September 9, 2025 • 22 mins
If holiday marketing makes you want to crawl under a blanket until January, you’re not alone.
In this episode, I’m sharing a calmer, more mindful way to plan your Q4 marketing so it actually works without draining you. I’ll walk you through the exact framework I use, the holidays I prioritize, and how I structure my sales to keep things simple. Plus, you can grab the free 2025 Holiday Marketing Handbook to help you map it all out.
If you’ve been dreading Q4, this episode gives you a kinder way to do it.
In this episode of the podcast, I talk about:
- Why mindful planning beats last-minute chaos
- The 3-part framework I use for holiday marketing
- How to choose which holidays to prioritize
- Why social media sparks curiosity but email closes sales
- My simple Black Friday sale strategy
This Episode Was Made Possible By:
Riverside All-in-One Podcast & Video Platform
Visit Riverside and use the code DREA to get 15% off any Riverside individual plan. We use it to record all our podcast interviews: https://onlinedrea.com/riverside
Go to the show notes for all the resources mentioned in this episode: https://onlinedrea.com/374
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Andréa Jones (00:00):
If the phrase holiday marketing makes you wanna climb under
a blanket and hide and pretend thatit's still July deep breath in, deep
breath out, you can do this today.
I'm going to give you a kinder,calmer plan as we head into Q4,
which is the holiday season, butalso with this episode, I made a
handbook to go along with everything.
You can find it for freeat onlinea.com/holiday.
(00:23):
We're gonna get into all the details,but first a word from our sponsor.
Riverside is the All In One podcastrecording and editing tool that
I use for this ride here show.
I use it to edit not only the audio andthe video, it is like chef's kiss magical
making the entire process so, so easy.
Plus, I love their magicAI clips, their little.
(00:47):
AI robot in the background pulls out themost impactful moments of the episodes
without me having to comb through and doit myself, resizes them for social media.
So those vertical videos you seeon TikTok and Reels, those all come
from Magic AI inside of Riverside.
It's literally one click.
It spits out 10 clips.
I pick the best one and away I go.
(01:08):
Saves me so much time.
If you wanna get on the Riversidetrain, check it out today.
The links in the show notes, and makesure to use my code Drea, DREA at
checkout to get 15% off your membership.
Hi.
Hi.
If you're new to the Mindful MarketingPodcast, my name's Andre Jones.
I'm your favorite mindful marketer, andaround here, I like to keep things simple.
(01:29):
I like to keep things sustainable.
I like strategies that actually get youresults and fit in with your real life,
especially as we head into the absolutechaos that can be the holiday season.
I've got two toddlers nowand I'm like, oh my gosh.
We have to do the, this is likethe peak time to do all of the
activities that they're into.
I'm talking, we're going pumpkin picking,we're doing photos with Santa the works.
(01:53):
Okay.
And I still have to run my businessand do all the things around that.
So I wanna talk about how I'mdoing that in this episode.
And yeah, I'm planning ahead.
Now, I do think we can do this mindfullyas business owners, as marketers, uh,
because it can be very challenging inthe holiday season because everyone's
screaming at the top of their lungsabout whatever it is they're selling.
(02:13):
Right?
Especially when we think about the biggestsales date, black Friday, it feels like.
Everyone's shouting out their sales.
And don't even ask me if the algorithmis acting funky, like forget it.
This year at least wedon't have an election.
So there's that.
But I wanna talk through how wethink about Q4, how we plan things
around our launches and our businessso that you can make it mindful.
(02:38):
First, let's talk about why mindfulnessduring the holidays is really important
because I want you to shift yourmindset from doing all of the things
to doing the right few things, and Ithink this is where we get to throwing
spaghetti at the wall because we wantto make as much money as possible.
Hello.
That's kind of like one of theperks of being your own boss is like
you can, you can set up the salehall however you'd like, however.
(03:00):
If you try to do all of the thingsand then they don't work and you're
burned out at the end of the day,like you're not helping anybody.
So I want us to focus in on theright things, and there's three
parts to this framework that Ireally want you to think about.
The first one is leading with your values.
I want you to pick.
Your values and how you are headinginto the holiday season and what is
(03:24):
actually important to you, you as abusiness owner, what is your value?
What are your goals?
What are you looking at?
Then I also want you to look atthe values of your community.
What are they seeking?
What are the solutionsthat they're looking for?
What are the challengesthat they're having?
What is their mindset as they head inthrough the end of this year, for example?
There could be in your communitysome tension happening or some
(03:46):
sort of celebration happeningor whatever the case may be.
We wanna acknowledge that that'shappening in our community.
And then also look at like the valuesand the state of the wider world.
Um, I mentioned earlier that atleast we don't have a US election
this year, but there's stilllot shit happening in the world.
Pardon my French.
So I want you to think about what thingsare happening, um, in the world and
(04:09):
how that will reflect in your offers,your stories, your sales, the graphics
you design, the words that you write.
I want you to decide before we startgetting into actually writing things,
what are the foundations for that?
So I'll give a quick example of this.
For my business, for example, um, I'mall about mindful marketing, and in
(04:30):
the past years I've done a Black Fridaysale, and what I'm going to do this
year is repeat the exact same sale.
This will be probably the fifth orsixth year that I've done this sale.
Sometimes I also do it the midpoint of theyear, which is also my business birthday.
It'll be 50% off theMindful Marketing Lab.
Okay?
I do this every single year.
That's how I treat this mindfully.
(04:52):
To me, it is a reward to myself tobe able to repeat the same sale.
Yes, I could try something funky anddifferent, but that's a lot of work
for me in this moment in my life.
I do not have the capacityfor that for my community.
It feels like giving back.
For those of you who are inthe lab, you're more than
welcome to opt in at half off.
More power to you.
I love that for you.
(05:13):
For those of you not in the lab, this isa great opportunity for you to try it out.
Okay.
For the wider world, I don'tfeel like it's disruptive to
everything happening in the world.
Especially there's like tensionsright now between US and Canada.
So this is the first year whereI'll actually have Canadian
pricing, even though I am in Canada.
Um, I am from the US Originally,I started my business.
(05:35):
That way.
And so all of my pricing is US pricing.
This is a first year where I've hadCanadian pricing, so for me it's like
I'm looking at the global landscapegoing, Canadians, we need Canadian
pricing right now because the, it's wild.
Like the, the conversion rate is wild.
So.
That's what I'm doing in my business tokind of participate, use active listening,
but also be very mindful of my values.
(05:55):
So that was just one example of that.
Now, so values is the firstpart of this framework.
Second part of this frameworkis I want you to use your
signature content as your anchor.
Okay.
I want you to use your signaturecontent piece as your anchor, and
I've talked about signature contenthere on the podcast before, but just
to recap, your signature content is apiece of content that you don't miss.
(06:16):
It tends to be long form, but it doesn'thave to be, I'm talking podcasts, emails.
Substack, YouTube videos, blog posts.
These are the things that are the pillarsin your framework and what you believe in.
For me, for example, that's this podcast.
This is the one format that youcan sustain, and I usually like to
(06:36):
lean into your preferences here.
So for example, for me, I'm a talker.
You can tell I like talking.
So for me to sit down and record apodcast episode feels very natural.
It feels very organic.
I can do a million of these in a day.
If you ask me to sit down andwrite a blog post, I can do it.
It's gonna take me a sec. Okay.
And so some of this too.
(06:58):
As we really leaning intothe skills that I have.
Okay, that's your signature content.
And then the third thing that I wantyou to really think about as you're
framing out your kind of messaging forthe holidays, we've got your values,
we've got your signature content.
I want you to think aboutyour benefit statements, okay?
Your benefit statements, not.
(07:19):
Not the facts.
Okay?
Sometimes when we're selling our offers,we like to say, okay, I'll use the Mindful
Marketing Lab again, as example I, I couldsay like dozens of courses, thousands
of Canva templates, like already.
That feels like a lot of work.
But instead, I lead on the benefits.
You as a member get unlimited support.
(07:41):
You see how that sounds different,unlimited support versus.
All these courses and all theseCanva templates, both are true, but
I'm leaning into the benefit to youversus the, the list, the bullet
point list of what's included.
Another example of this is, youknow, I have, um, custom built chat
bts right within in the program.
So, um, I think it's very cool.
(08:02):
I can nerd out about itall the, all the dang time.
Okay.
But I found the best way to talk about itis to actually describe it as a shortcut.
I have an AI shortcut for you, and Ibuild them out for every single course
that I have created this year, I've goneback retroactively and add them into
products, and I'm gonna continue to addthese shortcuts into your products so
that yes, you understand the core essenceof the framework, but then I give you
(08:25):
the shortcut way of creating contentand creating solutions in your business.
Very different benefit statements,very different outcomes, and of
course, you wanna add in your flavorand your voice to all of this.
Okay?
Now don't feel like you have towrite all this down and memorize it.
Like I said, you can get thisfor free in the 2025 Mindful
Marketers Holiday Handbook.
(08:46):
Uh, I have a holiday calendar in there.
Um, how to build out these benefitstatements and post prompts.
Um, the works.
All you have to do is is goto online drea.com/holiday
and make a copy for yourself.
Alright, next thing I wanna talkabout is reading the room a little bit
as we head into the holiday season.
(09:06):
Like I mentioned before, theholiday season can be very loud.
Okay, very loud.
So before you start posting, I want youto do a quick scan of the headlines.
Make sure you check out and see,you know, what are the topics
of conversation happening.
Uh, make sure we're leading withempathy, especially for the things
that matter to us and our community.
(09:27):
We can adjust our tonebased on the conversation.
Now I wanna be clear here and say thatwe're not adjusting our value system.
We're adjusting our tone.
So for example, um, I'll use a, apast event as an example, black Lives
Matter, because that's one that,um, I feel like a lot of businesses.
Felt called to say something about it.
(09:49):
The challenge is when a business feelscalled to say something about it, but they
don't have that in their value system,they're not actually sure what to say.
Um, and so they end up tryingto create values as they go.
You listening to this, I know youare gonna have really strong values.
And so if something happens in theworld, I don't want you to think
that that's challenging your values.
(10:10):
I just want you to be mindful of your toneas you're going into creating content.
So for example, another example,uh, a couple months ago, I mean,
this is a pretty consistentproblem out in California.
There's these wildfires, right?
Actually had wildfireshere in Ontario recently.
I would not do a post about somethingbeing on fire at that moment
(10:31):
because that may seem insensitive.
Okay, so we wanna make surethat we're reading the, the
room and matching the tone.
To help you with this, what I recommendis having two kinda like evergreen posts
ready to swap out in case you have tohit pause or just be okay with like not
having anything to post that day, as longas you are showing up to be genuinely
helpful and supportive for your community.
(10:53):
I think that anything goes in this.
Um, sort of situation and for me,you'll notice with my content.
I usually don't speak up abouta lot of these things, mostly
because I have my values.
I talk about them with my privatecommunity, with my clients and customers.
I don't generally talk about a lotof my, um, things like political
stance or social economic views oranything like that on social media.
(11:16):
Because of the trolls, I don't have timeto be arguing with no trolls, so I tend
to just keep my little thoughts to myself.
To protect my own peace, but you betterbelieve I have my own value system
and you better believe I talk aboutit with my clients and customers and,
uh, with the people that matter to me.
So you can decide whatthat looks like for you.
All right, now let's go into theactual holidays that were coming up.
(11:37):
We've got quite a few coming up, and Idon't want you to feel like you have to
say something for every single holiday.
Or have a sale for every single holiday.
I know the big box stores do this.
I know that.
But you and I, we don't have to do this.
We can design this howeverwe wanna design it.
So a few things to consider.
(11:57):
And again, this isn't theHoliday Guide on October 13th.
That's Canadian Thanksgiving.
We have Halloween, October 31st.
We have us Thanksgiving, November27th, then we go right into
Black Friday on November 28th.
On November 29th is small business.
Saturday that Monday, cyber Monday,December 2nd is giving Tuesday.
(12:19):
And then we've got like theChristmas window, let's call that.
So we've got like Christmas Eve, ChristmasDay, boxing Day if you're in Canada, uk.
And then we've got like the NewYear's Eve, new Year's Day coming up.
So think about.
Your community, your people,your audience, which days would
be most significant to them andto you, and how can you create
(12:41):
something or present somethingthat aligns with that significance?
So for me, I'm definitelydoing Black Friday.
I typically start the sale acouple days before Black Friday.
Um, so usually the Tuesdayor Wednesday of that week.
And then I have it extend through toGiving Tuesday to give people time
to be able to make a buying decision.
Um, and then I do a different sale usuallyfor the new year, something smaller.
(13:05):
Um, usually it's very focusedon jump starting new Year.
I usually am leading into my LinkedInchallenge at that point anyways,
and so that's how I choose my sales.
I am participating in a few differentthings this year as well around
Halloween, so you'll see some ofthat coming in through my newsletter.
I don't typically do anything forCanadian Thanksgiving because most of my.
Most of y'all are in the US right?
(13:26):
Most of my people were in the us.
Um, so that's just for me, so you cansee how I'm trying to pick and choose
a certain holidays that align with mybusiness, my intentions, and the, the
things that my community, um, values.
All right, so now that you've gotyour holidays picked out, we wanna
make our anchor content to reflect thethings that we're gonna have for sale.
(13:49):
And this is how you streamline yourmarketing during the holiday season.
We don't have to createentirely new content every time.
We need to have it match the.
The internal workings of our business.
So the way that I'm talking aboutthis, this podcast episode feels
very meta, honestly, becauseI'm talking about holiday sales.
(14:09):
I'm releasing my holiday guide.
This is the fourth year thatI've released this guide.
I'm teaching a class in themembership about launching,
which will tie into the holidays.
All of this kind of flows together.
So while it seems like I'm creatinga lot of content, it kind of
all echoes each other becausetopically it's all very similar.
And so I want you to think about that.
So, for example, if I were to titlethis podcast, which I haven't yet,
(14:34):
'cause I'm recording it, but it couldbe something like How to Plan Your
Black Friday Sales Without Stressing.
Or if I were gonna create aInstagram reel, I may do, here
are some holiday mistakes I seeevery year and how to fix them.
Or if I were to write an emailnewsletter, I might write one on the
Small Business Guide to Selling withoutbeing pushy during the holidays.
(14:55):
Okay, so you can see how.
I have my core piece ofcontent, which is this podcast.
That leads into my, um, freebie thatI have for you, the holiday guide.
All of that leads back to the membership.
My content is echoing that.
The membership content is echoingthat, and so my anchor content is
this podcast and the holiday guide.
Everything else can berepurposed from there.
(15:16):
So I want you to think about the,how that can work in your business.
How can you create the anchor contentand have the rest of your distribution
channels echo what that anchor content is?
Ideally, you wanna get the mostmileage possible out of your holiday
sales, especially this time of year.
For a lot of us, it isour biggest buying season.
I know it is for my business, especiallywith the membership, this is where we see
(15:39):
the most influx of new members, and so.
With this podcast episode being myanchor piece of content, you're gonna
see echoes of this on my social media.
You'll see echoes of this in my email.
You'll see echoes of this in mystories, all leading to the Holy
Day guide or this podcast episode,which all leads to the membership.
Okay?
So we're kind of creating astoryline, starting with the sale.
(16:05):
Working our way backwards for the content,for the topics that you want to address.
Okay?
Another thing I want you to think aboutwith this upcoming holiday season is
that social media is not for closing.
This is something that I've been talkingabout for a little while now that I
wanna like dig my heels in, because youused to be able to like post something
(16:26):
on social media and people buy it.
Sometimes that happens.
But for the most part, social media isnot for closing, it's for curiosity.
To me, social media is for curiosity.
It's for someone to go, huh, Inever thought of that before.
Or, huh, I didn't know this existedbefore, or, wow, that's interesting.
Right?
To me, social media is the spark andthe email is what closes the loop.
(16:48):
And so for a lot of usin our marketing, we're.
Our goal is to get people off socialmedia and onto our email list, but we need
social media in order to create that sparkin order for people to discover us, right?
It's a discoverability tool.
They may never have heard of youbefore, and now they saw your TikTok
video or your Facebook reel, andthey're curious and they sign up for
something like my free holiday guide,and they're in your ecosystem now, and
(17:11):
now they're seeing all of your offers.
Okay?
So if you wanna think about.
How this can flow.
I would say think aboutOctober as your curiosity.
Spark building month.
Okay, this is a big one.
October is your warmup leadinginto the Black Friday sales.
So, for example, in my business, Ihave a few things leading up to it.
I have this podcast episode,which is coming out September 9th.
(17:34):
On September 24th.
I'm teaching a live workshopfor local businesses.
Um, it's really about how to trainyour team, but I'm collecting leads
that lead into my holiday sales season.
Um, in October, I'm hostingmy Instagram bootcamp.
This will be the fourth or fifth yearthat I'm hosting the Instagram bootcamp.
It is a free Instagram, uh, bootcamp.
(17:56):
Yes, we have an offer to join thelab then, but also warming up my
list to lead into the holidays.
Okay, so October, September, Octoberfor me are all warmup months.
And then I go heavy inwith the holiday, uh, prep.
So at the beginning of November, I usuallytell people what sale we have coming up.
So here's our.
Friday sale, I be, as you know,this is the time to not be like a
(18:19):
little whimsical, fancy, fanciful,silly goose about your wording.
I just keep it straightforward.
If you wanna know what our BlackFriday sale is, here is it.
Here it is, and here are the dates.
Okay?
Save this in your calendar.
And then the weeks leading up toit, I'll tease out a little bit.
Um, and then the Big Friday, blackFriday window, I will really lean
(18:40):
into those benefit statements, thevalue and use a lot of client customer
testimonials, answer a lot of questions.
Um, I usually do somesmall business Saturday.
Love.
The Cyber Monday reminder and thenusually close it out Giving Tuesday.
And a lot of times I also announcehow much we're donating that
year as well and giving Tuesday.
In the past we've done a number ofthings for Giving Tuesday, but usually
(19:03):
that's when we do our, our big donationfor the year, and so I'll probably
share that on that day as well.
Okay.
So I want you to think about howthis could look for your business.
There's so many differentways you can have a sale.
I personally do the 50% off mymembership because it's easy, it's juicy.
It's like our biggest sale of the year.
But you can do other things.
(19:24):
Um, you could do, uh, bundling up.
Two different offers or services,especially for, you're a service-based
business owner, we don't wanna discounttoo much, but you can bundle in offers.
So when I had, um, my agency, forinstance, if you signed up as a
client, we would do, you know, we'lladd on like an email audit or a
month of email marketing management.
Um, you could bundle up live classes.
(19:46):
You could, um, give yourself,uh, uh, additional services.
If someone, um, books onething, you give them another.
You could do doorbuster sales.
So like first 100 people todo this, get something extra.
Make sure though that all ofthis fits your energy budget.
Um, we don't wanna over deliver.
(20:07):
And that's a message to myself,which is why I do the 50% off.
Uh, black Friday deal.
As we wrap up this episode,a few things to keep in mind.
Um, your metrics may look very unusualduring the Black Friday season.
This is totally normal.
I still want you to consistentlypost that content and share
those emails because everyoneschedules a wackadoodle right now.
(20:28):
Okay?
So while it's consistent, now youknow US Thanksgiving leading all
the way up to the Christmas holiday.
Everyone's kind of bouncingaround a little bit, unusually.
So they may not be checkingtheir phone at their usual time.
They may not be checking theiremail like they usually do.
Sometimes that can mean less,okay, so they may miss something.
So we wanna, you know,keep them on top of it.
(20:49):
But sometimes it can mean more.
So for me, for instance, when I'm onholidays, I actually tend to spend a
little bit more time on certain platformslike social media versus my email.
And so.
If I were your client, I would wannasee more social posts during that time.
And if you sent more emails, itwouldn't bother me because I kind of
expect it during the holiday season,and I want you to still lean into
(21:12):
what feels good, create your contentahead of time too, if you can.
Don't think too hard about, um,trying to post in the moment.
You can still save some, like I said,save some, um, space for commentary
on the state of the world and,and the things that are happening.
But as much as you can create those.
(21:32):
Content pieces ahead of time.
Your your pillar content pieces andeverything that you repurpose as well.
Also, trust that you're notgoing to check every box.
You're not gonna dot every I, you'renot going to cross every t it is okay?
Give it your all.
Do your best, and then you can do whatI do and then do it again next year.
And every time I read you my sales,every time I redo my challenges,
(21:53):
my launches, like we're going intothe seventh year of the LinkedIn.
Challenge a LinkedIn bootcamp every year.
I improve it somehow or change it somehow.
Okay, so if you found this episodehelpful, definitely check out the holiday
guide online, dre.com/holiday To me.
This is like the Costco sample ofwhat's inside the Mindful Marketing Lab.
I want you to like gobble this upand go, this was free, this was
(22:15):
all really good and it was free.
Let me go see what the paid contentis like 'cause it's even better.
I'll be back at you soonwith the new episode.
That's all for today.
Bye for now.
If the phrase holiday marketing makes you wanna climb under
a blanket and hide and pretend thatit's still July deep breath in, deep
breath out, you can do this today.
I'm going to give you a kinder,calmer plan as we head into Q4,
which is the holiday season, butalso with this episode, I made a
handbook to go along with everything.
You can find it for freeat onlinea.com/holiday.
(00:23):
We're gonna get into all the details,but first a word from our sponsor.
Riverside is the All In One podcastrecording and editing tool that
I use for this ride here show.
I use it to edit not only the audio andthe video, it is like chef's kiss magical
making the entire process so, so easy.
Plus, I love their magicAI clips, their little.
(00:47):
AI robot in the background pulls out themost impactful moments of the episodes
without me having to comb through and doit myself, resizes them for social media.
So those vertical videos you seeon TikTok and Reels, those all come
from Magic AI inside of Riverside.
It's literally one click.
It spits out 10 clips.
I pick the best one and away I go.
(01:08):
Saves me so much time.
If you wanna get on the Riversidetrain, check it out today.
The links in the show notes, and makesure to use my code Drea, DREA at
checkout to get 15% off your membership.
Hi.
Hi.
If you're new to the Mindful MarketingPodcast, my name's Andre Jones.
I'm your favorite mindful marketer, andaround here, I like to keep things simple.
(01:29):
I like to keep things sustainable.
I like strategies that actually get youresults and fit in with your real life,
especially as we head into the absolutechaos that can be the holiday season.
I've got two toddlers nowand I'm like, oh my gosh.
We have to do the, this is likethe peak time to do all of the
activities that they're into.
I'm talking, we're going pumpkin picking,we're doing photos with Santa the works.
(01:53):
Okay.
And I still have to run my businessand do all the things around that.
So I wanna talk about how I'mdoing that in this episode.
And yeah, I'm planning ahead.
Now, I do think we can do this mindfullyas business owners, as marketers, uh,
because it can be very challenging inthe holiday season because everyone's
screaming at the top of their lungsabout whatever it is they're selling.
(02:13):
Right?
Especially when we think about the biggestsales date, black Friday, it feels like.
Everyone's shouting out their sales.
And don't even ask me if the algorithmis acting funky, like forget it.
This year at least wedon't have an election.
So there's that.
But I wanna talk through how wethink about Q4, how we plan things
around our launches and our businessso that you can make it mindful.
(02:38):
First, let's talk about why mindfulnessduring the holidays is really important
because I want you to shift yourmindset from doing all of the things
to doing the right few things, and Ithink this is where we get to throwing
spaghetti at the wall because we wantto make as much money as possible.
Hello.
That's kind of like one of theperks of being your own boss is like
you can, you can set up the salehall however you'd like, however.
(03:00):
If you try to do all of the thingsand then they don't work and you're
burned out at the end of the day,like you're not helping anybody.
So I want us to focus in on theright things, and there's three
parts to this framework that Ireally want you to think about.
The first one is leading with your values.
I want you to pick.
Your values and how you are headinginto the holiday season and what is
(03:24):
actually important to you, you as abusiness owner, what is your value?
What are your goals?
What are you looking at?
Then I also want you to look atthe values of your community.
What are they seeking?
What are the solutionsthat they're looking for?
What are the challengesthat they're having?
What is their mindset as they head inthrough the end of this year, for example?
There could be in your communitysome tension happening or some
(03:46):
sort of celebration happeningor whatever the case may be.
We wanna acknowledge that that'shappening in our community.
And then also look at like the valuesand the state of the wider world.
Um, I mentioned earlier that atleast we don't have a US election
this year, but there's stilllot shit happening in the world.
Pardon my French.
So I want you to think about what thingsare happening, um, in the world and
(04:09):
how that will reflect in your offers,your stories, your sales, the graphics
you design, the words that you write.
I want you to decide before we startgetting into actually writing things,
what are the foundations for that?
So I'll give a quick example of this.
For my business, for example, um, I'mall about mindful marketing, and in
(04:30):
the past years I've done a Black Fridaysale, and what I'm going to do this
year is repeat the exact same sale.
This will be probably the fifth orsixth year that I've done this sale.
Sometimes I also do it the midpoint of theyear, which is also my business birthday.
It'll be 50% off theMindful Marketing Lab.
Okay?
I do this every single year.
That's how I treat this mindfully.
(04:52):
To me, it is a reward to myself tobe able to repeat the same sale.
Yes, I could try something funky anddifferent, but that's a lot of work
for me in this moment in my life.
I do not have the capacityfor that for my community.
It feels like giving back.
For those of you who are inthe lab, you're more than
welcome to opt in at half off.
More power to you.
I love that for you.
(05:13):
For those of you not in the lab, this isa great opportunity for you to try it out.
Okay.
For the wider world, I don'tfeel like it's disruptive to
everything happening in the world.
Especially there's like tensionsright now between US and Canada.
So this is the first year whereI'll actually have Canadian
pricing, even though I am in Canada.
Um, I am from the US Originally,I started my business.
(05:35):
That way.
And so all of my pricing is US pricing.
This is a first year where I've hadCanadian pricing, so for me it's like
I'm looking at the global landscapegoing, Canadians, we need Canadian
pricing right now because the, it's wild.
Like the, the conversion rate is wild.
So.
That's what I'm doing in my business tokind of participate, use active listening,
but also be very mindful of my values.
(05:55):
So that was just one example of that.
Now, so values is the firstpart of this framework.
Second part of this frameworkis I want you to use your
signature content as your anchor.
Okay.
I want you to use your signaturecontent piece as your anchor, and
I've talked about signature contenthere on the podcast before, but just
to recap, your signature content is apiece of content that you don't miss.
(06:16):
It tends to be long form, but it doesn'thave to be, I'm talking podcasts, emails.
Substack, YouTube videos, blog posts.
These are the things that are the pillarsin your framework and what you believe in.
For me, for example, that's this podcast.
This is the one format that youcan sustain, and I usually like to
(06:36):
lean into your preferences here.
So for example, for me, I'm a talker.
You can tell I like talking.
So for me to sit down and record apodcast episode feels very natural.
It feels very organic.
I can do a million of these in a day.
If you ask me to sit down andwrite a blog post, I can do it.
It's gonna take me a sec. Okay.
And so some of this too.
(06:58):
As we really leaning intothe skills that I have.
Okay, that's your signature content.
And then the third thing that I wantyou to really think about as you're
framing out your kind of messaging forthe holidays, we've got your values,
we've got your signature content.
I want you to think aboutyour benefit statements, okay?
Your benefit statements, not.
(07:19):
Not the facts.
Okay?
Sometimes when we're selling our offers,we like to say, okay, I'll use the Mindful
Marketing Lab again, as example I, I couldsay like dozens of courses, thousands
of Canva templates, like already.
That feels like a lot of work.
But instead, I lead on the benefits.
You as a member get unlimited support.
(07:41):
You see how that sounds different,unlimited support versus.
All these courses and all theseCanva templates, both are true, but
I'm leaning into the benefit to youversus the, the list, the bullet
point list of what's included.
Another example of this is, youknow, I have, um, custom built chat
bts right within in the program.
So, um, I think it's very cool.
(08:02):
I can nerd out about itall the, all the dang time.
Okay.
But I found the best way to talk about itis to actually describe it as a shortcut.
I have an AI shortcut for you, and Ibuild them out for every single course
that I have created this year, I've goneback retroactively and add them into
products, and I'm gonna continue to addthese shortcuts into your products so
that yes, you understand the core essenceof the framework, but then I give you
(08:25):
the shortcut way of creating contentand creating solutions in your business.
Very different benefit statements,very different outcomes, and of
course, you wanna add in your flavorand your voice to all of this.
Okay?
Now don't feel like you have towrite all this down and memorize it.
Like I said, you can get thisfor free in the 2025 Mindful
Marketers Holiday Handbook.
(08:46):
Uh, I have a holiday calendar in there.
Um, how to build out these benefitstatements and post prompts.
Um, the works.
All you have to do is is goto online drea.com/holiday
and make a copy for yourself.
Alright, next thing I wanna talkabout is reading the room a little bit
as we head into the holiday season.
(09:06):
Like I mentioned before, theholiday season can be very loud.
Okay, very loud.
So before you start posting, I want youto do a quick scan of the headlines.
Make sure you check out and see,you know, what are the topics
of conversation happening.
Uh, make sure we're leading withempathy, especially for the things
that matter to us and our community.
(09:27):
We can adjust our tonebased on the conversation.
Now I wanna be clear here and say thatwe're not adjusting our value system.
We're adjusting our tone.
So for example, um, I'll use a, apast event as an example, black Lives
Matter, because that's one that,um, I feel like a lot of businesses.
Felt called to say something about it.
(09:49):
The challenge is when a business feelscalled to say something about it, but they
don't have that in their value system,they're not actually sure what to say.
Um, and so they end up tryingto create values as they go.
You listening to this, I know youare gonna have really strong values.
And so if something happens in theworld, I don't want you to think
that that's challenging your values.
(10:10):
I just want you to be mindful of your toneas you're going into creating content.
So for example, another example,uh, a couple months ago, I mean,
this is a pretty consistentproblem out in California.
There's these wildfires, right?
Actually had wildfireshere in Ontario recently.
I would not do a post about somethingbeing on fire at that moment
(10:31):
because that may seem insensitive.
Okay, so we wanna make surethat we're reading the, the
room and matching the tone.
To help you with this, what I recommendis having two kinda like evergreen posts
ready to swap out in case you have tohit pause or just be okay with like not
having anything to post that day, as longas you are showing up to be genuinely
helpful and supportive for your community.
(10:53):
I think that anything goes in this.
Um, sort of situation and for me,you'll notice with my content.
I usually don't speak up abouta lot of these things, mostly
because I have my values.
I talk about them with my privatecommunity, with my clients and customers.
I don't generally talk about a lotof my, um, things like political
stance or social economic views oranything like that on social media.
(11:16):
Because of the trolls, I don't have timeto be arguing with no trolls, so I tend
to just keep my little thoughts to myself.
To protect my own peace, but you betterbelieve I have my own value system
and you better believe I talk aboutit with my clients and customers and,
uh, with the people that matter to me.
So you can decide whatthat looks like for you.
All right, now let's go into theactual holidays that were coming up.
(11:37):
We've got quite a few coming up, and Idon't want you to feel like you have to
say something for every single holiday.
Or have a sale for every single holiday.
I know the big box stores do this.
I know that.
But you and I, we don't have to do this.
We can design this howeverwe wanna design it.
So a few things to consider.
(11:57):
And again, this isn't theHoliday Guide on October 13th.
That's Canadian Thanksgiving.
We have Halloween, October 31st.
We have us Thanksgiving, November27th, then we go right into
Black Friday on November 28th.
On November 29th is small business.
Saturday that Monday, cyber Monday,December 2nd is giving Tuesday.
(12:19):
And then we've got like theChristmas window, let's call that.
So we've got like Christmas Eve, ChristmasDay, boxing Day if you're in Canada, uk.
And then we've got like the NewYear's Eve, new Year's Day coming up.
So think about.
Your community, your people,your audience, which days would
be most significant to them andto you, and how can you create
(12:41):
something or present somethingthat aligns with that significance?
So for me, I'm definitelydoing Black Friday.
I typically start the sale acouple days before Black Friday.
Um, so usually the Tuesdayor Wednesday of that week.
And then I have it extend through toGiving Tuesday to give people time
to be able to make a buying decision.
Um, and then I do a different sale usuallyfor the new year, something smaller.
(13:05):
Um, usually it's very focusedon jump starting new Year.
I usually am leading into my LinkedInchallenge at that point anyways,
and so that's how I choose my sales.
I am participating in a few differentthings this year as well around
Halloween, so you'll see some ofthat coming in through my newsletter.
I don't typically do anything forCanadian Thanksgiving because most of my.
Most of y'all are in the US right?
(13:26):
Most of my people were in the us.
Um, so that's just for me, so you cansee how I'm trying to pick and choose
a certain holidays that align with mybusiness, my intentions, and the, the
things that my community, um, values.
All right, so now that you've gotyour holidays picked out, we wanna
make our anchor content to reflect thethings that we're gonna have for sale.
(13:49):
And this is how you streamline yourmarketing during the holiday season.
We don't have to createentirely new content every time.
We need to have it match the.
The internal workings of our business.
So the way that I'm talking aboutthis, this podcast episode feels
very meta, honestly, becauseI'm talking about holiday sales.
(14:09):
I'm releasing my holiday guide.
This is the fourth year thatI've released this guide.
I'm teaching a class in themembership about launching,
which will tie into the holidays.
All of this kind of flows together.
So while it seems like I'm creatinga lot of content, it kind of
all echoes each other becausetopically it's all very similar.
And so I want you to think about that.
So, for example, if I were to titlethis podcast, which I haven't yet,
(14:34):
'cause I'm recording it, but it couldbe something like How to Plan Your
Black Friday Sales Without Stressing.
Or if I were gonna create aInstagram reel, I may do, here
are some holiday mistakes I seeevery year and how to fix them.
Or if I were to write an emailnewsletter, I might write one on the
Small Business Guide to Selling withoutbeing pushy during the holidays.
(14:55):
Okay, so you can see how.
I have my core piece ofcontent, which is this podcast.
That leads into my, um, freebie thatI have for you, the holiday guide.
All of that leads back to the membership.
My content is echoing that.
The membership content is echoingthat, and so my anchor content is
this podcast and the holiday guide.
Everything else can berepurposed from there.
(15:16):
So I want you to think about the,how that can work in your business.
How can you create the anchor contentand have the rest of your distribution
channels echo what that anchor content is?
Ideally, you wanna get the mostmileage possible out of your holiday
sales, especially this time of year.
For a lot of us, it isour biggest buying season.
I know it is for my business, especiallywith the membership, this is where we see
(15:39):
the most influx of new members, and so.
With this podcast episode being myanchor piece of content, you're gonna
see echoes of this on my social media.
You'll see echoes of this in my email.
You'll see echoes of this in mystories, all leading to the Holy
Day guide or this podcast episode,which all leads to the membership.
Okay?
So we're kind of creating astoryline, starting with the sale.
(16:05):
Working our way backwards for the content,for the topics that you want to address.
Okay?
Another thing I want you to think aboutwith this upcoming holiday season is
that social media is not for closing.
This is something that I've been talkingabout for a little while now that I
wanna like dig my heels in, because youused to be able to like post something
(16:26):
on social media and people buy it.
Sometimes that happens.
But for the most part, social media isnot for closing, it's for curiosity.
To me, social media is for curiosity.
It's for someone to go, huh, Inever thought of that before.
Or, huh, I didn't know this existedbefore, or, wow, that's interesting.
Right?
To me, social media is the spark andthe email is what closes the loop.
(16:48):
And so for a lot of usin our marketing, we're.
Our goal is to get people off socialmedia and onto our email list, but we need
social media in order to create that sparkin order for people to discover us, right?
It's a discoverability tool.
They may never have heard of youbefore, and now they saw your TikTok
video or your Facebook reel, andthey're curious and they sign up for
something like my free holiday guide,and they're in your ecosystem now, and
(17:11):
now they're seeing all of your offers.
Okay?
So if you wanna think about.
How this can flow.
I would say think aboutOctober as your curiosity.
Spark building month.
Okay, this is a big one.
October is your warmup leadinginto the Black Friday sales.
So, for example, in my business, Ihave a few things leading up to it.
I have this podcast episode,which is coming out September 9th.
(17:34):
On September 24th.
I'm teaching a live workshopfor local businesses.
Um, it's really about how to trainyour team, but I'm collecting leads
that lead into my holiday sales season.
Um, in October, I'm hostingmy Instagram bootcamp.
This will be the fourth or fifth yearthat I'm hosting the Instagram bootcamp.
It is a free Instagram, uh, bootcamp.
(17:56):
Yes, we have an offer to join thelab then, but also warming up my
list to lead into the holidays.
Okay, so October, September, Octoberfor me are all warmup months.
And then I go heavy inwith the holiday, uh, prep.
So at the beginning of November, I usuallytell people what sale we have coming up.
So here's our.
Friday sale, I be, as you know,this is the time to not be like a
(18:19):
little whimsical, fancy, fanciful,silly goose about your wording.
I just keep it straightforward.
If you wanna know what our BlackFriday sale is, here is it.
Here it is, and here are the dates.
Okay?
Save this in your calendar.
And then the weeks leading up toit, I'll tease out a little bit.
Um, and then the Big Friday, blackFriday window, I will really lean
(18:40):
into those benefit statements, thevalue and use a lot of client customer
testimonials, answer a lot of questions.
Um, I usually do somesmall business Saturday.
Love.
The Cyber Monday reminder and thenusually close it out Giving Tuesday.
And a lot of times I also announcehow much we're donating that
year as well and giving Tuesday.
In the past we've done a number ofthings for Giving Tuesday, but usually
(19:03):
that's when we do our, our big donationfor the year, and so I'll probably
share that on that day as well.
Okay.
So I want you to think about howthis could look for your business.
There's so many differentways you can have a sale.
I personally do the 50% off mymembership because it's easy, it's juicy.
It's like our biggest sale of the year.
But you can do other things.
(19:24):
Um, you could do, uh, bundling up.
Two different offers or services,especially for, you're a service-based
business owner, we don't wanna discounttoo much, but you can bundle in offers.
So when I had, um, my agency, forinstance, if you signed up as a
client, we would do, you know, we'lladd on like an email audit or a
month of email marketing management.
Um, you could bundle up live classes.
(19:46):
You could, um, give yourself,uh, uh, additional services.
If someone, um, books onething, you give them another.
You could do doorbuster sales.
So like first 100 people todo this, get something extra.
Make sure though that all ofthis fits your energy budget.
Um, we don't wanna over deliver.
(20:07):
And that's a message to myself,which is why I do the 50% off.
Uh, black Friday deal.
As we wrap up this episode,a few things to keep in mind.
Um, your metrics may look very unusualduring the Black Friday season.
This is totally normal.
I still want you to consistentlypost that content and share
those emails because everyoneschedules a wackadoodle right now.
(20:28):
Okay?
So while it's consistent, now youknow US Thanksgiving leading all
the way up to the Christmas holiday.
Everyone's kind of bouncingaround a little bit, unusually.
So they may not be checkingtheir phone at their usual time.
They may not be checking theiremail like they usually do.
Sometimes that can mean less,okay, so they may miss something.
So we wanna, you know,keep them on top of it.
(20:49):
But sometimes it can mean more.
So for me, for instance, when I'm onholidays, I actually tend to spend a
little bit more time on certain platformslike social media versus my email.
And so.
If I were your client, I would wannasee more social posts during that time.
And if you sent more emails, itwouldn't bother me because I kind of
expect it during the holiday season,and I want you to still lean into
(21:12):
what feels good, create your contentahead of time too, if you can.
Don't think too hard about, um,trying to post in the moment.
You can still save some, like I said,save some, um, space for commentary
on the state of the world and,and the things that are happening.
But as much as you can create those.
(21:32):
Content pieces ahead of time.
Your your pillar content pieces andeverything that you repurpose as well.
Also, trust that you're notgoing to check every box.
You're not gonna dot every I, you'renot going to cross every t it is okay?
Give it your all.
Do your best, and then you can do whatI do and then do it again next year.
And every time I read you my sales,every time I redo my challenges,
(21:53):
my launches, like we're going intothe seventh year of the LinkedIn.
Challenge a LinkedIn bootcamp every year.
I improve it somehow or change it somehow.
Okay, so if you found this episodehelpful, definitely check out the holiday
guide online, dre.com/holiday To me.
This is like the Costco sample ofwhat's inside the Mindful Marketing Lab.
I want you to like gobble this upand go, this was free, this was
(22:15):
all really good and it was free.
Let me go see what the paid contentis like 'cause it's even better.
I'll be back at you soonwith the new episode.
That's all for today.
Bye for now.
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