Planning for Christmas

It's that time of year again... if you haven't already created marketing plans to take advantage of holiday spending, now's the time. Why so early? Because timing is key. You want to lock up what they call those "open-to-buy dollars" with your products before they get spent on someone else's. This is why store promotions for seasonal items tend to creep backwards in time; they're trying to get the jump on their competitors. If they put out their big "Halloween Sale!" or "Back-to-School Sale" the weekend before the rival chain does, they can grab a lot of the dollars that might otherwise be spent at the rival.

This works even at the smaller end of the game market, with adventure games or mobile games or whatnot. Hit your user base with some specials to encourage their buying. Perhaps create some sort of holiday-themed version of your product, or some downloadable content to use with your product. Get creative! While you're at it, don't forget to take advantage of other holidays and reasons for buying. It would be great if you had a regular promotion cycle, and thus each year the promotion could reach further as word spread about it.