Well, we’ve made it to another holiday shopping season, which means seasonal marketing (both physical and digital) is in full swing.

Did your company have a marketing plan?

Did it work?

If your sales aren’t so hot, don’t worry: There’s always next year.

But in order to turn your 2018 regrets into 2019 resolutions, there are things you absolutely need to know and do, no matter what you sell or how you sell it:

And we mean REALLY early. The most effective holiday plans start taking shape in the summer, but that doesn’t mean you can’t start making notes right now.

Look at what others in your industry are doing:

What’s working? What isn’t? What did they do that was just plain genius?

The earlier you start thinking and planning, the more well-oiled your holiday sale machine will be when it starts running.

Just make sure you stay focused on the things that matter. Don’t redesign your whole site or sales process for the holidays (a change that can create chaos). Instead, make sure existing functionalities are working perfectly. Only make a few easy changes (switch out existing images, use festive coupon codes, etc.) to indicate the holiday spirit.

Nobody likes to hear about a deal after it has already expired.

Conversely, people love to hear about sale events (especially related to big ticket items) with plenty of notice. That way, they can plan their expenses and fit the purchase into their schedule ahead of time.

That being said, one week before Thanksgiving is a great time for most retailers to start kicking off email promotions and ads for holiday sales.

If you’re sending physical mail, make that one month before Thanksgiving.

But before that:

Make sure you have your sale events planned from start to finish, including marketing, well in advance of the start date. That way, if anything goes wrong, you have time to fix it and keep your leads in the pipeline.

You should have your plan 100% tested, approved, and ready to roll out around the second week of November (October, for mail).

The holiday shopping season has grown from just one or two major days to entire months’ worth of shopping mini-holidays. Which ones you want to emphasize in your marketing plan will depend on what kind of business you run. And while it may be too late for 2018, you’ll be kicking yourself extra-hard next year if you don’t start planning your offers right away:

While Black Friday is technically the start of the holiday shopping season, many stores now open for special sales before the turkey is digested – some as early as 5:00pm on Thanksgiving Day.

Depending on how enthusiastic your audience is, you may want to start rolling out your sales before the clock strikes midnight, too… even if it’s just for your most loyal customers to get early access.

The official start of the holiday shopping season, this one is the big day for all kinds of businesses, but there is a lot of competition between brick-and-mortar stores and online retailers.

If your business is primarily online, you may want to release an offer for Black Friday, followed by another offer for a different shopping day.

You may even want to continue offering your black Friday deals as long as the special offer items remain in stock. It may be just that day, or may be a few days afterwards. This creates an initial sense of urgency, but allows you to continue extending and remarketing the offer if the first wave of sales disappoints.

Small Business Saturday (also known as Shop Small Saturday) is all about local businesses and small businesses. People head down to main street to patronize their favorite local shops, which serve refreshments and offer special one-day deals.

It’s a breath of fresh air and community-building after the big business bombardment of Black Friday.

If you don’t have a brick and mortar storefront, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t participate in Small Business Saturday. If you run a small ecommerce business, especially if you make the products, you can still use this day to offer value to your customers. Giving them an extra discount for spreading the word about you on social media is always a good idea.

And don’t forget: This is the perfect time to make gift certificates for your business available if you haven’t already!

Cyber Monday is the day when online vendors shine: they offer their best sales and free shipping offers.

Recently, Cyber Monday has grown into a whole Cyber Week, so don’t think Monday is your only shot to make conversions with great offers. The entire week following Thanksgiving is pretty much fair game.

Giving Tuesday is an attempt to return to the more generous spirit of the holidays – a day of charitable giving. Many organizations match, increase, or otherwise incentivize donations to charity on Giving Tuesday.

Why does this matter for commerce and ecommerce? Well, here are just a few ways you can make it work for your business:

1. Promise your audience that for every purchase from your store, you’ll donate a certain amount to a charity that matters to them.
2. Donate an amount that isn’t sales-dependent and talk about why you did it on social media and in the day’s email blast to show your audience that you care.
3. If supporting charities is already part of your business model, send your subscribers an email about how they’ve helped by buying from you. Include statistics and heartwarming imagery.

By giving, you’re doing something on-trend that will spark emotions and build trust. Plus, doesn’t it just feel good to give back?

Green Monday is strictly an ecommerce holiday, officially recognized as the last Monday with at least 10 days left before Christmas (to allow time for shipping). It usually falls on the second Monday in December.

Ebay coined the term “Green Monday” in 2007 when they realized it was their best business day of the month. Nowadays, services like Amazon promise shipping in much less than 10 days. But for sites with standard shipping, 10 days remains a safe and familiar time allowance.

Online merchants created Free Shipping Day as an effort to prolong the shopping season. It’s another ecommerce-only event, this time reserved for merchants who can guarantee free shipping (with no purchase minimums) and delivery by Christmas Eve.

If you can’t solidly guarantee those things, you should sit this one out. But if you can, go for it! Free shipping is one of the biggest factors customers consider when making a purchase!

The exact date of this holiday changes every year, so check the official website for more information, including how to get involved.

The name says it all: this is the day to post your best sales on panic items (usually small gifts) that people can grab quickly and easily before Christmas Eve.

A warning for ecommerce vendors: unless you have insanely good shipping guarantees, leave this one for the brick and mortar locations.

Got leftover seasonal merchandise? Put it on clearance now and make sure people know about it!

Decorations, holiday-themed snacks, festive apparel, you name it. If you mark it down, they will come.

Don’t get caught in a Christmas pickle because something delayed your marketing blast.

Mail deliveries get interrupted. Servers fail. Ad platforms glitch. Life happens.

Have a plan that utilizes all possible mediums from the beginning so that each one is a fail-safe on the others. Having a resilient Plan A is always better than switching to Plan B AFTER things go wrong.

These days, social media is an indispensable part of any omni-channel marketing plan, and not just because of the potential for marketing to go viral.

Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and even Pinterest are making it easier than ever to sell products and gather leads directly from posts and ads. They’re also making it easier to get data on how those posts and ads are performing.

If you play your cards right with targeting, offers, visuals and ad spend, you could create a viral campaign that peaks right when everyone is opening their wallets. That’s more than any TV commercial could ever do.

Now is the best time!

Look around right now at what other marketers are putting out. What techniques and messaging are you seeing really hit the mark with customers?

What are audiences talking about and sharing?

What’s giving you inspiration for your next holiday campaign?

Oh, and while you’re at it – download our Holiday Marketing Planning Timeline to keep your planning on track all year long!