How soon is too soon to begin holiday marketing?

[Kristen Roth]

My neighbor told me she just finished putting the finishing touches on her indoor Christmas tree displays yesterday (yes... in October 😳), and it got me thinking about holiday marketing and campaign planning. 

When do you feel it's appropriate to start holiday-related marketing campaigns, and what's the earliest you've seen? I've always tended to lean towards mid to late November, but it seems like people are starting earlier and earlier every year! 

What tools do you use to keep your campaigns on track? I'm an avid user of Confluence templates and usually start with something like this one, tailoring it to my specific campaign and project needs as I go. Trello has some great templates, too. I'd love to hear about how everyone stays organized!

[Teodora V _Fun Inc_]

Unlike my fellow teammate Christopher, who is obsessed with Christmas preps, I am always the one who delays them. I feel each year, people are getting more bored and annoyed by the Christmas campaigns. Maybe it's a direct correlation with the fact we are seeing them earlier every year!

As I mentioned my lack of desire for Christmas, I am fortunate enough to work with companies who stay away from the generic 'holiday cards bulk sent' and find ways to be creative and ... maybe a little "naughty." 😁

In the past two years, we launched fun Christmas campaigns connected with our apps. Each campaign took approximately a month from idea to realization, and we tracked it (of course) in Confluence using a template very similar to what @Kristen Roth showed. The release was at the beginning of December (not too early), but the planning started at least a month ahead. We were also tracking progress in Jira while actively collaborating in Confluence and Slack :)

[Johanna Pichotka_APTIS_]

Your Christmas polls are awesome! 

[Johanna Pichotka_APTIS_]

October is way to early to put up Christmas decorations 😲​

I would agree with mid to late November. At least to start campaigns. 

As far as preperations go, this year I started in August. Usually I tend to be more last minute since the year passes by so fast and suddenly its November and I have to stop everything to prepare for christmas. 

This year I wanted to avoid the end of year stress so we started early with some preperations for our yearly advent calendar. And it actually worked because so far I have managed to avoid any pre-christmas stress. 

I am also not the biggest fan of all of the generic pre-christmas campaigns and it's quite overwhelming at times. Because there is just so much stuff happening at the same time. 

I am a heavy Jira user when it comes to campaign execution. For brainstorming I usually write down some first thoughts on paper and then transfer it all to Confluence.

Haven't been using Confluence templates a lot but this one looks awesome. 😍​ 

[Kristen Roth]

Right? I thought so, too. 😆

Glad to hear you got an early start this year and will be less stressed! There's enough stress outside of work when it comes to holiday time. 

Let us know if you give the template a try! For me, starting with a template is so much easier than starting with a blank page for many reasons. There's something about a blank page that can be so daunting!