What Marketers Can Work on During the Holiday Lull

Holidays present a unique challenge to marketers. Most industries slow down this time of year and ours is no different. Internal marketing departments are waiting for next year’s budgets to kick in, and agencies are waiting on those departments to give them a green light.

The end-of-year lull doesn’t have to mean wasted time. In fact, it’s the perfect window to tackle the projects that always seem to fall to the bottom of the list. Here are a few smart ways to make the most of the quiet season before the new year rush.

Review & Refresh Internal Documents

Look for Opportunities in YourBrand Standards

When was the last time you checked your brand guidelines?

Review brand assets like logos, color palettes, and templates for consistency across all teams and touchpoints. Obviously something like your company’s brand standards isn’t something you’re going to change because you had a free afternoon and you had an urge. (Or maybe it will, we don't know you.) Depending on the size of your company, changing brand standards likely requires countless approvals and several (one might say "too many") meetings. Even if you can’t unilaterally make changes, you can still assess where your standards are now and brainstorm for changes for the better. Make sure your design, tone, and messaging still reflect how you want your brand to be perceived. If they don’t, ideate some ways to ensure they do.

Examine Your Marketing Processes

Take a step back and audit how your marketing engine ran this year. What worked well, and what bottlenecks slowed you down? Update internal process docs, onboarding materials, and campaign checklists to reflect lessons learned.

Create a brand wishlist document. This is a running list of ideas to revisit in Q1 when budgets open up.

Do Some SEO Housekeeping

Your search performance can quietly decay over time… The holidays are a great time to tune it up.

• Technical Cleanup: Fix broken links, missing meta descriptions, and outdated redirects. Check site speed and mobile optimization; small improvements can add up.
• Review Content: Refresh older blog posts with updated data, keywords, or CTAs. Identify top-performing content that could internally link to newer or underperforming pages.
• Reevaluate Target Keywords: Use tools like Google Search Console, Ahrefs, or SEMrush to see how trends shifted this year. Look for low-hanging keyword opportunities to target in Q1’s content calendar.

Build a Social Media Content Bank

Create Content You Can Use Year-Round

• Get ahead of your future self by creating a backlog of evergreen content:
• Quotes, tips, FAQs, and testimonials can be sprinkled throughout the year.
• Draft caption templates for recurring campaigns or seasonal posts.

Audit Past Performance

• Look at what resonated with your audience this year.
• Which posts performed best, and why?
• Which platforms didn’t deliver as expected? Maybe it’s time to pivot your strategy or try new content formats.
• Dive into analytics tools to see what’s really driving engagement.

Plan Ahead

• Build out a social media content calendar so you can hit the ground running in January.
• Use the slower pace to experiment with new formats — like short-form video, carousels, or interactive polls.

Conduct Market and Competitive Research

• Catch up on recent reports, forecasts, and thought leadership in your niche.
• Are there emerging technologies or audience behaviors you should pay attention to?
• Are new platforms gaining traction with your target demographics?
• Audit Your Competition
• Review competitors’ campaigns from the past year. What stood out?

Where are the gaps in their strategy that you could use to your advantage? Keeping tabs now can inform your positioning and creative direction for the new year.

Invest in Professional Development

If your workload has slowed, invest that extra time in sharpening your skills. Consider short online courses or certifications in analytics, AI, or creative tools. It’s almost Christmas after all, so when better to give yourself the greatest gift of all: knowledge.

Suggested platforms:

• Google Analytics Academy: Google Analytics is a crucial  tool for assessing your website’s performance, but it’s full of terminology that needs to be learned and has a UI that can be tough to navigate. Luckily, a Google Analytics certification only takes about 16-24 hours.
• HubSpot Academy: HubSpot has a library of courses on everything from marketing to sales to content strategy (some for free, but some behind a paywall) and most of them take only a couple of hours. 
• Coursera: Coursera is an online learning platform that includes courses for skills like copywriting and design, but also for software like Figma and AI chatbots.
• Adobe Learn: Adobe offers countless tutorials for how to use their software. These aren’t long courses and certifications but rather short videos that teach you specific skills like removing spots from a photo in Photoshop.

The Lull Is an Opportunity

The holiday lull doesn't have to mean wasted time. Think of it as strategic breathing room. After a year of deadlines and deliverables, use this period to regroup and refine. Whether you’re cleaning up your SEO, refreshing brand assets, or simply taking a course, you’re setting yourself up for a more focused, productive start to the new year.

When the clock starts ticking toward Christmas break, don’t just stare at it. Fend off the holiday boredom and use the moment to get ahead.

Planning to use some downtime to figure out how to tackle the new year? Let’s talk about it and see how we can make it happen. Please. It’s the slow time for us too. We’re bored.