For some, the first day of Fall means a change in the color of the leaves, a drop in temperature, and time to pull out the coats. For marketers, the same day means time to ramp up the holiday campaigns, measure the ROI on your summer campaigns, and start planning for the year to come. Hectic, but that’s why we love it, right?

So, to jumpstart the Fall season, we wanted to give you a few tips and tricks for staying organized and effective this year.

Establish the tasks at hand

At GreenRope, the end of September and onset of October means juggling tasks between Q3, Q4, and the coming Q1. So, to stay organized and on track, we like to set a task list.

Task 1: Start strategically planning your holiday marketing campaigns. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Channukah, and a series of other holidays are coming quickly, so the time to start is now.

Tips:

Stick to holiday themes for your newsletters, landing pages, website, social media, etc
Start promoting specials and promotions
Use CRM and marketing automation to send personalized and targeted emails

Task 2: Measure Q3 successes and asses areas for growth. July, August and September are over and you want to see some ROI for all the work you do. Determine what worked and what did not, so that you can rework your strategies next time around.

Tips:

Track website visitors, bounce rate, conversions, open rates, click, etc. Find out which landing pages produced more conversions, and which campaigns came out ahead. This sort of insight provides valuable information about your customers and enables you to gear targeted campaigns toward them in the future.
Don’t forget about measuring social media engagement. Have you been starting more conversations, or have people been mentioning you more? What kinds of conversations are you having, and what type of content is resonating with your audience? Use this information as a guide for future content.

Task 3: Begin thinking about 2015 and your new year’s campaigns and goals. Just like in our personal lives, we want to start our business lives off with a bang. Brainstorming and gearing up for 2015 starts long before January 1^st . This is the time to sit down with your team and start brainstorming campaign ideas, use Q1 and Q2 reports to develop new ideas and reassess your efforts.

Tips:

Sit down as a team. Each and every team member played a part in your success, and the more ideas the merrier. Each department sees a different side of the customer journey, and may offer valuable insight for new campaigns.
Use a calendar so you are not forgetting any important holidays
Make use of editorial calendars to see the trends for publications in your industry

Establish a detailed timeline

Now that you have determined everything you need to do, it is time to create a timeline outlining deadlines for each project and associated tasks so you stay on track.

Tips:

Use a shared calendar to set due dates for each and every task and incorporate who is responsible for them.
Utilize a project management tool to assign tasks, track hours, progress, and keep every team member accountable.
Set a weekly meeting to go over the tasks and reassess and reassign where necessary. This is also a great way to brainstorm new ways to conquer all your to-do’s.

If you are like us, you are constantly moving from one task to the other, so it is important to remain focused. Since you are working on accomplishing three different goals at once, staying organized and not intermixing your projects is critical. Do not try to multitask. Work on one goal for one task, complete that, and then move onto the next. I have seen it too many times, where marketers are trying to accomplish too much at the same time and end up doing a half-ass job.

So, if you were not sure where to start or what you should be focusing on this beautiful first day of fall, start here. Stay tuned for more posts on holiday marketing ideas, best practices, and more.

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What the First Day of Fall Means for Your Marketing Strategy