Christmas in August

When is the best time to start your Christmas marketing?

Get going NOW!

Thinking about Christmas in the middle of Summer, you must be mad! Don’t panic, you don’t need to have everything planned out right now, but it really is an ideal time to start thinking about your Christmas marketing campaigns. There is of course a fine line between starting your promotion early to capture those organised customers and annoying those who think it is far too early to be thinking about it. In this blog we will go through the best times to begin the festive phase including a breakdown of some content ideas for the next few months. 

A great place to start is to ask yourself key questions, such as:

• What went well last Christmas and what could be improved?

• Are you going to have any special offers over the festive period?

• Do you need to sort festive packaging? 

• Are you going to be hosting any events?

• Do you need to set aside a budget and if so, how much?

• What are your main targets over the festive period?

According to Statista, 53% of UK shoppers start their Christmas shopping before December, with most actually completing their shopping in November. This means that whatever campaigns or offers you are hoping to run need to be ready to go at the beginning of November. 

To help you on your way, here is a brief overview of what your social calendar could look like over the next 4 months: 

September 

• Introduce an Autumn/Winter offer. This allows your customers who are keen to get ahead for Christmas to do so, without talking explicitly about it.

• This is predominantly ‘behind the scenes’ month, where lots of the festive planning is done, but not conveyed to your audience just yet. 

October

• A general rule of thumb is to get Halloween ‘out of the way’ before pushing any Christmas campaigns hard.

• Aim for more Autumn / Winter themed content and put out some Christmas teasers. 

November 

• This is arguably the most important month for Christmas campaigning, as this is the most common month for people to complete their shopping. Push hard on everything you have planned. 

• Consider paid ads, as many other companies will be doing this and it is becoming increasingly difficult to stand out with organic content alone. 

December 

• Most of your hard work should be done and this is a great time to post more lighthearted content, such as high quality festive photos of your product in use.

• There is still time here to capture last minute shoppers using techniques such as flash sales to encourage quick purchases. 

We are currently offering a Christmas mini content package to local businesses, which will provide you with high quality images and videos for your business ahead of the festive period. Whether you want to focus on your staff, premises or products in action. This will allow you to have a bank of exciting content ready to go when that festive madness hits! This offer is available until 6th September, so get in touch with us on hello@jvcommunications.co.uk to find out more today!

Sunny wishes, 

Jo & Vic