Your Holiday Email Marketing Plan: What to Send & When

[00:00:00] For most, if not all, email marketing platforms, you can schedule out emails. I would suggest you do that because also enjoy your Thanksgiving. Enjoy your family. Everyone, welcome to the S.O.B. Marketing Podcast where we celebrate the S.O.B. that you are. And if you haven't figured it out yet, we mean small owned business. We don't mean S.O.B.

[00:00:24] Listen, we know that as a small business owner, you are working hard on the daily to keep your business fully operational while trying to promote it. And while some days it may feel like the business is owning you, if we're being honest with each other, I bet you would admit that you wouldn't give up the insanity for anything. Our commitment here at the S.O.B. Marketing Podcast is to give you the real talk, what works when it comes to advertising, marketing, promoting your business,

[00:00:53] and then what doesn't really work. And Chelsea and I promise to always keep the conversation real. Got to quit going with songs. The people are going to exit. That, you know what, that is fair. I'm just trying to get us in the mood, Vivian. We are recording the day after Halloween.

[00:01:21] I am one of those people that skip right over Thanksgiving, couldn't care less, it's Christmas time. She, if you guys do not know Chelsea, that tracks. She has nothing to be thankful for. I don't quite say it like that, but. I mean, she is giving little sister energy when she says, let's just skip Thanksgiving altogether. Let's just skip Thanksgiving, it's fine. Yes.

[00:01:49] Well, Chelsea, this does relate to the topic at hand today. Exactly. I'm not just singing to sing. Or are you? Or am I? No. Today, Vivian, we are once again talking about holiday marketing. But what we're going to do is we're specifically focusing on email marketing. You know us, SOBs, we love email marketing.

[00:02:15] And so today, if you guys want to do something for the holiday season, specifically with your email marketing, but you don't know where to begin, we're going to give you a little framework, an idea, a guideline for your email marketing sequence. And I do actually have a little bit of a hot take on this subject. Okay, should I pew-pew you in?

[00:02:43] Yes, because I know you hate when I try to do the sound effects. No, she's not a very good idea. Okay. Marketing hot take. Oh. I actually, as a consumer, do not mind getting promotional emails during this time of year. If anything, this is the time of year where I'm like, yes, please use my email address to save me money. Yes. All right.

[00:03:08] I want to know about, you know, the products, the services you have available during this time, because I am having to buy for other people. And I want to buy things that match their personalities, things that they will like. And then also, because so many businesses do offer a little bit of a discount, you know, if you bundle things or buy certain products, I do feel like I'm being a little more judicious with my money.

[00:03:38] Sure. If I'm actually reading my emails and taking advantage. No, exactly. This time of year is the best time. Now, I want to say, if you have an email list, all of your subscribers are signed up because they want to get emails from you. So, you know, you're not bothering people. But specifically, this time of year, people want your emails. They want to know what you're doing, what you're offering, because they're trying to spend their money.

[00:04:07] That's right. Yeah. Give them an avenue. So I think you've divided this conversation up into four specific segments. Phases. Okay. And none of them are the emo phase, guys. No, that's constant. It's not a phase. It's not a phase. You know what? Look, I'm going to be, I'm what, 28? Yeah.

[00:04:37] It wasn't a phase. Yeah. Okay. I mean, I'm 40. How old am I? 43? I'm definitely not a... How old are you? I don't know. I don't know. I forget sometimes. Okay. Something to look forward to. That's right. Memory loss. Okay, Vivian. Before we get into our four phases, I do have some like... I don't want to say generic, but like where to start. I have some guidelines for where to start.

[00:05:05] First off, before you even start with your phases, what are your goals? Yes. So what are you trying to promote this holiday season? Are you focusing on specific products? Are you just trying to get your sales up? Or are you trying to move a specific part of inventory? It's also important to remember, you know, these four phases, each phase has different email campaigns in them.

[00:05:32] For each of these email campaigns, you need to consider what your goal is. And we'll mention that throughout the phases. But when you're creating this sequence, each email has a different job. Okay. So just keeping that in mind when you're actually sitting down and creating the email. Sure. Well, and part of the reason, as you guys know, Chelsea is such a stickler for data and information. So part of the reason that you want to be able to identify your goal is because at some

[00:06:02] point you want to be able to track its success. Yes. And those, you can't track something that you aren't laying out ahead of time. Yeah. You're not. If you haven't even considered what you're tracking, then how can you track it? Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. The, you know, the beauty of this is if you do this holiday email marketing campaign,

[00:06:29] it's going to make it that much easier next year because you're going to know what worked really well and what didn't. And so maybe you'll have different things that you'll want to do next year in place or in lieu of the things that maybe didn't perform as well. But the only way you're going to know all that is by outlining ahead of time what the goal is for each email. Yes. Okay. Vivian, are we ready to get into peaks? Let's do it. Let's do it.

[00:06:58] Beginning, I would like to say bare minimum one email per week. Okay. Okay. I'm going to mention throughout here, maybe I suggest two to three emails a week or stuff like that. Just you do what works best for you and bare minimum one email per week. Okay. Okay. And this is, well, we're about to talk about the start frame. Yes.

[00:07:27] So for phase one, we're calling it peak curiosity. Oh. Yeah. Get people interested. Uh, that you should be doing right now. Yes. Yes. So we, we are having this conversation a little late in the game. Our bad. But in our defense, we actually have two other episodes that we did.

[00:07:51] I mean, in the last, like, I want to say 15 episodes about small business Saturday coming up to help prep you guys. Okay. So in our defense, we have already had the holiday marketing conversation multiple times within the past, like, two months, which is perfect. You're talking about email specifically. I'm specifically talking about emails. For email marketing, let's say you listen to this episode the day it comes out. I want you next week sending out this email. Yeah. Okay.

[00:08:21] And that, that is, uh, would that be mid November? That would be like the first second week of November. Of November. Yeah. Okay. So that's, that's what we're looking for. Realistically, that should be fine. Next year, do late October. Okay. Early November. Sure. But we're starting with phase one. We're peaking curiosity. So this is you hinting at what's to come for the holiday season.

[00:08:50] So maybe you're saying, Hey, I'm going to have limited edition inventory, like only for the month of December or only for this holiday season, or maybe you're going to be hosting an event. Now's the perfect time to start teasing that event, no matter what time it is in the holiday season. Basically you need to let people know now what's to come and you need to continue letting people

[00:09:20] know what's to come across the platforms. So yes, this is an email, but also make sure you let people know on your social media and make sure you have like, I don't know, maybe a pop-up on your website. Yeah. Stuff like that. Oh, I love that pop-up idea on the website. The other thing is, remember, we tell you guys that, uh, you want to take full advantage of as much free real estate that you have. So let me just remind you a little bit of the free real estate that's available to you.

[00:09:48] One of it is website. Chelsea mentioned it, not just through a pop-up, but perhaps you have an image at the top, a header, a header at the web on your website that you can switch out the graphic. That's a little more seasonal to remind people in terms of header. Don't forget your Facebook header. That's right. That's the next one I was going to say. So like your cover photo, you could swap that out. Those are, oh, and your Google business profile. Yes. Okay.

[00:10:15] So if you wanted to upload a graphic to your Google business profile, that's, you know, kind of teases this as well. The other part is messaging when you are on your socials or perhaps in this email is just reminding people that this is going to be one of the main ways that you communicate your, whether it be, it doesn't have to be sales, but just any of your holiday product or holiday events that you have going on.

[00:10:43] So at every chance you want to encourage them. Hey guys, I'm going to be sending out email communication. You want to be sure that you're clicking on it and reading it when I do send it out. Remember, we want to get people on your email mailing list as well. That's right. Yes. Okay. So that's phase one. Fairly simple, you know, just peak interest, peak interest, peak curiosity, get people thinking about your business in terms of the holidays.

[00:11:09] So now Vivian, also, uh, can I also mention this is kind of low hanging fruit, depending on what type of business you are. A lot of people do advent related stuff in what I mean is not from the religious perspective, but because advent calendars are such a big deal. I mean, who doesn't love eating chocolate from a little calendar?

[00:11:35] Well, calendars, y'all, if you're a small business owner and you have an advent calendar, please let us know in the comments or message us on Instagram or something. Cause I love these new created advent calendars. There's socks. Yeah. There's, uh, like probably Neato's probably does this. I don't know. Like the squishy. Yeah. Like, yeah, I'm blanky. I think Legos does one.

[00:12:02] You can also do teas or chocolates or there are so many different versions of advent calendars now and I love them all. Okay. So tell us if you do sell an advent calendar for your specific product, but outside of that, the reason I was bringing it up is just if you're, if you're hard pressed for like a theme, like you want to wrap up these emails in a theme, but you're like, I just don't know. You could do countdowns. Yeah.

[00:12:30] You could do advent calendar stuff like leading up to, you know, uh, Christmas I'm going to do, you know, one email a week and it's going to have a specific layout. Very similar. Lots of different ways to do it. A countdown. Yeah. Countdown. So just, you know, be creative, look and kind of see what's worked in the past for other people maybe and tweak it, make it your own.

[00:12:55] Vivian, all this talk is making me think of, um, my favorite Christmas movie, the Grinch who stole Christmas, the Jim Carrey one, of course. And there's, uh, there's a scene it's after Christmas day, everything's already happened. It's all good. And the, the local, I don't want to say the local yeller, but the guy who like shouts all the news and stuff, you know what I'm talking about? He's like 364 days till Christmas.

[00:13:25] I mean, you could start the countdown over the next day. Y'all, Vivian let me confuse my holiday movies. I'm referencing the nightmare before Christmas, not the Grinch. No, but I just wanted to say if there are tons of ideas out there and ways that you could do this. So don't, don't let that be the thing stopping you from doing your emails. Okay. So after you peak someone's curiosity. Okay. We've peaked the curiosity.

[00:13:53] I love how we keep just saying this. So phase two, Vivian, phase two is going to be start giving people ideas. Okay. Okay. So what we mean by, and this should be mid November. Okay. So like week two, week three around that time, people are starting to actively think about holiday shopping. Okay. They're starting to like actively be like, this is who I want to get stuff for. This is the kind of person they are. What can I get them?

[00:14:22] Um, so this is the perfect time for you to give people ideas when it comes to your products and what would be good gifts. Vivian, I love a gift guide. Yeah. I love a gift guide. It makes my life easier. What gift guides have you seen before Chelsea? Like what do they do it by interest by like people do it by all kinds of things. And I love that. Um, a great example.

[00:14:51] And I might not be remembering this perfectly, but last year, Frey Pearls, a local jeweler here in Charleston. They did a gift guide and it was based off of like the kind of person they are, right? Like, oh, if they're outdoorsy, this is the kind of necklace to get them. Or if they're, well, I can't think of anything besides outdoorsy. If they're bookish. If they're a nerd. They probably did that. Well, okay. Bookish.

[00:15:20] If they're bookish. So you could do it by personality. Sure. You could do it by age. You could do it by gender. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of options, but I think a gift guide sounds like a lot of work. Mm-hmm. However, you're your small business owner. You know your products. You probably know what kind of people would buy certain products. That's right. Let people know that.

[00:15:50] So put it in the email, make a carousel, do a video, stuff like that. Yeah. And we have a company that we do email marketing for. I'm sorry. Really quick. By price. I can't believe I forgot by price. Oh, yes. You could lump it like gift ideas under $50, gift ideas under $25, like that sort of thing. Those are really great because I think that helps people that are budgeting their money because

[00:16:17] I can't even begin to tell y'all, I feel like my Christmas list gets bigger and bigger every year. And I'm like, what? What is going on here? So that is nice because if you have a friend that maybe they're just a new friend, not someone you've known a long time, you want to give them something small under $15, under $25. Those guides are really, really great. Yeah. Stocking stuffers. Yes. All that stuff. This is also when you should start offering people deals.

[00:16:44] If you're going to be offering deals or bundles or free shipping or stuff like that, now is the time to mention that stuff. Yes, people love Black Friday. But as we've had this discussion multiple times, Vivian, already, people are starting to shop earlier and earlier. Oh, for sure. Absolutely. So. And it's not us making this up. There are actually reports that say this.

[00:17:12] There are so many reports saying that people are starting to like seriously look into holiday shopping as early as September. Yeah. So now would be the time to start offering the deals and such stuff like that. What I would do is I would start teasing what you're going to be offering specifically for Black Friday. Mm-hmm. Because then the deals that you offer now can be different.

[00:17:43] So let me explain. Let's say, Vivian, what are we selling? Oh my goodness. Give me something good. Give me an advent calendar. Lipstick. A lipstick. I would buy that so quickly. Yes. Okay. So we're selling a lipstick advent calendar. Well, let's just say we sell lipstick. Okay. So we've decided that for Black Friday, we're going to do spend $100.

[00:18:10] You get a free lipstick bundle. Okay. Oh, that's a really good deal. Okay. But that's for Black Friday. So in the email, we're going to let you guys know, oh, spend $100, get a free lipstick bundle. Or you can spend $100 now and you get free shipping. Okay. So it's different. Sure. So you're offering different options for people.

[00:18:37] Like if you want to wait till Black Friday to get that free product, wonderful. If you don't need to wait for that free product and you just want free shipping now, then buy it now. Yeah. And remember, consumers are all the same but also different. And so for someone, maybe for Vivian, she doesn't really care about that free product. She doesn't need a lipstick bundle because she bought her lipstick advent calendar. That's right. So she's just going to go ahead and purchase now and get that free shipping.

[00:19:06] For me, I love lipstick. I want all of it always all the time. So I'm going to wait till Black Friday. Sure. Because I want that free product as well. Yeah. And I like how you're introducing also, you know, a lot of times we always associate the holiday season with like sales for small businesses. You don't have to offer sales. You can. And I know you're coming off the top in a different way. So like the free shipping thing. Right.

[00:19:33] But a lot of businesses do offer that as an incentive to go ahead and get people to buy. The other thing is don't forget that if you already have like a reward system, a point system set up, this is another great way you can leverage it. So if you don't want to do discounts, maybe you say for this week in November, if you buy, I'm going to give you double points. There you go. Okay. That's great.

[00:20:02] And so then it goes into their little point, their bucket. And then they can eventually, you know, redeem that stuff for, you know, a $10 discount. However, your system is set up. But there are so many different ways that you could do it outside of just a discount. Yes. Another great example would be like limited edition things. Like let's say you're only our snail mucus lipstick. We're only selling. You guys, she's rage baiting me.

[00:20:30] If you don't know, she talked about this in another episode. So your reminder to go listen to all of our episodes so that you could get the inside jokes. Make sure you listen after the holiday season. So Vivian can talk about the snail mucus products I bought her for Christmas. Oh, joy. I'm so excited. I remember what I was going to say earlier. Oh, yes. So we'll come back to the snail mucus. Yeah. No.

[00:20:55] What I was going to say earlier is we actually have a client who she sells elderberry products. Okay. And you would think that there aren't very many ways to even promote or sell elderberry products during the holiday season. Email marketing is her biggest like way that she leverages and increases her sales during that time. Yeah. But it looks like Chelsea said, there are so many ways that she's done it or tried it, right?

[00:21:25] So whether it's the free shipping side of it, whether it's spotlighting bundles. Yes. Bundles are huge for the holiday season because think about it. I don't have to create the bundle. That's right. I don't have to think about the consumer. I don't have to think about it. I can just get the bundle and just give it to them like that. And it's perfect because for, you know, if you're wanting to give somebody a nice gift

[00:21:54] and like you said, it kind of relinquishes you from having to come up with this, but maybe get to test several different products. Yeah. Right. And then it introduces people to other products you may have. If you sell soaps, maybe you also have a body scrub. And so you're trying to introduce your body scrub to other people. These are great ways to kind of do two in one type thing. I have a great example of this.

[00:22:23] One year, Maya kept saying that she wanted to like up her perfume game. She wanted like a nice, fancy perfume. Mm hmm. So I got her one of those Ulta like tester kits where it has a bunch of small minis of all the really fancy perfumes. So then she can smell them all. That's right. And try them all. And then the one that she likes, she can make a purchase. Yes. Yeah. So that's great. Yeah. Perfect.

[00:22:53] My snail mucus. Yes. What I was saying is you can do like a limited edition, like only Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Black Friday through Cyber Monday will have snail mucus lipstick. After that, it's gone. Yeah. But actually, actually stick to whatever you're putting out there. Well, no, actually do that. If you're saying, don't be a liar. Yeah. Don't be a liar. All right.

[00:23:19] But that was just an example of you don't have to discount. Yeah. Discount. You don't have to do a discount. OK. So right now we've gone through two phases. Phase one, curiosity. Phase two, start giving people ideas. Yes. And I would say for phase two, if you can maybe do two emails a week. Yes. That'd be great. And people won't, like we said, they're in the shopping mood. They're looking for gift ideas.

[00:23:48] And if you're giving them gift ideas, they're not going to be mad about it. That's right. Yeah. OK. And if they are, you can write us, leave us in the comments below. This episode of the SOB Marketing Podcast is brought to you by the SOB Community. If you're a small business owner that is neglecting your marketing and you feel like you've wasted money and time on marketing help that didn't deliver, or if you're just craving support

[00:24:14] from people who actually get what it's like to run and promote a small business, then our membership community is for you. Visit school.com slash SOB to sign up today to get instant access and weekly support. That's S-K-O-O-L dot com slash S-O-B. OK, Vivian, so now we have phase three. And this is going to be Black Friday to Cyber Monday. Your Super Bowl. Yes.

[00:24:42] Actually, yes, Vivian, this is the holiday Super Bowl. This is when things get crazy. If you can do like three emails a week, this is what I would do. This phase three is the week of Black Friday. OK. Don't forget, for most, if not all, email marketing platforms, you can schedule out emails. Yes. I would suggest to do that because also enjoy your Thanksgiving. Enjoy your family.

[00:25:13] Yeah, sure. Whatever. Yeah, enjoying your family. Chelsea just waved me off for any of you that are not watching this on YouTube. Thanks, girl. Love you. We spent so much time together. It's fine. What I was going to say is I would send out multiple emails this week. I would try to do one on Monday, one on Wednesday, early Friday morning. OK. And then Saturday and Sunday. OK.

[00:25:41] Or if that sounds like a lot, because I know that probably sounds like a lot, do one on Wednesday and Friday. Yeah. Yeah. I don't suggest sending one out Thursday. You can. And I'm sure there are people, consumers that would look at it. But I personally, one, think you should spend time. Well, you can schedule it out. But focus on your family.

[00:26:06] And I would like to think that most consumers are also focusing on their family. So they might not see it Thursday. So that's why I'm saying Wednesday, like Wednesday night, Friday morning. Yeah. I would agree with that. I think that's a good. And then that way, too, you're for the Friday, you're reminding people early on. Yes. You know, maybe sending it at like 530 or at 6 in the morning. Just kind of figuring out like what that best time is.

[00:26:36] Because remember, your goal here is to try to increase the amount of people that are opening your email and then purchasing something. Yes. Once again, Vivian, I wrote in here and we've already had this discussion multiple times during this episode. But you don't have to offer a discount or anything like that. But whatever you are doing, now is the time to push it. Yeah. Push it. Remind people. Tell them.

[00:27:01] Don't assume that people remember because they've been opening all of your emails. Maybe they missed a couple. Yeah. And as someone who I get a lot of emails, you guys, I will say this is a very well-used tactic by a lot of bigger companies. Yes. And I'm thinking specifically like there's a particular day planner company that I really love.

[00:27:29] They take full advantage of this whole like Black Friday thing where even sometimes like within the same day, you'll get maybe two or three emails because they're reminding you. They're like, hey, if you're looking to get this very specific planner that we have, we only have this many quantity left. Or the sale ends at midnight tonight. Like, yes. As soon as it's the next day, you don't get this anymore. And that's exactly what I want you guys to do in this phase three.

[00:27:58] You want to push urgency. Tell them we have limited quantity. We only have this many left or this is limited time offer. We won't offer this again. That's ever. You know, the other thing to do with this is let's see how many because I know for our particular client, the one thing that she knows her dates so well as far as like. When you have to order the gift or the product. Yeah.

[00:28:28] So that gets there in time. Yeah. So I was going to bring this up in part four. No, no, no, no, no. But in my notes for phase. Yeah. I'm calling them phases. In my notes for phase four, I do say you should be doing this throughout all the phases. So we can talk about it now. Throughout all of these emails, tell people your deadline date. And you need to know what your deadline date is.

[00:28:53] And what that is, is the last day someone can order that they will get the product before Christmas. That's right. It may be different domestic versus international shipping. Yes. But for the most part, we think you probably have an idea and you probably know about how long it takes for to get your product to somebody. Also, tough love. If you don't know, you got to figure that out because people need to know. I need to know when I can order something. The last day I can order something.

[00:29:21] Because if you don't tell me, I'm going to go with someone that can tell me. That's right. Well, and the other part of it too is you, in creating, that kind of goes hand in hand with creating that urgency, right? Yes. So like people don't want to, if I've been looking at this hoodie that I really, really, really want to get for my sister that says mean sister on it. Then. I would wear that. I better be sure. You know, I've been thinking about it all year and I'm like, I'm totally going to get her that.

[00:29:51] It suits her. Explains her to a T. Absolutely. Mean sister. And I need to know when I have to get that order in so that she has it for Christmas Day. So since we're already teasing phase four, let's go ahead and get into it. Sure. Phase four is going to be post peak. Okay. But still, but still holiday season. Okay. Okay. It might be after Black Friday, Cyber Monday, all of those, but people are still shopping. Okay.

[00:30:21] Vivian buys her last present on Christmas Eve. Listen, the Cracker Barrel has some really. Oh my. Yes. Okay. My point is people are still shopping. So we do not want to just stop promoting after Black Friday. We're still going. So this is phase four. It's going to be the beginning through mid December.

[00:30:49] So basically after Black Friday until Christmas. Yeah. This is going to be phase four. You're going to focus on last minute shoppers. So your best bet is to focus on products that make easy gifts. Your bundles. Your bundles. Your gift cards. Generic gifts. We also got, did I say gift cards already? You did. I did. Okay. Like two seconds ago. I know. Your amnesia is setting in.

[00:31:20] Stocking stuffers. That was my last one. Focus on products like that. Phase four emails. Stop laughing. Okay. Okay. Phase four emails are going to focus on easy gift ideas and they're going to focus on time. Okay. Because these are the people who are now it's crunch time, right? So like we just talked about, remind them when.

[00:31:49] I thought you were about to list names. Names of what? People. People who are last minute shoppers. You. Vivian. Sorry. Okay. What I was saying is because they're last minute shoppers, easy gift ideas, and then

[00:32:15] also focus on this is the last day to get it before Christmas. Yeah. Yeah. I like that you, you kind of called this post peak because it really is when we said Super Bowl, we were, we were not making that up. Like I think so many small businesses, they're like, okay, if I could just get through Black Friday, small business Saturday, Cyber Monday, then things will kind of ease down. And yes, that's true.

[00:32:44] However, we want to be sure that you're leveraging the full length of the holiday season to be able to increase your sales. And email marketing is probably the easiest way for you to do that because like Chelsea said, it, even though it does require a little planning ahead on your part. So the way I would do this, if it were me, I would literally sit down with the calendar and I would decide, like Chelsea said, do you want to do one email per week? Do you want to do two emails per week?

[00:33:14] Okay. Now you know how many emails you need to write or put together rather. And remember, emails don't have to be daunting. You guys use images of your products. Okay. Write short descriptions or just put the pricing on there. Just, you know, send out. It doesn't have to be this long detailed, like life story that you guys are putting together. No, if anything, don't. Yeah. Because these are promotional emails, right? So great.

[00:33:42] Whatever you have been doing to communicate with your audience, whatever your format is, continue that or spice it up and do it a little different, right? So that way it does look a little more promotional. They open it, they see the product and they're like, great. Okay. So don't forget your marketing, your email marketing platforms have templates. Yes. Use the templates. Take full advantage of it. Now customize it. Yes. You want your logo at the top. You want that kind of stuff.

[00:34:09] But like Chelsea said, leverage the templates that they have because people, usually they will sort the templates by categories and usually they have an entire category for promotions. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Don't, like Vivian said, these are promotional emails. This is not a newsletter and people are not expecting a newsletter from you. It's the holidays. They are expecting promotional emails. That's right.

[00:34:35] And so the way, once you kind of figure out what your frequency is going to be and you know how many total emails you want to write, I would list, right, the days that you want these emails sent out. Okay. And literally, I would start to fill in the blanks. I would say, okay, well, if I'm going to be running this promotion around this time, I'm going to have to maybe give them two emails, heads up to, I want to use two emails to promote it.

[00:35:02] So then that means I need to start sending it here on this day. Okay. I'm scheduling it. Set it and forget it. Absolutely. Okay. And watch those cha-ching sales come in. Okay. No, but I think that would help you to take advantage of the entire length of it by just spending a little time this week planning ahead and getting as much as that done.

[00:35:31] Now, if you don't, you don't have to write every single email or get every single email crafted. Maybe you're a little like me where you're like, if I can work two emails ahead, I'm good. Yeah. Right. So I'll do it in batches. So like, let me make sure next week's is ready and then I can start working on the following week. So try to stay ahead of it so that you're not having to do it last minute. Yes. Great.

[00:35:56] But don't stress yourself out if you don't have all, you know, like 10 emails figured out. Yeah. No, it's fine. You'll be fine. It'll be great. Vivian, that was the end of phase four and I wrote the notes. So we would go through the four phases. There is a phase five. Which is what? And that's going to be post holiday season. Yes. Don't miss out on post holiday season sales.

[00:36:26] Think about it. People have gift cards. Mm hmm. They're returning stuff and they want to exchange stuff. Mm hmm. They've got, you know, maybe a little bit of Christmas cash, stuff like that, or Hanukkah cash. I don't know. I don't want to leave anyone out. Okay. I was like, do they exchange cash for Hanukkah? Well, I don't know. Maybe it's a gift. I don't know. It could be. Y'all, I'm sorry. We were raised Catholic. Okay.

[00:36:53] Mom, we absolutely do offer. What is that even called? What do you mean? What is a tithe? Oh, yeah. Usually it's called a tithe. A tithe. Yeah. Okay. You're supposed to tithe like 10% or something like that. All right. Moving on. My tithes go to NPR. Okay. Yes. Moving on. Moving on. Your tithes should go to this podcast. Oh.

[00:37:21] Quit giving to NPR and give to this podcast, Chelsea. You want my $5 a month? Yes. I do actually. Okay. I'll just bring you a coffee. Anyways, what I was saying is, phase five, realistically, don't forget about post-holiday. Sales. That's right. Great way to connect with people. You could also send out a thank you email. Mm-hmm.

[00:37:47] Just saying thank you to everyone who supported me, who came out for Black Friday, who bought something during the holiday season from my small business. So if you want to go above and beyond, phase five. The other part of it, too, is if you have any product that you specifically made for the holidays, and now it's after the holidays, and you don't want it sitting in your inventory, like you're just like, I would rather just like take half of what, you know, I could

[00:38:16] have made off of it and just get rid of it so that I'm not, you know, carrying it for another year waiting for next year's holiday season. And you could offer, you know, incentive for people to want to move that product rather quickly. So tons of different ways to do it. I think the key message here is it was never a phase. It was never a phase. Emo. Long live emo. Yes.

[00:38:43] There are those five phases that, Chelsea, do you want to run them down real quick? Absolutely. So we have phase one, which is you're going to peak curiosity. Phase two is you're going to start giving people ideas for gift giving. Phase three is going to be your Super Bowl. It's Black Friday through Cyber Monday. And then phase four is going to be your post peak, but you're still in the holiday season.

[00:39:12] And then if you wanted to throw that phase five in there. Yes. You could. And that's post holiday season. That's right. All right. So friendly reminder, if you guys have not subscribed, please go ahead and do that. And show us a review. Yes. Pretty, pretty, please. We probably will read it on this podcast. That's right. And go be the best SOB you can be.