Question: When should I start preparing for Christmas sales?

Answer: If your business runs Christmas season promotions, you should start preparing in July. This gives you enough time to ensure your campaign has the best chance of success!!

Christmas promotion is WILD

Getting ready for Christmas is bonkers if you’re a parent – but you know who it’s even MORE bonkers for (which I can’t believe I’m saying, but I stand by it)? Business owners. Christmas is absolute CHAOS for business owners. If you’re also in that world, you know what I’m talking about. It’s SO much – getting the promotions ready for the Christmas season, how much Black Friday will contribute to holiday season sales, the graphics, the photos, the captions… What about social media vs traditional media choices?

There’s a lot to get ready ahead of your Christmas marketing campaign

And there’s more, too. Will you go with Christmassy colors, or stick with your branding? What about a VERSION of your branding, MODIFIED for Christmas? Will you use your standard product photos this year, or sets with holiday themed props? What about the “classy” vs “chaotic” vs “warm” tone options?

And that doesn’t even get into what you’re actually putting on sale, if anything. Maybe you’re not running discounts, maybe you’re just highlighting specific products or services. But if that’s the case… how are you going to frame that in your copy so that it’s clear you’re not putting anything on sale, while making sure people still want to come in and browse for this year’s Christmas gifts?

Between copy, photos, placements, and more… It all takes time!

With so many things to get done, you’ve got to spend some real time from the outlining stage to the implementation stage, and that doesn’t mean starting in November. It honestly doesn’t even really mean starting now (August) because honestly? You should already have a head start. There’s such a thing as getting done with a promotion too late, but there’s no such thing as finishing it too early. I mean, if you’re done early, you get to bask in the glow of your accomplishment, and sip a tea while knowing that everyone else is still scrambling.

But all this to say: I recommend starting your Christmas or holiday season promotional planning in July, six months ahead. Usually, I stick with at least 90 days for product sellers – you need to run things 90 days ahead of what’s going live, otherwise, you’re going to miss steps, or not have time to work with the pros. But for Christmas? It’s a big deal, and it only comes once a year, so you’ve gotta get on the prep as soon as possible. In fact, I know some business owners – particularly owners of creative businesses – who start working on their Christmas promotion for the next year while the current one is still ongoing. Yes, they start THAT early, and YES, it does help.

If you’re working with professionals to put together your campaigns, starting early is even more important!

And when it comes to the success of your campaigns this year and next, working with professionals who know what they’re doing in their arena? The more you grow, the less optional it gets. At a certain point, which who knows, might be now (I can’t read your mind after all), you’ll have a copywriter, a promotional manager, a photographer, an admin who puts it all online or organizes which billboards will be yours… and that’s a lot of people to co-ordinate. The best way to make sure everyone can work together, like a well-oiled machine?

Give. Them. Time.

Depending on who you work with for your campaign photography, you might need to start in July simply because it can take a moment to turn around photo galleries for different photographers. Now, that’s NOT something you’ll need to worry about if you’re working with me at Jessica Strobel Photography, because I turn around galleries in under 72 hours, every time. Yes, EVERY time. I do 100% mean that. But not every photographer uses the same process I do, so if you want to have everything ready ahead of time, starting in July helps a ton!

Feeling chronically “behind” doesn’t help your business succeed

At the end of the day, there are other bonuses to starting early besides ensuring you can get on your favorite photographer’s calendar, and your copywriter has time to do their best work. You also can’t always feel behind, because frankly? It’s a buzz-kill. Which is a more casual way of saying “it’ll stress you out, and make your business feel hard, and when either of those things happen, it’s bad for business”.

You started doing what you do because you love it, not because you want to be in a chronic state of stress. Not because you want to eventually get exhausted of it, because it makes you 100% run-down all the time to feel like today’s work should’ve happened three months ago. And I get it, that’s not a good feeling! And you might be thinking, “But Jess, you’re making me feel that way, because it’s literally September, and you’re telling me I should’ve started in July.” I get why you might think that too, but that feeling? Make it into action. There’s no point stressing about the fact that it’s September now, you can’t change that part.

What CAN you change? How much effort has gone into your campaign planning, that’s what.

So if you’re starting now, at the beginning of September, here’s what you need to do. Outline your main holiday campaign, and list the pros you’ll need to help you. Contact those pros this week, and see if you can get on their calendars. If not, move on to your back-up professionals! Get the ball rolling. And next year, you’ll know when July comes around, the best way to keep the holidays stress free, is to start THEN.

Need to prep content for this Christmas? Jessica Strobel Photography can help!

If you’re looking for branding photos, headshots, photos of your services happening, or product photos ahead of a holiday sales campaign this year, we should talk! Especially if you’ve not started yet. Since I turn photos around so quickly, (not to toot my own horn, but…) I’m the best possible photographer in the Minneapolis area to get you back on schedule. And not only that… your photos will be amazing, too!!