What to sort out with your marketing before Q4

Q4 has a habit of sneaking up on small businesses. One minute it's a hot July afternoon, the next you're looking at the calendar wondering where September went, and realising there are only a few weeks left before the busiest, most important trading period of the year begins.

If you sell to other businesses, Q4 is often when budgets are being spent before they're lost and end of year decisions get made. If you sell to consumers, it's the run up to Christmas, the biggest trading window a lot of businesses see all year. Either way, it's worth getting a few things sorted now rather than reacting once you're in the middle of it.

Here's what I'd be looking at.

Look back before you plan forward. Before deciding what to do in the last quarter, look honestly at what's worked so far this year. Which posts got engagement, which campaigns actually brought in enquiries, which bit of spend you can't really account for.

Sort your budget out properly. If you've still got marketing spend left for the year, decide now how it's going to be used, rather than letting it drift away on whatever feels urgent in November. A concentrated push in the last few months usually does more than the same money spread thinly across the whole quarter.

Check your website can cope. If Q4 brings more visitors, enquiries or sales, make sure the basics are in good shape. Contact forms that work, pages that load properly on a phone, prices and offers that are current. It's a dull job and an easy one to put off, which is exactly why it's worth doing now while there's no pressure.

Get your content sorted in advance. Trying to write social posts and emails in the same week you need to send them is how quality slips and things get missed. Block out an hour now to rough out what you want to say across October, November and December.

Decide what Q4 actually needs to achieve. Is it about hitting a sales target, keeping existing clients close, or building a pipeline for January? Be specific, because "more marketing" isn't a plan, it's a feeling.

Book in extra help early if you need it. If you use freelancers, a designer, or a marketing consultant for any part of your work, get in touch with them now rather than in October. The good ones get booked up fast once everyone else realises Q4 is bearing down on them too, and a rushed brief rarely gets the best result.

None of this takes long. An hour or two now, while things are relatively quiet, will save a lot of scrambling later, at exactly the point when everyone else is trying to sort their Q4 out as well.