It is after Labor Day. If you’re into fashion, that means it is time to put the white clothes in the closet until next year. What about marketing? Are there some marketing activities that happen before Labor Day and others that are post-Labor Day actions? That would depend upon a couple of key issues, such as what you are selling and when your fiscal year begins and ends. But some key business activities come around cyclically this time of year and you should be paying attention to them. Let’s take a look at a few of them.

Your marketing plan for next year

If you have not taken time to measure your success or failure in marketing this year, now is the time to do so. Why? One, we are nearing the last quarter of the year. You have time to correct what is falling short if you act soon. Two, what you did this year will have an impact on your marketing plan for next year. If you had great success with your marketing, you need to evaluate if that sort of success is sustainable if you do the same thing next year. Remember that marketing campaigns have life cycles. If you have fallen short, you don’t want to repeat a pattern of failure. What can you do differently? You should start formulating that now.

Your marketing budget for next year

Once you have your strategic marketing plan for next year, you need to put some cost numbers together to help with the budgeting process. This has been a bit more difficult than it might have been a few years back when you took the last marketing budget and added 10 percent to it. Prices have gone up with inflation. You need to do your due diligence in building your budget. You also need to come up with a compelling reason why the people who control your budget should spend that kind of money on marketing. Marketing is an investment into your business. You need to show it as such with your past performance.

People are beginning to think differently with the change of seasons

You might have heard me say this before in a previous blog, but there is a mood in the marketplace that helps make marketing successful and unsuccessful. Seasons change and so does the marketing mood. If you are selling a brand that sells well during one season or another, identify this and market hardily during that season. However, even if you don’t have a defined selling season, what is happening in the atmosphere around us impacts people’s happiness. Happy people buy things. Where I live, the fall season that is coming soon serves as the last chance for people to interact in large, outside groups for the year. There are opportunities while people are still feeling good. After that, it is much more inclement to be milling about with friends outside. The mood changes. Be aware of these changes as we go through a seasonal shift.

Labor Day marks the end of the summer fashion season. It also sounds the alarm for marketers to take note of how their marketing is doing in order to finish strong, make plans for next year, build a budget to support their marketing efforts and shift with the mood of the market. Make sure you are keeping pace.