The Holiday Marketing Countdown for Local Businesses (What to Do in September, October, November, and December)
Short answer: start holiday marketing in September, not November. Local businesses that plan in September finish the season calmly and profitably. Businesses that start after Thanksgiving spend December reacting, discounting, and apologizing. The work below is spread across four months so none of it lands during your busiest weeks.
Two facts about this year's calendar that should shape your plan:
Thanksgiving falls on Thursday, November 26, 2026. That leaves 28 shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, which is on the shorter side. Black Friday is November 27, Small Business Saturday is November 28, and Cyber Monday is November 30.
Christmas Day falls on a Friday. That creates a long weekend at the end and compresses the final shopping week. Expect a heavier last-minute surge around December 21 through 24 than in years when Christmas lands midweek.
Here is the countdown.
September: Decide and prepare
Nothing customer-facing happens this month. This is the month you make decisions so that October through December is execution instead of improvisation.
Set your offer. Decide now what you are actually selling this holiday season. One clear offer beats four competing ones. Write it in a single sentence.
Lock your dates. Put these on a calendar and work backward from them:
- Last date to place a custom or special order
- Last date to guarantee delivery or completion by December 24
- Your holiday hours, including December 24, 25, 26, 31, and January 1
- The day your holiday promotion starts and ends
Book your advertising. This is the September deadline most owners miss. Print inventory and deadlines close earlier than digital, and the best local placements fill first. If you want a holiday presence in any publication your neighbors read, this is the month to reserve it, not November. Same for sponsorships and event tie-ins.
Order your physical materials. Signage, gift card stock, packaging, bags, printed inserts. Production and shipping both slow down in Q4.
Take your photos while the light is still good. Holiday content is visual, and shooting in November means dark afternoons and a crowded schedule. Block one afternoon this month and build the library. The ten shots every local business needs applies here, plus anything seasonal you sell.
Look at last year. Pull your numbers from last December. What sold, what did not, which week was busiest, what you ran out of, what you had too much of. Most of your plan should be an adjustment to last year rather than an invention.
October: Build and stage
Get your Google Business Profile holiday-ready. Load your special hours now, before you forget. This is the single highest-return hour you will spend all quarter, and it prevents the most avoidable customer complaint of the season. Full walkthrough in getting your Google Business Profile ready for the holidays.
Set up gift cards properly. If you sell them, make them buyable in under sixty seconds, online and in person. If you do not sell them yet, this is the month to start. There is real money in it and most local businesses leave it on the table, which we broke down in how to sell more gift cards.
Write everything now. Draft your holiday emails, social captions, and any ad copy in one sitting while you have time to think. Schedule what you can. Your November self will thank you. The holiday email and social calendar has the full sequence with subject lines.
Fix your website before traffic arrives. Holiday traffic lands on a site that either converts or does not. Check the essentials: hours visible, phone number tappable, order deadlines stated, gift card link obvious, and a form that actually works. The nine homepage fixes covers the rest.
Plan your Small Business Saturday play. November 28 is a real traffic opportunity for local businesses, but only for the ones who plan it. Details in the Small Business Saturday plan.
Staff up and train. Hire now if you need to. Someone hired in October is useful by Thanksgiving. Someone hired December 10 is a liability during your busiest week.
November: Launch
Week of November 2: Start warming people up. Announce holiday hours, order deadlines, and gift card availability. No hard selling yet.
Week of November 9: Push gift cards for the first time. Post your holiday offerings. Send the first holiday email.
Week of November 16: Send the gratitude email. No offer in it, just a genuine thank you. This will be your highest-open email of the year and it earns you the right to sell in December.
November 26 through 30, the big weekend:
- Thanksgiving, Nov 26: post something human and stop working.
- Black Friday, Nov 27: if you participate, keep it simple and one offer deep. Do not try to out-discount national retail.
- Small Business Saturday, Nov 28: this is your day. Lean into it hard.
- Cyber Monday, Nov 30: best day of the year to push gift cards, since they are the one thing you can sell instantly online.
Throughout November: ask for reviews relentlessly. Every happy holiday customer is a review you will benefit from all next year. The nine scripts make it easy.
December: Execute and protect the experience
December 1 through 14: the main selling window. Push your offer consistently. Post your order deadlines repeatedly, because people who miss them get frustrated at you rather than at themselves.
December 15 through 20: the deadline push. Remind people daily what the last order date is. Move the message toward "still time" rather than "hurry."
December 21 through 24: the last-minute surge. With Christmas on a Friday, this window will be busy. This is when gift cards carry you, because they are the only thing you can sell after every other deadline has passed. Make them impossible to miss on your website, at the counter, and in your final emails.
December 26 through 31: the quietest and most overlooked opportunity of the year. Gift card redemption, returns handled well, a New Year offer, and a simple "we're open" post. People are off work and looking for something to do.
Late December: send the year-in-review email with real photos. Then pull your numbers while they are fresh and write down what to change next year.
The five deadlines people miss every single year
- Advertising and print deadlines in September. By November, the good placements are gone.
- Holiday hours on Google in October. A customer who drives to a closed business remembers it, and sometimes writes about it.
- Gift card setup before Thanksgiving. They are the highest-margin, most last-minute-friendly thing you sell.
- Photography before the light goes. November afternoons are dark and you will not have time.
- Hiring before December. Training during your busiest week does not work.
What not to do
Do not compete on discount depth. National retail will always go lower. Your advantage is service, personal attention, curation, and the fact that people want to support a local business at this time of year specifically. That instinct is stronger in December than in any other month. Use it. There is more on this dynamic in how to compete with bigger businesses.
Do not overpromise on timing. One missed delivery promise generates a bad review that costs you customers for a year. Pad your deadlines and under-promise.
Do not go quiet on December 26. The week between Christmas and New Year is low-competition and full of people with gift cards and free time.
Start my local advertising plan
Frequently asked questions
When should a small business start holiday marketing? September. Advertising deadlines, gift card setup, photography, hiring, and inventory decisions all need to happen before October ends. Customer-facing holiday messaging typically starts in early November.
How many shopping days are there between Thanksgiving and Christmas in 2026? Thanksgiving falls on November 26, 2026, leaving 28 shopping days before Christmas Day on December 25. That is on the shorter side, and because Christmas falls on a Friday, the final week is compressed with a heavier last-minute surge.
Should a local business run Black Friday deals? Only if you can do it without competing on discount depth, which you will lose. A better approach for most local businesses is one simple offer on Black Friday and a much bigger push on Small Business Saturday, when consumer attention is specifically pointed at local shops.
What is the most overlooked holiday opportunity for local businesses? Gift cards and the week between Christmas and New Year. Gift cards sell right up to Christmas Eve when every other deadline has passed, and the post-Christmas week has low competition, high gift card redemption, and customers with free time.
What should I do first if I am starting late? Load your holiday hours into Google Business Profile, make your gift cards easy to buy, state your order deadlines clearly on your homepage, and ask every happy customer for a review. Those four take a few hours and cover most of the damage.