As of today, there are 147 days until Christmas. That might sound like plenty of time, but for small business owners, the countdown is very much on. Planning your Christmas marketing well in advance gives you the best chance of standing out, increasing sales, and making this your most successful festive season yet.
Why Planning Ahead Matters
Christmas is the busiest (and most competitive) time of the year for small businesses. With major retailers already preparing their festive strategies, now is the perfect time to think about your own seasonal offers and how you’re going to promote them. Leaving it too late often results in rushed content, missed opportunities, and underwhelming results.
But when you plan ahead, you give yourself time to:
- Craft better, more compelling offers
- Prepare high-quality content that gets attention
- Build excitement among your audience over time
- Get ahead of the festive rush and reduce stress
Step 1: Decide on Your Offers
Think about what promotions you want to run throughout the festive period. Are you doing a Christmas bundle? A Black Friday weekend discount? A 12 Days of Christmas countdown?
Make sure your offers are:
- Clear and appealing: People should understand the benefit instantly
- Relevant to your audience: What do your customers actually want this Christmas?
- Limited in time or quantity: Creating urgency encourages action
Step 2: Map Out Your Content Plan
Once your offers are in place, it’s time to think about how you’re going to promote them. Break the months of October, November, and December into weekly chunks and decide what kind of content you’ll need:
- Product-focused posts that tie into your offers
- Behind-the-scenes Christmas prep
- Festive customer reviews or testimonials
- Countdown content to build excitement
At SMR Social, we recommend mixing up your content types. Think Reels, Stories, carousels, and graphics, to maximise your reach and engagement across platforms.
Step 3: Schedule and Automate Where You Can
Once your content is created, schedule as much as you can in advance. Use a scheduling tool or work with a social media manager (like us!) to get your content queued up and ready to go. This frees up your time in December to focus on fulfilling orders, managing customer service, or simply enjoying the season a little more.
Step 4: Make Sure You Have a Paid Strategy in Place
Organic content is great, but a small paid budget can supercharge your festive promotions. If you’ve already planned your offers and content, it becomes easier to create targeted ad campaigns that deliver results. We help small businesses every year with paid ad strategies that lead to big sales boosts during November and December.
Step 5: Get Your Customer Service Ready
With more traffic and potential sales comes more customer enquiries. Whether it’s questions about delivery, sizing, or availability, you want to make sure your inboxes and DMs are monitored and your responses are quick and friendly. Planning your FAQs in advance and preparing template responses for common questions can save you a lot of time during busy periods.
It’s Not Too Early. It’s Smart!
Christmas may still feel far off, but the earlier you start planning, the more polished and powerful your marketing will be. If you’re not sure where to start, SMR Social can help you develop a Christmas content and ad plan tailored specifically to your business. Let’s make this your best festive season yet!