Here we are in Q4, which means the holiday season is upon us. But what does this mean for your marketing, ads, and overall strategy—especially with an election thrown into the mix? In today’s episode, I’m breaking down how to navigate your Q4 marketing with confidence, despite the unpredictability of what’s ahead. 

Here’s what you’ll learn:

• Why pausing your marketing during uncertain times is a mistake

• How to strategically plan your promotional calendar around the election and holidays

• Why the holiday season is the perfect opportunity to connect with your ideal customers

With the right strategy, Q4 holds immense potential to expand your impact and boost your revenue. Tune in to discover how to make the most of this season and step into the new year with momentum!

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READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Emily Hirsh: 

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I am back from Costa Rica. I took the week off last week podcasting because I anticipated I would come home and be able to record and I just wasn’t and I’m kind of in a place where I will of course, consistently show up as much as possible. And consistency is a huge practice of mine, not just in business, but across the board. It is the secret to success. But there’s also times where a pause is more beneficial than the consistency. And that was me last week. I came back from Costa Rica. Extremely, extremely transformative experience. I probably won’t be sharing about the experience.

It just doesn’t really make sense to share the what because it doesn’t really matter. But it was the most impactful trip yet. They just keep getting more powerful. Being there on my own was really, really powerful in its own way just because I spent so much time in silence and solo between hour and a half long walk on the beach in the morning to you know solo dinners and and just spend a lot of time in silence which is really powerful so the what of the trip and what I went there to do and the sessions I had and on that whole experience it really doesn’t matter because it’s more the the transformation coming out of it and it’s taken me a minute to even be able to bring words to it. 

I have, I have a few times on Instagram if you want to check out a few of the posts, but the best thing I can say is it’s like nothing has changed, but everything has changed because I have had a significant personal deepening within myself of my connection to my purpose, but also so much farther than me and deepening just the overall healing and experience of, you know, patterns and things that drive our lives. And I think, you know, each time it’s like, yeah, you go there and you’re like, that was the most transformative experience, but it’s because each time you just go so much deeper and that is a big part of the work. So it took me a minute coming back to be able to put any words to it and make it, you know, make sense and that’s okay.

And also coming home, I have felt such a resistance to rushing or having an overpacked schedule. Like I just will not do it and I can’t do it. Like my body literally rejects it. And so last week I had honestly a lot on my plate. Because I came back from a week off and so I had a workshop I was teaching I had some of my elite VIP clients that were in a launch and my kids and activities and it was just like well I can’t add the podcast recording and that’s the reality and so anyways I share that because there is this balance between yes consistency and showing up with also Is there sometimes a bigger benefit behind a pause. So I took last week off podcasting and I am back. I will share, you know, tidbits here and there of Costa Rica and some have asked like, can you do an episode about what you did and all about it?

And no, I won’t. So I don’t feel that that’s actually going to serve you guys. I think that the impact will be felt through everything that I do. and you know One of the big reasons, honestly, that I go and do this work is so that I can then show up in environments like my podcast, like my retreats, like my mastermind. And I can make the impact that practitioners and others have had on me and you know shifting perspective and shifting beliefs and having an experience that truly changes who you are only allows you to deepen the impact in the work that I’m here to do. So a big reason why I go into these experiences, which have a lot of discomfort and a lot of fear that I face around them is because I want to have the greatest impact possible in this life and I know that the pathway to doing that is through work like what I did. All right so today’s topic is a question I get asked a lot this time of year and we’ve got the election added into the mix. 

So we are somehow here in Q4, which means the holiday season. And I get asked a lot, you know, what does that mean for ads? What does it mean for my marketing? What should I do? Should I slow things down? Should I change things up? And then we’ve also got the election, which is a very important election and I think going to, who knows? I really don’t know what’s going to happen and I think it will definitely have an impact on everybody. Let’s just say that. We won’t talk more about the election, but man, it is an important one. That is for sure. And so I can’t predict what’s going to happen. I can’t predict exactly what’s going to happen with marketing. However, I will tell you this. Most of the time, almost all of the time, completely stopping your marketing out of fear of more expensive costs or people aren’t going to buy or because XYZ is going on, my sales might slow down more often than not doing that slows down your sales way more.

And your progress way more than continuing your marketing and handling maybe, maybe higher costs. So my answer almost never is stop everything. That doesn’t make any sense for months at a time. Here’s what I would do and what I am doing and what our clients are doing. First of all, I’m not going to suggest that anybody does a live launch the day of the election. Like don’t host a webinar on that day. You could do one later on that week but for the most part look at your promotional calendar and understand that the election week. the world’s going to be a little distracted. And so that actually means that they’re going to spend more time on social media, guarantee you that, but they’re going to be a little distracted. So if we think about people as an experience that we’re creating within our marketing, then we understand, okay, doing a webinar, doing a live launch the day or the day after, the day before the election is probably not a good experience for somebody. So let me plan my marketing around that.

So the week of the election, should you stop ads? No. Should you plan your promotional calendar accordingly? Yes. So for example, I just did my Q4 planning for our marketing and we’re doing a live launch in October, mid October. We’re doing a little bit of a pause in terms of our promotion, but we’re keeping our lead gen ads. We’re keeping our visibility ads. We’re keeping our content. We’re keeping up the podcast. I mean, Tuesday is election day. It’s a podcast. I will be releasing a podcast. Like I’m not going to stop everything for the election. And then the week after the election, we’ve got more promotions coming before Thanksgiving. So we just took a look at the schedule. We took a look at the experience we are anticipating people are going to be having, and we planned our promotional calendar accordingly. Nowhere there are we stopping our marketing. That would be a terrible strategy for my business. Are ad costs going to go up around the election?

Maybe, but I actually don’t think they are that much. Typically ad costs go up like now before the election because that’s when all of the promoting is happening, the political promotions. But the reality is this, the more people are on social media, the more ad space there is. So like in COVID, we saw this happen where people, there was a significant increase in how much people were spending time on social media because they were home. They didn’t have anything to do. That actually made ads cheaper because there’s more ad space to buy. So I, we’re not seeing a cost increase right now across the board with ads, maybe a little bit this month, but I really don’t think so. And then I think that like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday of the election, obviously pending what happens, but I think that people are going to actually be on social media more. I just think they might be distracted.

So plan your promotional calendar accordingly, but have your visibility and your lead generation ads just running as is because it is more of a detriment to your business to have a significant length pause of running these ads than it is to pay, let’s say 10% more cost per lead for a few days. And I’m not even saying that that’s going to happen. So my advice with the election is this, consider the experience you are anticipating your audience is going to go through and plan your marketing calendar accordingly, which means you need to proactively be looking at that right now. We can’t predict the future, we don’t know exactly what’s gonna happen, and so so let’s say something happens, then we just pivot as needed when that happens. If we need to move something around because of what happens during the election, then that’s what we do. It’s just like right now with the hurricanes, I’m sure there’s businesses that couldn’t anticipate what was happening and have had to pivot and shift things around. You can always pivot, you can always adjust.

What I really suggest none of you do is allow yourself to be in a place of fear around like what if all these 15 things happen and then what if this happens and then what if I don’t get sales. That’s challenging to not allow yourself to go to that place right now because I get it. There’s a lot of uncertainty. There’s a lot of unknown. The economy is not great. And the reality though is we can only control what we can control, which is very, very little because control is an illusion. What can you control? You can control your own inner state and you can control how you show up and the decisions you make. And the rest, you really have to trust and surrender because you know, I know that you guys know, and I know this about myself too. No matter what happens, I will make the necessary decisions to accommodate, to adjust, to pivot and to always be okay. I know I will always be okay. No matter what.

So that’s the election. Look at your promo calendar, plan accordingly, and still show up. Don’t let it derail you in terms of showing up to your audience, visibility ads and lead generation, and just plan live launches or promotions around it. Weeks before, week after, easy. And I would actually plan something then because your business probably needs the revenue. So that’s the election. And then we move into the holidays. We’ve got Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Christmas, December is a very busy month for a lot of people and then moving into January. This is what I say every single year. Do not make the mistake of saying, oh, people aren’t going to buy right now because of the holidays, or I should just slow down my marketing until the beginning of the year.

Myself and several clients have had December as our best month in business. People are still buying. And there is a ton of opportunity for a different level of connection at the end of the year and going into the beginning of a new year. New year brings a whole fresh energy. The holidays bring different issues, different frustrations, different problems. The holidays and the end of the year shines a light on things that people maybe didn’t accomplish or they’re not where they wanted to be or they’re scared about something or they’re frustrated about something. And then the new year brings that new year energy of new year, new me. And as much as you like, you know, people make fun of that, it’s like everybody kind of to an extent does experience that going into a new year. It feels like a fresh slate. We’ve got new goals.

We’re resetting, we’re resetting our finance goals, our health goals, our relationships, who we want to be. So as a business, depending on your niche, almost every business has one way or another, an opportunity to connect with your ideal customer. In a different way. In Q4 and going into the new year. This could look like a specific workshop. That’s relevant to the end of the year. It could look like something that you do the first week of January. A challenge. It could look like a bonus for your offer. It could look like creating an incentive to buy from you before the end of the year. You’ve got people and businesses who want to spend money before the end of the year because they need it for the tax write-off. Like there’s actually so much opportunity in Q4. It’s one of my favorite times because it’s just such a different energy for almost every single audience, which creates opportunity. But in order to tap into that opportunity, you have to be connected.

So I highly encourage you this week to sit down and think about your promotional calendar, considering the election, as well as what is something I could do to connect with and serve my audience deeper as we go into the holiday season and the new year and see what ideas come through around should I do a specific workshop or a challenge or a training or release specific content? Every single industry, if I think about health and wellness, obviously massive opportunity. If you think about business, you’ve got planning your new year, you’ve got wrapping up the end of the year, you’ve got all different opportunities coming through. If you think about relationships, usually the holidays bring a different experience to relationships with kids, with partners, with family. like There is so much you could do from the smallest thing being a piece of content to the biggest one being a lead generation tool, a live training, a workshop, or a bonus for your offer. So the worst thing you could possibly do is be like, I’m going to pause everything until the new year. That’s it just a terrible, terrible idea. 

See this quarter as opportunity. And the key to the opportunity, as always with marketing, is through the connection to your ideal customer and tailoring everything you do as an experience for them. What’s going to serve them more? What’s going to connect with them more? What’s going to help them with their problems more? What’s going to help them fulfill their desires more? And as long as you do that, you will be successful. I would get out of your head any fear about ad costs and all the things that come up around this time, add the election on top, because I’m telling you that if you look at it, this in a strategic way, and you stay nimble enough to adjust as needed, you’re not even gonna notice if ad costs were to get more expensive, which they don’t always. I would say like right over Black Friday, yeah, you’re gonna have more expensive ad costs, but that’s a great time. And as I taught in my Black Friday workshop, that’s a great time to just target your warm audience, do a promotion, run a sale. Christmas day, yeah, you might have more expensive ad costs, but honestly, during all this time, you still have people on their phones.

You still have people sitting at family gatherings, bored as heck, who are scrolling their phones and are consuming. So it’s just not a time to pause their marketing. It’s a time to get more strategic, more dialed in, and more connected. So that’s what I have to say and we will see what happens. It’d be funny if I listen to this podcast after the election because I really have no idea what’s going to happen with the election and I still know that I’m moving forward and I am ready to pivot and do whatever is needed if something is needed and otherwise I’ve just planned my marketing, client’s marketing for whatever we need as we consider the experience our ideal customer might be going through. That’s it. It’s really not complicated and definitely doesn’t have to be led with fear. All right, you guys, I will be back on Thursday.