Key takeaways:
- To prepare for the holiday rush, SMBs should concentrate on a few high-impact tasks in November, such as active promotion and prompt customer communication.
- Offering gift guides and back-in-stock notifications can help you capture more sales and collect valuable customer information during the busiest shopping season.
- Focusing on a positive customer experience with clear shipping deadlines drives immediate sales and builds long-term customer loyalty.
The countdown has officially begun. With Black Friday just around the corner and Christmas a month away, SMBs are feeling the pressure to get their holiday marketing strategies launched.
This holiday marketing checklist will guide you through the year’s busiest shopping season. Our actionable steps will keep you focused and organized, even when the holiday rush feels overwhelming.
Ready to go deeper? Our comprehensive holiday marketing playbook gives you everything you need. You’ll have access to advice from an online marketing expert, proven strategies, and more. Download it for free and turn holiday stress into holiday success!
Small business holiday prep in November
Holiday shopper spending typically skyrockets in November. In 2024, holiday revenue in the U.S. jumped from $2.78 billion on October 31st to $3 billion on November 1st, according to Adobe Analytics’ report.
Holiday sales are expected to be higher this year, and you’ll want to be one of the businesses ready to capture all of them.
We sat down with Alicia Pringle, Senior Director of Network Solutions’ Online Marketing Team, to pick her brain about how SMBs can prepare in November. Here are some of the expert tips she shared:
- Task 1. Promote your business actively through digital channels
- Task 2. Share gift guides
- Task 3. Add shipping cutoffs
- Task 4. Monitor and engage with customers daily
- Task 5. Set up “back-in-stock” notifications
Task 1. Promote your business actively through digital channels
Active promotion doesn’t mean you have to be on all channels all at once. Alicia advises, “What is vital is that you have a very clear, consistent message and you are posting intentionally on these different channels.”
Start by determining which platforms drive the most traffic and sales for your business by using tools like Google Analytics. Once you know which platforms to focus on, create a series of content that showcases your business.
Based on your findings, here’s some holiday content ideas you can try:
- Share behind-the-scenes moments about your holiday preparations on Instagram Stories.
- Upload short, educational videos about your products on TikTok.
- Send weekly newsletters of your Black Friday or Christmas promos to your email list.
- Use SMS marketing for holiday flash sales or special offers for returning customers.
As you promote, make sure to have a clear and consistent message across all channels. For instance, if you have a new product launch, use your social media bios to mention it and pin a detailed post about it to the top of your profile.
Also, be sure the information on your website’s homepage or a dedicated landing page matches the information you’re posting on other channels.
>>Explore more holiday marketing tips with our holiday visibility checklist.
Task 2. Share gift guides
Provide gift guides to help indecisive shoppers make purchasing decisions quickly. But don’t create generic ones, like “Holiday Gift Guide.”
Try organizing your gift guides around problems you’re solving for specific people. This specificity makes your customers feel understood and confident in their purchases.
Consider the following holiday gift guide categories:
- “Gifts Under $50”
- “For the Coffee Lover”
- “Last-Minute Gifts That Still Impress”
- “For the Person Who Has Everything”
- “Stocking Stuffers For Skincare Enthusiasts”
- “Gifts for Your Work-From-Home Friend”
To help your target audience find your gift guides, remember this advice from Alicia: “Try to think, ‘What would they be searching for to find you?’ And then, put those phrases or those questions right in your website copy.”
This strategy helps search engines determine your gift guide as relevant, which, in turn, will make them show your page to more people looking for gift ideas.
>>Download our free holiday marketing playbook for more ideas on preparing your business for the holidays.
Task 3. Add shipping cutoffs
Nothing discourages holiday sales more than a customer who’s unsure if their gift will arrive on time. Remove this uncertainty by clearly displaying shipping cutoffs. This creates a sense of urgency and can encourage immediate purchases.
Post these dates in prominent places, such as:
- Your website header
- Product pages
- The checkout process
- Email signatures
- Social media bios
As Alicia says, online shoppers want quick answers to these questions: “What’s in stock? How do I buy it? Will it arrive on time?” You can answer these questions with a clear shipping system.
Create a tiered system with different cutoff dates for standard, expedited, and express shipping options. This gives customers multiple options for timely delivery and can also increase your shipping revenue.
Remember to account for weekends and postal holidays when setting these dates to help avoid late deliveries.
Task 4. Monitor and engage with customers daily
The holiday season brings more customer questions and a higher demand for good customer service.
You need to actively monitor and respond to customer inquiries across all channels daily. Quick and helpful responses during this period can help prevent an abandoned cart.
To stay on top of things, set up notifications for mentions, comments, and messages on all of your platforms so you don’t miss anything.
You can also create a document of frequently asked questions with clear answers to common holiday inquiries. Having these answers ready helps you provide consistent responses.
Include information about the following:
- Shipping times
- Return policies
- Gift wrapping options
Treat every interaction with a customer as a building block for a great brand-buyer relationship. If you give them excellent customer service, there’s a good chance that the experience brings them back to your business in the future.
This advice is supported by a 2024 survey from Khoros, which reveals that 83% of customers indicated good customer service as the most important factor for their buying decisions.
Task 5. Set up “back-in-stock” notifications
When popular items sell out during the holidays, you miss out on sales and the chance to connect with a customer. To handle this, implement back-in-stock notification systems for all your products, especially your best-sellers and gift-worthy items.
This tactic lets you capture email addresses from interested customers and automatically re-engage them when items are available again. These emails often have a high open and click-through rate (CTR) because they deliver a message the customer specifically requested.
>>If you missed September and October, it’s not too late! Discover more holiday marketing strategies with our September guide and October checklist.
‘Tis the season to turn holiday shoppers into loyal customers
November is the perfect time to focus on your customers’ experience. The happier they are, the more conversions you get, and the higher your holiday sales are. You might even gain loyal customers along the way!
Use this guide as you go into the holiday rush. And if you have no idea where to begin on your Black Friday preparations, our Black Friday strategies article is a great starting point.
Don’t forget to download our free holiday marketing playbook for more ideas on how to enhance your holiday marketing.
Frequently asked questions
The holidays impact businesses by creating a period of increased consumer spending. These holidays can also create a demand for new marketing needs, as businesses compete for a larger share of the holiday profits.
For many businesses, November and December are their busiest and most profitable months. They see a huge increase in revenue, with some earning more in these two months than they do in the rest of the year combined.
Holiday advertising should begin as early as September. Many consumers begin shopping well before the holiday season starts, so starting early helps you capture those early shoppers and build momentum.
Check out our September holiday marketing checklist to learn more about how to prepare your business before the holiday rush hits.
Holiday marketing is a strategy businesses use to promote products and services during specific holiday seasons. This type of marketing often involves limited-time offers and exclusive promotions that appeal to the festive spirit of customers.
Its main goal is to leverage the increased consumer spending and emotional connection people feel during the holidays to drive sales and enhance brand recognition.
