The holiday season might still be a few months away, but as any experienced marketer knows, time flies towards the back end of the year.
It’s all too easy to find yourself in a frantic rush to catch up when December arrives and everyone else (including you and your staff) are in vacation mode.
To truly make the most of the critical December, January, and February period, businesses need to get their marketing strategies in place well in advance.
In this article, we’ll explore the key reasons why you should be thinking about your marketing plan now and delve into actionable insights that will help you maximise your success during this yearly period.
Mindset matters, so start planning early
As the temperatures begin to rise in Australia, it’s natural for thoughts to drift towards holiday plans and festive celebrations.
However, amidst the excitement, marketers should also be honing their strategic mindset. Although it might feel like there’s ample time before the holiday rush, the reality is that the planning and execution processes can take much longer than expected.
Remember, these marketing activities all take time:
- Brainstorming
- Approvals
- Content creation
- Design
- Implementation
So, starting early is imperative. In fact, with most supporting agencies and staff getting ready to go on holidays themselves, leaving things to the last minute can be a real recipe for disaster.
Once you’ve got your mind in marketing mode, it’s time to appeal to the mindset of your customers.
Seasonal campaigns are the perfect starting point
The holiday season creates a unique mindset among people.
With more time on their hands and being removed from day-to-day business, your ideal customers are in a more reflective and investigative mood and are far less transactional.
This is where the power of seasonal marketing campaigns comes into play. These campaigns serve as a reminder of your brand’s core values and positioning, fostering a deeper connection with your audience.
Unlike the rest of the year, when people are primarily focused on deliverables, the summer holidays are a time to engage them on a more emotional level.
For retail and product-based businesses, the lead-up to December is the prime time to drive sales and tap into the holiday shopping frenzy. On the other hand, for service-based businesses, the focus shifts to January, a month when people are looking to invest in services that will add value to their lives or businesses over the next 12 months and beyond.
Whatever your business, the holiday period serves as a golden opportunity to create seasonal campaigns that capture attention visually and deliver more in-depth and engaging content. These campaigns need to be tailored to the holiday mindset, ensuring they resonate with a more contemplative audience.
Consider updating your brand identity
Updating your brand identity doesn’t always require a complete overhaul, instead, a subtle yet impactful evolution may be exactly what the holiday period calls for.
Whether this includes modernising elements like your colour palette or finding new fonts to stay relevant and on trend, the world of design is always evolving and the quieter holiday period is a fantastic time to get ahead.
Although they may seem like minor changes on the surface, these steps forward can breathe new life into your brand’s identity and help it reach and captivate new specific audiences. Afterall, all it takes is a change in font to significantly increase readability and all of a sudden you’ve better catered to a contemporary, easily distracted generation.
Just as December to February is a time for personal renewal, it is also a fantastic time to update your brand identity.
Consider a brand refresh to kick off the calendar year in style
The December to February period offers a unique chance for brands to undertake brand-building exercises that redefine or reinforce their core values such as a complete brand refresh.
The start of the year is an ideal time to introduce new branding, offering a fresh start and helping to re-energise both employees and customers.
On a less dramatic scale, this period also serves as a window of opportunity for businesses to refresh certain components of their branding, say for example, embarking on a website upgrade or brand refresh to realign your business to its primary target audience.
During these months, business activities tend to slow down slightly which frees up time for marketing teams to focus on executing these projects, less encumbered by the day-to-day transactional nature of business. With website traffic also likely to dip during the holiday period, there is also reduced risk and inconvenience involved with undertaking these changes.
Overall, refreshing a brand identity or revamping a website can have far-reaching effects, both internally and externally. To execute these exercises effectively, planning and delivery need to commence well in advance to ensure a seamless delivery.
It’s time to act, now!
Ultimately, the success of your holiday marketing strategy hinges on acting now.
Waiting until the last minute risks encountering a lack of resources with your staff and other businesses enjoying holidays of their own. By getting ahead of the curve and planning for the upcoming months, you can position your brand for success while others scramble to catch up.
Whether it’s outlining your goals for the new calendar year, developing seasonal content, or coordinating an entire brand refresh, every step taken now brings you closer to a well-executed and impactful holiday marketing campaign.
Not sure where to start your holiday period marketing?
Consult with the Sydney brand experts at Font & Swatch who can help you strategise, plan and develop the perfect summer holiday branding campaign and embed it into every aspect of your brand. To get you started, here are 8 content ideas from one of our messaging partners.
As your Brand Design specialists, we can help you connect with your ideal customer over the December to February period, using seasonal campaigns and brand overhauls to create an emotional connection with customers.
How does Font & Swatch help your business?
To achieve business success today and tomorrow, you need a reliable brand marketing partner that you can trust, with the expertise you can depend on.
Font & Swatch are a specialist Branding Agency based in Sydney. We are experts in Branding and we work with businesses to develop and implement effective branding strategies that drive demand and connect your brand to your target audience.
Every customer touchpoint with your brand should communicate personality, value and invoke the desired emotional response.
At Font & Swatch, we work to unlock the true power of your brand and we will make your brand remarkable.
If you like what you see, give us a call, send us an email, follow us on our socials or come and see us.
An initial discussion is exactly what you need to set you on the course to success. Mail us at create@fontandswatch.com
