensure everything runs smoothly. You’ll also want to build contingency plans & gain alignment from leadership on how to handle all of the scenarios that will pop up.

If you wait too long to do these things, you’re asking for trouble.

Before you get started, here are a few other articles that you might be interested in:

1. Learn to launch a successful influencer marketing campaign (that has a positive ROI)

2. Why you should be hiring a Fractional Chief Marketing Officer

3. The seven most common reasons that your marketing strategy stinks

This is your cheat sheet.

I’m giving you step-by-step plans to kick off your holiday plans properly. Print out this email, forward it to your team & follow the steps outlined below to have a successful holiday sales season.

Honestly, I’d appreciate if you could forward this newsletter to someone else that might also enjoy this topic 🙏

Before you say “I don’t need a holiday campaign” just stop. Because you do (even if you’re a B2B marketer)

A successful holiday campaign is not just dropping the price of your product on Black Friday. It’s about creating demand in the months prior, raising brand awareness, unlocking consideration & then using limited time based offers to increase demand.

There is a reason Black Friday is called Black Friday. If you do things right, it’s not unrealistic to do HALF of your yearly sales from Black Friday to Christmas.

It’s one of the easiest times of the year to change the narrative of your company.

Step One: You need to know your business metrics

Timing: You need to do this, this week

Pro Tip: If you don’t know these metrics, set up a meeting with your finance lead & analytics partners this week & ask them for the latest numbers. They’ll be impressed.

You need to know your key business metrics to properly plan a successful holiday campaign. Specifically, you need detailed information, including:

• CAC - Customer Acquisition Costs

• OpEX

• Margin

• Average Rate of Return

• MER - Marketing Efficiency Ratio

• Impressions / Purchase

• Repeat Purchase Rates

Don’t be the person who plans a promotion that causes your company to lose money. The goal of a holiday campaign is NOT to just drive revenue, you NEED to be thinking about profitability.

Step Two: You need to know your business plan & internal factors

Timing: This week

Pro Tip: If you don’t know your companies business plan, setup a meeting with your CEO this week & ask them. They won’t be impressed, but it’s better you ask now.

You need to specifically understand the following four questions:

1. What is the next milestone we’re trying to hit as a company?

2. What are expectations (both internally & externally)?

3. What metrics really matter to us right now?

4. What other factors exist internally that I need to be aware of? Are there operations challenges? Supply Chain issues? How does our runway look?

Step Three: You actually need to create demand in the months leading into the holiday season

Timing: I always recommend to my clients that it’s smart to ramp up their brand marketing in the months leading to a big promotional event & to really limit their sales in the 30-45 days prior.

Why? Consumer DO NOT buy products on impulse. You have to create demand by building awareness, becoming a part of their consideration set & then convincing them to buy. The “holiday sale” is the final milestone on this journey, you really need to start the consumer process in the months leading into the holiday buying season.

Step Four: You need to have things finalized EARLY.

Timing: You’ll want your entire holiday campaign to be finalized 3 weeks before you’re set to execute. This will give you time to upload all of your assets, conduct dry-runs, refine your process & to help identify any issues that may bubble up.

Pro Tip: If you’re relying on agencies, vendors & ad platforms - don’t wait. They work with multiple companies & are people. By getting things done early, you’ll ensure your ads are approved, and will reduce the likelihood of a human error being introduced into the campaign process.

Step Five: Conduct a pre-mortem & make sure everyone is aligned EARLY

Timing: Conduct the first post-mortem three weeks before your campaign launches & include leadership, agencies & the day-to-day team.

Pro Tip: Something will happen that you didn’t expect to happen & you want to be prepared. Don’t be the person who needs to call the CEO on Thanksgiving because you ran out of budget, you have no more inventory left, or because sales are underperforming.

During this pre-mortem you’ll want to ask the following questions:

1. What conversations need to be escalated & to who?

2. What is the worst possible scenario that can happen? What do we do when it happens? Who needs to be notified?

3. What is the best possible scenario that can happen? What do we do when it happens? Who needs to be notified?

4. What are the single points of failure that may impact us? What is the plan if one of these fail?

Dont wait to have these conversations once a problem happens.

So I’ve shared a lot. Here is where it all comes together.

Use this calendar template to ensure you’re ready for the upcoming holiday season. Make yourself a copy, update this for your business & impress your boss by having a Holiday Plan mapped out five months before the holidays (they’ll be impressed that you’re on top of things).

Focus on the following key dates:

Today // Setup meeting with your CFO / CEO to make sure you have access to the latest business metrics and plans.

June 1 // Fill out the key calendar, and start setting up recurring meetings with key stakeholders so they are in the loop

July 12 // Amazon Prime Day. This is the perfect day to “Test run” any holiday promotional pricing + to test your ad tech platforms

August 1 // Shift your ad budgets to drive more TOF activity, limiting sales going forward

September // Brief in all creative required for holiday campaigns

October // Implement all Ads for approval, make final changes to ad tech platforms, have emails completed, funnels updated

November // run pre-mortems with the team, establish any final guardrails, solve any issues that arise

If you’ve made it this far, please know I appreciate you. If you have any feedback or requests for future topics, please reach out. [email protected]