It's time to start planning campaigns for the festive period. Not only do they take a long duration to prepare, but getting ahead of any competition is crucial. From choosing the perfect location, to organising any influencers or celebrities, planning extensively should begin now.

Sarah Kauter, Managing Director at VerriBerri, shares her top things businesses should look out for when preparing a Christmas [1] campaign.

Know your audience

It goes without saying that targeting the right consumers for your product or campaign is critical if it is to be a success. Whether you're promoting a brand new fragrance, or looking to attract a large audience as a part of a PR stunt; researching your market and knowing the gender, age and locations that you're targeting should be a priority.

Designing flyers and running promotional videos should be tailored to your audience too. For example, a new perfume for young female teenagers would benefit from a pink dominated campaign, as the colour is often associated with this demographic.

Take inspiration from others

When planning your Christmas marketing material, it always helps to look at previous brands and their success. No doubt your campaign will be unique, but there's no harm in taking inspiration from others and combining this with your own ideas. On many occasions, a company may have already done similar marketing to your brand, just with a much larger budget. Don't let this put you off working around your own budget to produce something of a similar standard. Sometimes even the smallest budget campaigns promote the biggest message.

Prepare sponsors and venues

The Christmas period shares an influx in the bookings of buildings and areas. Be sure to get in early to sort your location, date and time in order to share your marketing material. Once this has been taken care off, you can relax knowing you've hit the jackpot in terms of location and audience. Collaborating with sponsorships not only allows you to increase the budget of your campaign, but also helps raise even more awareness. If you manage to partner up with a big sponsor, news will soon get out, and your campaign will already be off to a flier.

Think beyond the 25th

If you can carry your campaign past the Christmas period and into the New Year, whilst still maintaining high levels of engagement, it shows it was a success. More importantly, if you can keep a strong connection with any influencers, celebrities or sponsorships past the campaign deadline, it will only help in the long run. It gives you an advantage over any competition, as your relationship with one another will benefit any future marketing campaigns.

For more information on PR and marketing or Christmas campaigns visit: www.verriberri.co.uk [2]