When you’re busy decking the halls and harking the herald angels, the last thing you want to do is think about marketing. But you don’t want to let the most lucrative time of the year pass your business by either.

Fortunately, you can have all the hard work finished long before the ho-ho-holidays roll around. Start early so that when the time comes, all you need to do is deploy your strategy and sit back with a hot cup of cocoa. Here’s everything you need to know before you get started.

Why Should I Run a Marketing Campaign During the Holidays?

Let’s start by answering an important question: why run a marketing campaign during the holidays in the first place?

Really, there’s never a bad time to market your business. But the holiday season is notoriously lucrative, which makes it the perfect time for a campaign. Here’s why:

• There’s an increase in demand and buyer urgency
• It’s easier to connect emotionally with customers
• Shoppers are eager to discover new products and brands

These are just a few of the reasons why the holidays are a great time to sell your products and services. Even if your offerings are more relevant during the warmer months, you can provide discounts, bundles, and other special offers to spark interest from holiday shoppers.

How Does Holiday Marketing Differ from the Rest of the Year?

The holidays are a special time of year. Scrooge becomes generous, the Grinch’s heart grows by three sizes, and your customers may experience transformations of their own.

With this in mind, we recommend you go bold and try something different for your holiday campaign. Use this unique season as an excuse to create something really emotional and fun—your audience will likely be even more receptive to this type of content than usual. Start by:

1. Anticipating the Needs of Your Target Audience

Is there something about your product or service that makes it especially appealing during the holidays? For example, do you provide a service that could make hosting Thanksgiving dinner easier? Or do your products work as a gift for Christmas?

If you can anticipate the needs of your target audience and think of ways your offerings provide the solution, you’ll be well on your way to creating something impactful.

2. Thinking Outside the Box

As you begin to craft your strategy, keep in mind that the holidays are a great time to market your business . . . and just about everybody knows this. As a result, the competition will be fierce.

That’s why we recommend you think a little outside of the box for your holiday campaign. Don’t believe you can stamp a Christmas bow on your logo and call it a day. Instead, find ways to dig deeper—perhaps by getting more personal and vulnerable with your marketing than ever before.

3. Keeping Holiday Traditions and Rituals in Mind

The holidays are fraught with traditions and rituals. It’s possible that this will work in your favor…but it’s just as likely that it will not. For example, selling turkeys on Thanksgiving is a cakewalk. Selling hot dogs, on the other hand, may be a bit trickier.

In other words, sometimes you’ll want to lean into holiday traditions. Other times, you’ll want to subvert expectations. Most likely, you’ll want to do a little bit of both.

4. Breaking Brand Rules when Necessary

We’ve talked extensively about brand guidelines and how they should dictate all of your marketing moves. Well, the holidays are a time to throw that out the window.

Just kidding.

While we don’t recommend leaving your brand guidelines totally in the rearview mirror, you can sometimes stretch and break your own rules. If these “rules” are holding you back creatively or making it difficult to channel the magic of the holidays, we think it’s okay to break them this one time. We won’t tell.