Take Charge of Your Q4!

So, the weather is hot and you are probably thinking “we still have a bunch of summertime left”! While this is true, it is important, as a business owner, to start thinking about Q4 of this year. That’s right. Q4. And here is why.

When you plan out marketing campaigns a lot of people make the mistake of not setting aside enough time to think about the planning and prep stages. We also see clients who don’t anticipate the challenges associated with putting out marketing campaigns during the holiday season. So, as we are sitting here getting towards the end of July, let’s lay out the remainder of the year.

If you want to run a campaign for Q4, you really want things to start in early September. Depending on the type of campaigns that you want to do (print ads, email campaigns, PR efforts, etc.) you will probably need most of August to prep. That means that in the next few weeks you should have a pretty good idea of the schedule you would like to hit for your campaign.

For a lot of our clients who are not in the retail world, we usually recommend not doing too much in terms of marketing for the last six week of the year. Your messages are going to be silenced by all of the holiday noise. (Of course each business and each marketing campaign is unique so this isn’t necessarily true for everyone.)

However, if you are trying to get your campaign out before the holidays hit that means that you have about 6-7 weeks to complete your campaign. (Assume post-Labor day until about mid-November.) That is not a very long window and you want to make sure that you have outlined your key due dates for deliverables, allowed time for your customers to respond and set yourself up to meet your goals.

So, our advice to you is to start early! And anticipate some delays here and there so you aren’t scrambling when you are trying to kick things off!