Off the edge blog

Christmas is coming!

Christmas is coming

It's summer - nearly Christmas!

It's July. The weather might lead you to conclude differently, but it's the middle of the British summer. Flowers are in bloom. Bees are buzzing around. French ferry workers are striking, no doubt air traffic control will soon follow suit. Schools have broken up and the kids are probably already bored. Everything you'd expect of a good old British summer. Including the first email pinging into my inbox advertising Christmas events at a local hotel - Christmas party nights £29.95 if you're interested.

A bit early you might think. I get a little annoyed when the shops pipe out Christmas carols in November. I'm certainly not trying to decide between the turkey and the fish for my Christmas dinner in July.

I accept though that I might not be typical, some of you might be dusting off your baubles as I write. Certainly some people might be efficiently planning the office party determined not to miss out on the top hot spot again this year.

When do your buyers want to buy?

Whether it's too early or not isn't really the point I want to explore today. The point is that whether you are thinking about Christmas or not, the hotels are. So are the restaurants and the shops. So are magazines, radio stations and the TV.

This means that if you sell to the hotels, restaurants or shops you should be thinking about it too. If you don't sell to those guys but Christmas is an important time for sales then you should be thinking about writing some interesting and relevant stories sent to magazines.

It's Christmas every day!

The thing is that Christmas comes every year and just as the hotels, restaurants and shops plan for it so can you. And it's not just Christmas of course, there are lots of things that come round every year or every quarter or every month. Do you know what are the key times for your clients or the people you'd like to sell to?

Making sure that you are engaging with them when they are looking to buy is gives you a huge advantage over the competition who aren't on the ball.

Plan ahead

So while you're sitting on your sun lounger sipping your Pimms (other long cold slightly alcoholic drinks are available) why not take five minutes and scribble down some of the key dates in your clients' calendars. If you don't know what their planning time frames are then have a guess. If you were them, how long before the event would you start planning? Then add a couple of months to be safe. That should give YOU a calendar to work with. That's when YOU need to be turning up the volume of your marketing.



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