Labor Day to New Year is, statistically, when most small businesses do their highest-volume marketing of the year. Fall promotion, holiday push, year-end campaigns, gift season — it all stacks. If you wait until November to start planning your print materials, you’ll be paying rush fees, scrambling for inventory, and producing pieces that feel rushed because they were. Now is the time. Here’s the checklist.
Holiday card list
If you send client or customer holiday cards, the time to design and order them is September, not December. Printers, including us, get jammed by mid-November. Designing now means you have time to get a proof, make changes, and have the cards in hand to address by Thanksgiving — when you’ll actually have time to write personal notes.
Year-end thank-you collateral
Branded year-end gifts (notebooks, calendars, ornaments) for key clients need to be sourced and decorated in time for early December delivery. Lead times on these tighten dramatically in October. September is the sweet spot for design and ordering.
Holiday hours signage
If your business has special holiday hours, you need printed and posted signage well before the holidays. Window decals, door clings, indoor signage — small format but easy to forget until the week before you need it.
Gift card design
If you sell physical gift cards, the November-December bump is when you sell most of them all year. Make sure your inventory, packaging, and any associated marketing collateral are in place by mid-October. Custom gift card designs can be ordered now.
Year-end direct mail
Thank-you mailings, “see you in the new year” cards, holiday menus, year-in-review summaries — all great direct mail moments. Plan and design through September, print in October, mail in early November. The mailbox is less crowded earlier in the holiday season.
New Year planning collateral
If you’re a B2B service that does annual planning with clients (financial services, consultants, marketing agencies), the print pieces that support those conversations — annual report wraps, planning workbooks, custom presentation folders — should be designed now to be ready for January meetings.
Refreshed business cards
Year-end is the natural time to do a card audit. New employees who haven’t gotten cards yet, departing employees whose cards should be pulled from circulation, new offerings to add. Order in October.
If you don’t have a fall marketing plan written down, this week is the right time to draft one. We’re happy to be the sounding board — bring your ideas and we’ll help shape them into a print program that lands.
Let’s bring your project to life.
Choice1Graphics can help with this — every job we mentioned here, we do in-house at our Webster shop. Have a project in mind? Reach out for a free quote or stop by 505 S Main St, Webster.