Are you familiar with Christmas Creep? No, not your drunk neighbor who’s had too much egg nog; we’re talking about the phenomenon of the holiday squeeze.

Last year, there were far fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas than in previous years, and the same goes for this coming holiday season. The net effect can be seen in both small towns and big cities worldwide: holiday lights start shining bright weeks before Thanksgiving and holiday season marketing begins well before Halloween Trick-or-Treaters have decided on a costume.

Whether you personally think this is madness, as a marketer, you must pay attention. There is more than $600 billion on the table this holiday season and with just 27 days between Black Friday and Christmas – which brings in an average of 20-40% of annual revenue for retailers – retailer’s hands are forced to begin holiday promotion earlier every year.

To keep up with your competition, you must carefully consider market trends, key revenue-driving and user experience strategies, and historical data to ensure that your 2014 plan will convert. And we have all the goods that will get you through Christmas Creep into the New Year:

  • Sailthru’s Holiday Cheat Sheet is the 10-minute holiday marketing guide for key marketing strategies and tactics every retailer needs to have in place this season.

  • Our Holiday Data Report will give you the holiday email marketing benchmark data (i.e. open rates, click-to-open, purchase conversion, AOV, etc.) you need to know before your campaigns are scheduled.

— Jason Grunberg, Senior Content Marketing Manager