HOW TO WIN THE HOLIDAYS
Summer holidays are just around the corner, thank goodness, right? And while it is essential to properly check out, enjoy some time off and soak up a little sun, it’s also a fabulous time of year to get a head start on 2019.
Take advantage of the market’s lull in activity and double down on what you want to achieve next year, without the usual distractions and deadlines.
Really allow yourself some space to think, plan and strategise. Get in the zone, preferably while laying under an umbrella with a cocktail in your hand, and follow these three tips for winning the holidays.
SET YOUR 2019 GOALS
I’ve mentioned this idea before, but one of my favourite concepts is called “3 key points”. A very simple strategy, taught to me by my brother-in-law, it forces you to prioritise and create a very clear picture of what really matters to you.
When it comes to planning out your goals for the new year, “3 keys points” is particularly helpful. It’s about keeping it simple and editing like you never have before.
What are the top 3 things you’d like to achieve in your business or for your brand in 2019? If you just focus on the top 3 things, you are more likely to tick them off and you can always remember what your goals are so when you’re doing anything at all next year you can quickly reference against your 3 key points and see if that activity serves your overarching goals.
Set up your goals around 3 different themes, for example, you could have one financial, one marketing related and one communications related.
DO YOUR RESEARCH
All that time on the sun lounge is an excellent opportunity to do some research. And by research I mean online. Apologies, but your screentime is about to shoot skywards because all the inspiration you’ve ever needed is right at your fingertips, on your mobile.
If you’re anything like me, you love to do this throughout the year as well, but this is a guilt-free hall pass to scroll til your hearts’, or rather your ideas pipeline, is content.
Go through all your saved posts and photos from the last 12 months, look at why you saved them and what idea for your brand could be generated from them.
Check out your competitors, what have they been up to? What can you learn from them, what they did well or what could they have done better? Look for accounts similar to yours and take a peek at who they follow, could you benefit from following a selection of those accounts too?
I always like to look overseas for best practices from established brands and businesses doing things well. Use the Instagram function that allows you to see similar accounts to ones just followed and investigate whether their content could feed your creative.
Another fantastic source of stimulation is podcasts. There are so many that are full of incredible, practical advice that you can implement in your business straight away. See this Instagram post for my favourites.
Audio books are also a must for the holidays, I can’t wait to listen to ‘This Is Marketing’ by Seth Godin. There is truly inspiration everywhere, you just need to allow yourself time to fall down the rabbit hole.
CREATE A CALENDAR
Once you’ve come up with an incredible list of ideas from all your research, it’s time to loosely plot them out on a marketing calendar.
Divide your year into 4 quarters as this is the way your brain naturally works and segments the year.
Then, think about the seasonal moments that occur in each of those 4 quarters that are most relevant to your business. For example, you might choose Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, the Start of Spring and Christmas. Or you might prefer International Women’s Day, Easter, Winter and Boxing Day Sales.
Look at your ideas pipeline and see which ideas fit best where and plots those 4 key moments onto your calendar, into the relevant month.
Then, take the remaining 8 months and plan out a secondary tier of newness. What new product, idea, theme, activity or promotion can you talk about during that month on social media, your website, your blog or IRL (in real life)?
Vary the cadence across these 5 topics as well as the different focus vehicle. For example, you might like to run a competition on social media one month, promote a template kit on your website in another or host a small group coaching experience later in the year. This approach ensures you are activating all platforms that are relevant to your brand and keeps your customers guessing what you might do next.
So, a very Happy Holidays to you, be safe and now most importantly be productive and get ahead of the game as we begin a brand new year.
Love,
Erin.