This article was originally written in 2023 and has been updated in 2024 to add new dates and information.
It’s Not Too Early: Winter Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses with free downloadable templates for SWOT, competitor analysis, SMART goals, and buyer persona.
It’s best practice to create strategies and plan ahead in marketing. The different seasons also change what priorities consumers have, so our marketing strategies need to reflect that too.
It makes sense to plan marketing around the needs of consumers and one of the biggest features of the western calendar is Christmas. It’s not the only event that is celebrated during the winter though. The aim of this blog is to describe the key features of a winter marketing strategy that can be taken and implemented easily into a small business. To keep marketing inclusive, we’re going to include some other celebrations in this blog as well and look at winter, rather than just Christmas, marketing.
Do you need a winter marketing strategy?
Marketing activities should always be carried out according to a good strategy. This is because a marketing strategy is a collection of the most important information and plans. A marketing strategy helps you define your audience, stick to your plan, remember your goals and work within your budget. Without these elements, any marketing activity is just random, and can be expensive and ineffective.
There are different levels of marketing strategy however. A company could have an overall strategy that details their plans for the whole year, further split down into smaller strategies for particular campaigns like summer and winter. They can be even more specific, such as just for Valentine’s Day or Black Friday.
However many you have, it’s also good practice to regularly review them. This means you will stay on top of new competition, changes in your audience and new ways to reach and interact with them.
When should you start planning your winter marketing campaign?
Planning ahead is always preferable in business and marketing is no exception. According to Pinterest, people start making winter holiday plans before summer even begins. This guide from Pinterest, gives an interesting timeline of what consumers are thinking about, and when, when it comes to winter holiday planning.
As early as June, Pinterest users are pinning ideas about multi-course meals and décor. In September, their users “shift from discovery mode to decision-making and buying.” They narrow down their saved ideas and start making purchases. Now, it’s worth noting that this is likely an American audience they have focused on. In North America, they largely celebrate Halloween (October) and Thanksgiving (November in US, October in Canada) so it makes more sense they are purchasing décor in September. In the UK, the amount of people celebrating Halloween has grown in recent years, but our Black Friday is nothing to do with a Thanksgiving celebration.
That said, because of the cost of living crisis, in 2022 UK consumers were planning their Christmas shopping as early as August and that is likely to be the same in 2023. It might annoy some people to see mince pies in the supermarkets in September but many consumers use the opportunity to spread the cost of their winter festivities over more months. When you’re looking at your marketing timeline then, think of pre-holiday, peak holiday and post-holiday as sections to plan for.
What does a winter marketing strategy need to include?
There are some elements of a marketing strategy that are going to be similar for everyone and some parts that need to be more specific to your business. In general, a small, short-term marketing strategy consists of the following:
- Some SMART goals
- A breakdown of your target market or specific buyer personas to target
- A SWOT analysis
- A competitor analysis
- A list of what you did previously, e.g. a look back of what you did in previous winters, what went well, and what could be improved on.
Developing a good marketing strategy starts with setting SMART goals. SMART stands for:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Realistic
- Time-bound
Set SMART Goals
As part of a larger marketing strategy, these goals should be based on a well-thought out project plan that outlines where you want your business to go in the long-term. For a short-term winter marketing strategy, especially if you don’t have an overall marketing strategy, you could choose SMART goals based on how your business did last winter. What about your sales in winter 2022 do you want to improve?
Choose your Buyer Persona
Once you have set SMART goals, it is important to identify your target market and understand their needs. This involves researching customer demographics, behaviours, motivations, and buying habits. If you find this overwhelming because you have a very broad customer base, pick one or two targets and run with them. Name them, get to know their pain points and target the social platforms they use, these are your buyer personas.
Create your SWOT Analysis
Now you know your SMART goals, analyse the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) that are associated with your business’s current situation. A SWOT analysis will help you identify potential areas of improvement that can help you achieve your objectives and remind yourself what you’re good at already.
Conduct a Competitor Analysis
Then aim to conduct a competitor analysis. This involves researching the strategies and tactics of competitors in your industry. This can be as simple as using the free analytic tools from Meta to see which of your competitor’s social posts are the most popular, and doing something similar for your social posts over winter. Another example could be planning your stock more effectively after you ran out of mince pies too quickly last year and your competitor didn’t.
Measure and analyse previous years
Next create a list of activities from various channels e.g. website, social media, and email, and measure the effectiveness of each activity from last year. When you track the performance of your campaigns over time, you can make adjustments as needed, to meet your objectives. Do you put a lot of effort into Facebook ads each winter but find that that is not working as well anymore? This year is the year you change that up and put your efforts into a different platform.
Review and test, review and test…
Finally, a good marketing strategy requires ongoing analysis and testing. This means revisiting your SMART goals regularly to ensure they are still achievable, understanding customer needs on an ongoing basis, monitoring competitor tactics and leveraging the latest technologies to get the most out of your marketing efforts. Taking the time to regularly review and adjust your plan will help ensure success and keep you ahead of the competition. As we’re talking specifically about winter marketing in this blog, spend some time looking back at what you did last winter, it will help you plan for this winter and next.
Don’t be concerned too much about the order you do this in either. If you find it easier to choose SMART goals after your SWOT and competitor analysis, that’s perfectly fine!
What are some winter celebrations in the UK?
Christmas is the time most of the UK looks towards, if anything because of the public holidays but as we said at the beginning of this blog, Christmas isn’t the only winter festive celebration. Planning ahead, according to the UK calendar, your winter marketing strategy will likely include some of the following observances:
-
- Halloween – Thursday 31st October
- Diwali – Friday 1st November (the 5-day festival runs from Tuesday 29th October – Sunday 3rd November)
- Remembrance Day – Monday 11th November
- Black Friday – Friday 29th November
- Small Business Saturday – Saturday 30th November
- Cyber Monday – Monday 2nd December
- Human Rights Day – Tuesday 10th December
- Winter Solstice – Saturday 21st December
- Christmas and Boxing Day – Wednesday 25th December to Thursday 26th December
- Hanukkah – Wednesday 25th December to Thursday 2nd January 2025
- Kwanzaa – Thursday 26th December to Wednesday 1st January
- New Year’s Eve and Hogmanay – Tuesday 31st December
- Chinese New Year – Wednesday 29th January 2025
- Valentine’s Day – Friday 14th February 2025
It’s unlikely you’ll include all of these in your marketing, but it is good to have an awareness of what is happening and when. Some of these dates will change year on year, and there are many more festivals and observances that take place over the winter that might be suitable for you. Search for awareness days and you will find there is some sort of product, food, or medical awareness day every day. Find some that are suitable for you and your customers for inspiration.
Planning marketing ahead gives you the opportunity to plan for these events, or even to avoid planning something. It’s important to recognise that it’s never a good idea to capitalise on another culture’s holiday for the sake of sales or promotion. If you do want your marketing to be more inclusive, do some research on the proper terminology and etiquette so no one is accidently insulted.
Creating a “Happy Diwali” social media post is very acceptable when it comes from a place of genuine respect. Use your judgement and knowledge of your audience to determine what else is appropriate.
A winter marketing strategy is for winter, not just for Christmas
The period of winter is technically from December to February but we’ve included the autumn months because they are the prime shopping months for Christmas and other mid-winter festivals. Including Halloween in your winter marketing strategy, is just as important as including Valentines Day, as planning ahead is more likely to lead to success. It is certainly less stressful if you can order your stock in, and create your social media posts in advance and your marketing strategy will help with this. Here are a couple more tips for your small business winter marketing strategy.
A small business will benefit from a short-term, winter marketing strategy just as much as a big business, but you will want to adapt it to be relevant to your business situation. If location is important to you, your local competitors will need to be part of your competitor analysis. But if you also sell products online, you will want to include similar online brands. This could make your competitor analysis really big and complicated though, so just choose 1 or 2 competitors to keep it simple.
Keep it simple and ask for help if you need it
Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Strategies (more often than not) help with growth and success, but if you’re finding it hard to wrap your head around something, you have two options. You can ask someone you trust for help, or leave it and move on.
Most people running a small business work alone or with a very small number of staff so reach out to the local business community to bounce ideas off of. At onefoursix, we offer free 20-minute calls with the Director Dave Williams to chat about marketing issues you’re stuck on. Take up the opportunities around you for help when you need it.
We also understand that anyone running a business is stretched for time and maybe looking back at last years Facebook analytics is a luxury you can’t afford right now. That’s okay, in that case, just concentrate on the SWOT and competitor analysis and focus on the future. Next year, you can try and plan in more time for that level of strategic planning.
The important message in this blog is that creating a marketing strategy is a vital part of growing a business, and that there is more to the next few months than Christmas. Using some simple strategic tools you can level up your business marketing, and reach more people through an awareness of the diversity around us.
You can watch a recording of the webinar we did on this topic in September 2023 on YouTube
Click here to download all the marketing strategy templates in one zip file or download them individually below ⬇️
❄️SWOT ANALYSIS TEMPLATE FOR MARKETING STRATEGY
❄️SMART GOALS TEMPLATE FOR MARKETING STRATEGY
❄️COMPETITOR ANALYSIS TEMPLATE FOR MARKETING STRATEGY
❄️BUYER PERSONA TEMPLATE FOR MARKETING STRATEGY
Winter Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses Webinar
Commonly asked questions on winter marketing strategies
What is a winter marketing strategy?
It’s a seasonal plan to boost sales, engagement, or brand awareness by tapping into winter holidays, trends, and behaviours.
When should you start planning a winter marketing campaign?
Depending on the scale of your campaign, you can start as early as February or March. You should at least start planning by late summer or early fall to allow time for creative ideas, content creation, and adjustments.
What is a SWOT analysis in marketing?
SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It’s a tool used to assess internal and external factors affecting your business and drives your marketing decision making.
How do you set SMART goals for a marketing campaign?
SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound objectives that guide your campaign’s direction and success.
How do you create a competitive analysis for marketing campaigns?
Research competitors’ strategies, strengths, weaknesses, and audience engagement, then compare them to your own to find gaps or opportunities.
How do you choose an ideal buyer persona?
Identify your target audience’s demographics, interests, pain points, and behaviours to build a detailed profile of your ideal customer. Aim for specificity, which means you may have more than one type of buyer persona.
