Marketing in December
The last month of the year, December, has finally come, marking the arrival of auspicious events in some countries as well as giving a green signal to all those waiting to go out on holiday. For companies operating in different regions across the world, December is the month when they anticipate a fall in their productivity as well as revenues. The month which is the starting of a chilling winter to come ahead, makes little pain in the spine of marketers when it comes to justify cost and revenues. People might they that they can’t do much about the revenues this month and they will stick to and carry on the activities already in place.
However, my take on December is a little different. As a marketer, I would like to consider two phases of December, the first phase would be 1st-20th Dec and the second phase would be from 21st Dec-31st Dec. The division of months over the two periods helps marketers apply marketing strategies more appropriately and manage the returns on their costs.
First Phase of December
Talking about the first phase is the time when people want to finish their maximum work as soon as possible. The buying behavior of the consumer changes drastically. The time from need recognition to the final purchase gets reduced, depending on the product or service. For companies dealing with business clientele, and providing business solutions, this is the most crucial stage. These companies have to ensure that they can make the most out of the 1st phase. All the marketing activities should be focused on improving the response time from the clients. For companies dealing in consumer goods etc, the cost of managing the stock would increase. People in regions that see cold winters with snowfalls and bad weather, start filling their inventory for the next two months in advance at the best price possible. Usually, the best way to attract these people is either through volume discounts or through providing more value. Before, I come to the second phase of December, there is another very important thing that marketers can look forward to. Experimenting in marketing activities has become one of the most essential as well as the challenging tasks faced these days.
All the marketing heads want to explore new channels of revenue while making sure of good returns at the same time. This is not as easy as it sounds and requires deep research along with a focused strategy. Marketers are usually reluctant to take such experiments during the high revenue period of the year, just to avoid any adverse situation. Well, the first phase of December is the most ideal period for experimenting. The marketing activities are usually on a lower budget and the risk factor is greatly reduced. Different new marketing channels can be adopted depending on the industry we are in. I would suggest that whichever strategy we adopt, we should put in complete efforts to ensure its targeting. The best strategies to work out for marketers are the ones that are well-targeted to the consumers. This would ensure the minimal cost of testing new strategies with the best returns.
The Second phase of December
Talking about the second phase of December, apart from a few industries like hotels, travel, etc, most of the industries see a fall in business in the last 10 days of the month. People are out for holidays and nothing much can be done in extracting more business in this phase. The best thing about this phase is that we get a good amount of time where can focus on reviewing the performance of our strategies over the past few months and work out on developing the best ones and improving them. We can sit down together, see which things have given us the best returns, and plan out how we can monetize more from them. Recently, in my previous articles, I talked about email marketing and the returns we can get from it. However, creating attractive emails is a time-consuming process. This is the time when we can get this work done for the next two months. January and February are the two months that usually give a sudden boost to the business in some industries. So the best advice here would be to get all your homework done for the next two months and be ready to welcome the new year with a great smile, passion for work, and great returns. These are the things that matter in every company, big or small, at the end of the day.
