Is Your Business Ready for Holiday Marketing?

It’s time to start planning your business’ holiday marketing and promotions.

According to Deloitte’s 2026 holiday forecast, there will be a 4% to 4.8% increase in total 2026 holiday sales in November 2026 through January 2027 compared with the same period in 2025. Holiday e-commerce sales are expected to grow even faster, with a projected increase of 7.5% to 8.4%.

Do you have a plan for capturing a piece of the holiday spending pie?

Email marketing should be part of that plan. According to a Constant Contact survey of more than 1,500 small business owners, 41% expect email marketing to be their most valuable marketing channel this year.

Here are few tips to keep in mind:

1.     1. Set Goals

Your holiday marketing strategy should support your broader sales and marketing goals. Are you looking to increase sales, attract new customers, encourage repeat purchases, or promote a seasonal offering? Define your priorities first, then build your promotions around them.

Consider special offers, seasonal products or services, festive social media content, and a targeted email campaign.

2.      2. Personalize Your Outreach

Customers are more likely to respond to offers and recommendations that reflect their interests. Segment your email list and tailor your messages based on customers’ past purchases, preferences, or interests.

A little personalization can go a long way toward making your emails more relevant and giving customers a reason to buy.

3.      3. Offer Discounts and Incentives

Holiday emails timed to coincide with any of the major sales events (Black Friday, Cyber Monday, etc.) can more easily prompt your customers to open emails and act!

You can also reward loyal customers with early access to a sale or an exclusive invitation to shop. These perks can encourage purchases while strengthening customer relationships.

4.      4. Build Goodwill

Not every seasonal email has to include a sales pitch. Emails that thank customers for their business or include photos of your staff make your customers feel appreciated, strengthen relationships and may even encourage sales in the new year.

Need help putting your holiday email marketing into action? Marketing & Event Resources can help you plan and create targeted email campaigns that engage customers, drive sales, and keep your business top of mind throughout the holiday season.

Source: Constant Contact

CASE STUDY: Building Excitement and Driving Attendance for the Milford Artisan Market

How an integrated PR, social media, and Facebook advertising campaign helped promote a community event that attracted 5,000 attendees over two days.

The Challenge

Promoting a large community event requires more than a few social media posts. The goal is to build awareness, reach new audiences, and generate excitement that motivates people to attend.

For the Fall Milford Artisan Market, Marketing & Event Resources coordinated a multi-channel promotional campaign to increase visibility and drive interest in the two-day event.

The Strategy

We combined three complementary marketing approaches to keep the event in front of potential attendees:

• Public Relations: Secured media coverage and event listings across regional news outlets, local publications, broadcast media, and community calendars.

• Organic Social Media: Built awareness and engagement through the Milford Artisan Market's Facebook page, sharing event-related content with existing followers and reaching new audiences.

• Targeted Facebook Advertising: Used paid promotion to expand the event's reach, encourage event responses, and drive traffic through links.

Each channel played a different role in building awareness and keeping the event top of mind in the weeks leading up to the market.

The Results:

Media Exposure Across the Region

The campaign secured coverage and event listings across regional media outlets and community calendars, including CT Insider, WTNH, the Connecticut Post, Milford Voice, Visit New Haven, and other local and regional platforms. Coverage included weekend event roundups, a WTNH feature, and a podcast interview.

Facebook Audience Growth and Engagement

For two months prior to the event, the Milford Artisan Market Facebook page delivered:

• 309,810 views
• 13,300 engagements, including reactions, comments, shares, and clicks
• 319 net new followers, bringing the page to 4,365 followers
• Nearly half of engagement-related activity came from non-followers, demonstrating the campaign’s ability to reach beyond the existing audience

Efficient, Targeted Facebook Advertising

A small $300 Facebook advertising investment delivered big results:

• 68,280 ad views
• 22,706 people reached
• 1,967 event responses
• 
  818 link clicks
• Just $0.15 per event response

The Marketing Takeaway

The strongest event campaigns don't rely on a single channel. PR builds credibility and expands visibility, organic social media sustains engagement, and targeted advertising helps put the event in front of new potential attendees.

By coordinating these efforts, Marketing & Event Resources helped the Milford Artisan Market build awareness, grow its online community, and generate measurable interest and attendance in the fall event.

Looking to build visibility for your next event, campaign, or organization? Let's connect!  jocelynm@marketing-er.com

How Storytelling Can Strengthen Your Marketing

 Did you know that storytelling can be one of the most compelling elements of good marketing communications?

✔️Stories leverage emotions to your benefit and illustrate the impact of your product, service or work.
✔️ Individuals are more likely to remember an inspiring story as opposed to a number or figure, no matter how remarkable the statistic.
✔️ In fact, for nonprofit organizations, studies show that donors are twice as likely to donate to a nonprofit when presented with a compelling story as opposed to a relevant statistic.

When telling stories, create ones that are educational, entertaining, memorable, and compelling. Focus on quality writing and use interesting visual elements to best execute this communication strategy.

Keep your audience in mind when creating stories. What do they want to hear and learn? What kind of response or action do you want them to take as a result of reading your story?

Find ways to best connect with your target audience by telling stories that are inspiring, touching, and ones that illustrate the benefits of your products or services.

How will you tell your story? Whether it’s a written article, blog post, video or audio clip, consider what medium your audience will respond best to and what fits into your budget.

Gather stories from as many different types of people associated with your organization as possible. Clients, volunteers, employees and board members all have different perspectives and may have valuable messages and stories that can be impactful for your organization.

Share in the comments how you have incorporated storytelling in your marketing communications and what the results have yielded.

Need help incorporating stories into your marketing?  Let’s talk!

Stop Using AI-Generated Graphics in Your Marketing

For small businesses, your brand is your unique identity. It shapes how your prospects and customers perceive and remember you. Your brand includes your visual identity (your logo, color palette and fonts) as well as your voice and tone. Most agree that your brand is an important part of your business’ marketing foundation.

Unfortunately, many small businesses are weakening this foundation by using AI-generated designs for their marketing materials. While AI can be a quick, easy and cheap way to create graphics, the results are often a generic, forgettable and cluttered design that can dilute your brand rather than strengthen it.

When you use AI to design your flyers and graphics, you lose key elements of what makes your business distinct, memorable and uniquely you. Instead of reinforcing your brand, AI often produces designs that look similar to countless others online.

In addition to being poorly designed, AI-generated content often contains images of people who look artificial or too perfect. Many times, there are weird distortions like extra fingers on a hand, missing body parts or other flaws that can make your business appear less credible.

As AI-generated content becomes more common, it’s similar look and feel lacks authenticity, originality and is overused.

Avoid letting your business blend into this mass-generated sameness. Invest in professionally designed, branded templates that you can use for your flyers, presentations, social media graphics, and other marketing materials. These templates can be reused again and again while ensuring that your marketing consistently reflects your brand. Also, in your marketing, use professional stock images or photos of real people in your organization, your customers, products and events whenever possible.

While AI can be a useful tool for ideas and inspiration, steer clear of using it to create your organization’s marketing materials. Strong, consistent branding builds credibility, trust and recognition, things you can’t replicate with AI-generated graphics!

Don't Get Hacked on Meta! Enable Multi Factor Authentication

If you manage Facebook and Instagram Pages for your business, be sure to secure your Meta accounts but turning on Multi-Factor Authentication(MFA)!

One of my clients did not have MFA turned on. This weekend her Personal Profile got hacked and she could not regain control of it! Without access to her Profile, lost admin access to her two Business Pages.

Prevent identity theft and secure your Meta business assets by enabling MFA. Here’s how:

For Facebook (from your phone):
✔️Tap the Menu icon (three lines) in the top-right corner.
✔️ Scroll down and tap Settings & privacy, then tap Settings.
✔️Tap Accounts Center (or Meta Account settings) and select Password and security.
✔️Tap Two-factor authentication and choose your Facebook account.

For Instagram (from your phone):
✔️Open the App: Open Instagram and tap your profile picture in the bottom-right corner.
✔️Access Menu: Tap the three horizontal lines (menu) in the top-right corner.
✔️Open Settings: Tap Accounts Center (or Settings) at the top of the menu.
✔️Go to Security: Tap Password and security.
✔️Select 2FA: Tap Two-factor authentication and select the Instagram account you want to protect.

Need social media strategy, planning and execution help? DM or email me today! jocelynm@marketing-er.com

Unexpected Marketing Lessons from a Trip to Portugal

I just returned from an unforgettable 10-day trip to Portugal, where I experienced some incredible scenery, food, and historic architecture! But I also came home with a few unexpected marketing lessons.

From exploring the hilly streets and endless cathedrals in cities like Lisbon and Porto to tasting regional wines and cuisine (trying a famous custard tart from Pastéis de Belém in Lisbon is a must!), every stop offered something memorable.

I also traveled through the breathtaking Douro Valley stopping in smaller, remote towns where history, craftsmanship, and hospitality were the highlights.

Some of our best experiences came from meeting small winery owners, artisans, and local tour guides who shared the stories of their unique heritage, unique wares, and traditions, embracing what made them distinct.

As a marketer, it reminded me that: Authenticity and uniqueness are your greatest differentiators.

Here are a few marketing lessons I brought home from Portugal:

1. Emphasize what makes you different
The appeal of Portugal’s smaller towns was precisely what made them different—their pace, traditions, craftsmanship, and personality. The same applies to brands: stop trying to sound like everyone else. Highlight your niche, your expertise, and what makes you uniquely valuable.

2. Consistency builds trust
Across the country, we consistently experienced warm, genuine Portuguese hospitality. Great marketing does the same: consistently and intentionally place your brand in the customer's mind as the best solution for a specific problem or need. 

3. People remember how you make them feel
Long after the architecture, meals, and scenery, what stands out most is how welcomed we felt. Great marketing should do the same: build trust, foster connection, and a create a memorable experience.

What’s a lesson from travel that changed how you think about business or marketing?