Ask most small business owners when they plan to sort out their Christmas marketing materials, and the answer is almost always the same: November. And that, in a single sentence, is why so many businesses end up with rushed, mediocre print marketing at the most commercially important time of year.
The November Problem
By the time November arrives, print companies are at their busiest. Turnaround times that are normally five to seven working days can stretch to two or three weeks. Rush fees appear. The designer you wanted is already booked. You end up choosing from whatever templates are still available, accepting fonts and layouts you do not love because there is no time to change them, and sending things to print before you have had a proper chance to proofread.
The result? Your Christmas flyers, gift vouchers, or promotional cards arrive late, look generic, and contain a typo in your phone number. It happens every year, to businesses that knew better and left it too late anyway.
The businesses with brilliant Christmas print marketing ordered it in September. Here is what they are already thinking about.
What to Brief in September
You do not need to have everything finalised right now, but you should be briefing the following items before October.
Gift vouchers
If you sell products or services that make good gifts, beauty treatments, restaurant meals, photography sessions, experience days, personal training. Printed gift vouchers are one of your highest-margin products at Christmas. They need to be designed, printed, and in your hands before 1st December. That means speaking to a designer now, not in six weeks.
Christmas promotional flyers
If you are running a seasonal offer, a pre-Christmas sale, or taking advance bookings for January, a well-designed A5 flyer distributed in October and early November reaches customers before the noise of December makes everything harder to cut through.
Thank you cards for key clients
A printed card sent in late November, thanking your best clients for their business this year and wishing them well for Christmas, is a thoughtful touch that larger competitors rarely bother with. It costs very little and is remembered long after any email would have been deleted.
How to Write a Good Print Brief
Before you speak to a designer or printer, spend fifteen minutes writing down exactly what you need. A clear brief saves you time, money, and the frustration of three rounds of revisions.
Bad brief: “Can you do something Christmassy for me?”
Good brief: “I need 500 A5 double-sided flyers. Front promotes our Christmas gift vouchers available at £25, £50, and £100, using our navy and gold brand colours. Reverse side lists our Christmas and New Year opening hours.”
Include your logo files, brand colour references, any photos you want used, and the exact wording for any offers or calls to action. The more complete your brief, the faster the designer works, and the less back-and-forth you end up paying for. September feels too early to think about Christmas. That is exactly the point. The businesses that get their Christmas print marketing right are the ones who thought about it while everyone else was