Holiday Marketing Checklist: A Planning Tool for Local Businesses

For most retailers, the end of summer means it’s time to start planning your holiday retail strategies in full force. Today’s shoppers keep trending toward earlier and earlier start times for their holiday gift-buying, and some have already begun scouting out deals and purchasing items on their wish lists, meaning your holiday marketing strategy should be top of mind.

With so many tasks to take care of before the holiday shopping season begins in full force, it’s easy for your holiday marketing strategy to get lost in the shuffle. To help manage this chaos and set up your marketing strategy for success, we’ve created a nine-point holiday marketing checklist designed for small businesses.

Use the following checklist to make sure your business covers its bases when planning a marketing strategy that will drive results and revenue throughout the holiday season.

1. Plan to launch holiday marketing campaigns no later than October.

If your holiday marketing doesn’t start until Black Friday, you’re already way behind. Consumer research in the U.S. and U.K. found that 27 percent of adults begin holiday gift-buying as early as October.

Last October, Amazon alone reported nearly $6 billion in sales generated from its Prime Early Access holiday sales event. By getting an early jump on holiday marketing, your business can capture revenue from early-bird shoppers trying to get a head start on their seasonal shopping.

2. Explore flexible payment options.

Compared to previous years, this year’s holiday shoppers are increasingly comfortable with buy now, pay later options for buying gifts—and flexible payment options could give your business an advantage when trying to capture sales.

According to consumer research, 31 percent of shoppers who began holiday shopping in the summer were using buy now, pay later services such as Affirm and Afterpay to spread their purchase across several months of payments.

Retailers selling high-price items may be particularly well-positioned to benefit by offering shoppers flexible payment plans.

3. Prioritize multi-channel engagement.

Your target audience is active across a wide range of digital channels, including mobile, social media, TV, desktops, and other marketing channels. The best marketing engagement strategies utilize multiple channels to maximize interaction and create multiple touches with those consumers.

Don’t limit your marketing to a single digital channel. A marketing consultant can help you optimize your marketing spending across multiple channels for better brand visibility and audience engagement.

4. Curate holiday events to attract shoppers through experiences.

Local businesses should be aggressive in finding ways to leverage their brick-and-mortar presence in their communities. Product demos, festive shopping events, gift-wrapping parties, and other in-store experiences can offer your customer base something that online-only retailers can’t match.

Plan ahead with these shopping events so you can promote them across your own marketing channels while benefiting from word-of-mouth advertising.

5. Craft messaging and offers that appeal to price-conscious shoppers.

While recent economic trends have been positive in the U.S., consumer confidence remains hesitant about the economy’s outlook—and many households are expected to be more price-conscious when shopping for gifts this year.

According to recent research, 64 percent of consumers are aiming to spend as little money as possible during the holiday season, and 54 percent plan to purchase fewer gifts than in 2023.

Retailers can adapt to this shift in customer behavior by using marketing to highlight promotions and other money-saving opportunities, such as product bundles, to win over price-conscious shoppers.

6. Optimize your ecommerce website for mobile.

Consumers continue to grow more comfortable making purchases on mobile. They also use mobile devices to perform product research and price comparisons—not only during the holiday shopping season, but year-round.

Local businesses must keep pace with online competitors by offering ecommerce websites that are optimized for mobile. Secure checkout and mobile-friendly user experiences are key to capturing sales through mobile devices.

7. Enhance your rewards program to leverage customer loyalty.

As holiday shoppers embrace a value mindset when shopping for gifts, local businesses can sweeten the deal they offer those shoppers by increasing the rewards offered by their loyalty program.

Additional rewards, in the form of future coupons, cash back deals, points-to-cash conversions and other incentives, can be used to drive more purchases from loyal shoppers during the holiday season and into 2025.

8. Take advantage of expansive TV ad inventories offered by the busy fall sports schedule.

The holiday shopping season begins in earnest at a time of year when the TV calendar is packed with live sports programming.

The start of college football and the NFL, the Major League Baseball playoffs and World Series, and the beginning of the NBA and college basketball seasons all take place during the heart of the holiday shopping season, creating excellent ad inventories where small businesses can find great value on local TV inventories. A digital advertising partner can help you explore these options and plan a cost-efficient media buy to support your holiday campaigns.

9. Finish strong with last-minute advertising.

In the days leading up to major holiday celebrations, local businesses have an advantage over online retailers that can’t guarantee delivery in time for holiday gatherings.

As the finish line approaches, local retailers should emphasize their last-minute fulfillment capabilities, including same-day availability and local delivery, to capture sales in the closing days and hours of the holiday shopping season.

With the holidays on the horizon, local business leaders are busier than ever. That’s why it’s helpful to connect with a digital advertising partner who can help you plan, launch, and optimize a holiday marketing strategy that supports your business goals.

Cox Media’s experts are here to help. From identifying channels to developing messaging to optimizing your marketing spend, we’ll help you build a winning marketing strategy in time for the holidays. Contact us today to learn more.