This year, the busiest time of the year needs no introduction, but you must consider exceptional planning for the uncertainty of sales still lingering in the rest of 2020.

Let’s just list some of the holidays between October and December: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Black Friday (not federally recognized, but it’s a retailer’s holiday), and more that provide opportunity to increase sales and brand loyalty. Starting your Q4 planning now will help ease fears of how your company will finish off this crazy (might be an understatement) year.

Build your strategy methodically with metrics and complete well-thought out content.

By taking advantage of a head-start on planning for the end of year (even with how the fall and beginning of winter will play out), it will allow your company the opportunity to enhance and execute the creativity of your campaign in the right channel to make sure you have optimal placement for consumers to see and digest your messaging.

Early planning is the time to think about the whole marketing strategy:

• Selling your brand as a whole and not just individual products
• Personalize the holiday selling experience to consumers
• Include exclusive deals at the right time to the right audience
• Utilize data on which channel and audience are best and measure the success
• Decide how each marketing channel will support and execute the campaign to its fullest potential (email, retargeting, social, video, etc.)

Start with the numbers

By using previous year’s data, your company can start to pinpoint the highs and lows of your consumer’s shopping behavior, which for 2020 will only act as a tentative guide as millions are unemployed. Is it Black Friday, Cyber Monday or the last minute Christmas shoppers that bring your year end to a great close? After carefully reviewing these metrics, the company can begin to plan out what exclusive deals for certain audiences can be placed to ensure there is a constant flow of sales, with allowances for any flash sales events to further entice consumers.

Also, make sure the companies’ inventory is taken in to consideration, whether it’s products or people to complete a service. Retail buyers need to inform marketing what products will be new, still offered and confirm timing of in-store placement and materials needed to be purchased to complete any labor-centric service. Properly resourcing based upon strong analytics will give your company a leg up when the holiday season comes barreling in, especially during this season, which we will talk about below on how to plan.

Brainstorming your campaign for a pandemic

We have an offering, now what feeling do we want the consumer to convey when they are considering purchasing or convert to a user of the offering? Do we start with a theme and build that in around products or vice versa? Consider what your customer may have been going through this year from quarantines to unemployment. Compassion and how that is communicated will be vital to your campaigns success.

Does your creative follow the holiday season timeline: Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, etc.? Do you need to provide marketing for each holiday within the season?

Creating a thorough and detailed content calendar for your marketing campaign(s) will ensure a cohesive holiday shopping experience that will then build a strong brand awareness for your consumers.

Many local businesses can (and should) take advantage of the Saturday after Thanksgiving – Small Business Saturday. This day rests between two of the largest shopping days, but local stores can use the biggest shopping weekend to their advantage. During a time when small businesses are closing in increasing numbers due to the pandemic, small businesses must find creative ways to ensure their doors stay open, utilizing this time of the year to move from the red to black.

Pending the goals of your holiday season campaign, its need to be built with a purpose not just to sell. How do you grab someone’s attention, evoke the intended emotions and give them a full service experience when shopping?

In the world of COVID – the ability to pivot and fast, if needed, will be crucial to success. By creating a few templates that can be quickly deployed, use this planning and creative production period to develop the message variations.

Channel surfing

This is when the meat of the campaign begins to take shape – your theme and campaign has been evolving and now to round the complete strategy, you need to determine which channels will be best suited for each element of your campaign.

Do you need a direct marketing piece, such as a brochure or postcard? How many emails are going to be deployed during the campaign? What are the social media platforms that are needed and how will they be utilized? Stories, target posts, videos, etc.

Possibly, offering exclusive sales for a targeted group on social media will increase organic growth as current followers share to their community.

Partnering with an online influencer that will review or demonstrate your product will then in turn bring their subscribers to your webpage is a great social media tactic that can be used across platforms through static posts, stories, and videos.

Being able to fully lay out what channels and the timeline for each piece are needed in the development of your campaign to see the campaign in its entirety. This will also ensure that the targeted audience(s) are not overloaded with messaging from your campaign and potentially receive a thought out series of messages versus ad-hoc spurts.

One piece that many companies should not forget about is how your digital marketing pieces will be shown on a mobile device. Optimizing for mobile view is crucial for the holiday shopping season as it accounts for a large percentage of sales and how many people do you see NOT on their phone? How does this play in to your overall strategy, especially incorporating in to your online traffic, social media and SEO tactics?

Pandemic planning logistics

With an anticipated wave starting in the fall (coinciding with flu season), how can businesses keep afloat when foot traffic will be limited and your fulfillment center will be hit the hardest?

However, for safety, encourage online shopping. This may mean ramping up your website ecommerce capabilities and fulfillment efforts with partnering close with your merchandise & procurement teams. Work with facilities and human resources on extra personnel and safety guidelines for warehouse and customer service workers. This will not only showcase a conscious effort on your company’s part to keep shoppers safe, but in fact, will help keep everyone safe. If your store has curbside pick-ups, highlight these features to further keep customers and employees safe. Be clear on your business operations so no confusion on your employee’s or customer’s side will deter from the overall experience.

Early shopping is key! By partnering with internal teams to keep merchandise in stock and fulfillment centers moving, promote early shopping incentives to shoppers to alleviate the mad-dash at the end. Consider your refund and exchange policies – especially, if the world needs to stop and stay home orders are placed back in effect. What can your company offer in far as flexibility for your customer?

By consulting with Colleen Eakins Design, we can help your company take part in this anticipated holiday season.