Summer Starts Now: A 90-Day Marketing Plan for Sunshine Coast Businesses

Other
Oct 01
Share post

It’s been a tough year for a lot of businesses, costs are up, people are watching what they spend, and for many businesses it hasn’t exactly been the year they’d hoped for.

And now, as we head into undeniably one of the busiest and most chaotic periods on the Sunshine Coast, things are about to get even louder and busier. School holidays, Christmas, New Years and increased tourism means businesses are gearing up for their busiest few months of the year.

So how do you stay relevant when everyone’s fighting for attention?

How do you make sure your business is still showing up when your customers are deciding where to spend their time and money? And perhaps most importantly, how do you do it when you’re already bloody busy running the business?

The answer isn’t necessarily more marketing, it’s getting the right things in place before the chaos starts, because the businesses that make the most of summer don’t suddenly start marketing when December rolls around.

They’re already showing up, building awareness and talking to their customers, utilising the systems behind the scenes working so that when the enquiries start coming in, opportunities don’t get lost.

So here’s what I’d be doing over the next 90 days…

Why October is the month to get moving

Now is the time when people start actively booking their end of year holidays (…if they haven’t already), researching venues, restaurants, accommodation, experiences, activities, and where can they spend their money.

If your business isn’t showing up while they’re making those decisions, you’re already playing catch-up. And October is your window.

November gets noisy… Melbourne Cup, Black Friday and the Christmas party season all hit at once, competition ramps up and advertising costs start climbing. Add Meta’s latest changes into the mix, with businesses increasingly being pushed towards paid subscription models, and suddenly everyone is fighting harder for the same attention.

Then December arrives and you’re busy actually running the business. So instead of waiting until things get hectic, here’s what I’d be doing over the next 90 days.

October: Set Yourself Up for Summer

October isn’t necessarily about pushing harder, it’s about getting everything ready while you still have the time to do it properly.

1. Book your content shoot

If you do nothing else this month, do this. Get some good quality photos and videos of your business. Your people, your products, your space, your services, your customers, and don’t be afraid to show the behind-the-scenes stuff – the stuff that makes your business YOU. Your personality.

One good content shoot can give you months of material for social media, Reels, ads, your website, email marketing and more. So don’t wait until you’re already flat, get it done now.

2. Plan the next three months

You don’t need a 47-page content strategy. Just work out what’s actually happening between now and the end of January.

Black Friday
Christmas
School holidays
New Year’s Eve
Australia Day
Local events
Special offers
Peak booking periods
Quiet periods

Then decide what you’re going to promote and when. Simple is fine, a basic plan that actually gets executed is far more useful than a beautiful content calendar that gets abandoned two weeks later.

3. Go through your website

This is such a pain point of businesses even in 2026! So many websites are not updated, incorrect links, not mobile friendly, broken social links, Google Business, unlinked forms, blurry images, no contact details, and its the simple, free and easy fix.

My advice to you. Pretend you’re a customer, get your phone out and try to use your own website:

Can you find what you need?
Can you see your prices?
Can you make a booking?
Can you send an enquiry?
Do all the buttons work?
Are your opening hours correct?
Are your Christmas and holiday dates correct?
Are there random bits of information from 2025 still sitting on there?
Is it painfully slow?
Is it mobile friendly?
And a big one I often find with socials – is your location listed in your bio?

This stuff matters, not just to the customer but to remain digitally present, your business is rewarded by what you put out by “AI” so the more that AI can understand your website, the better it can push it to your customers.

You can spend thousands of dollars getting people onto your website, but if they can’t figure out what to do once they get there, you’re wasting the traffic.

4. Check your tracking

This one gets ignored constantly. Before you start throwing more money at Google or Meta, make sure you can actually see what’s happening:

Where are your enquiries coming from?
Which campaigns are generating leads?
Which leads are turning into customers?
Are phone calls being tracked?
Are forms being tracked?
Are bookings being tracked?

Because “Meta says we got 400 conversions” doesn’t necessarily mean you got 400 actual customers. You need to know what’s happening beyond the ad platform.

5. Sort your Google Business Profile

For a local business, your Google Business Profile is incredibly important. Make sure your hours are correct, add fresh photos, update your services, add relevant seasonal information, make sure your website and booking links work, and if you’ve got happy customers, ask them for a review.

Don’t underestimate how much this can influence someone’s decision when they’re comparing you with the business down the road.

November: Start building momentum

By November, you should be moving from preparation into execution. This is where your marketing starts doing its job.

Get your campaigns running before everyone else is panicking

Don’t wait until the week before Christmas to turn your ads on, get your campaigns running early enough that you can actually learn what’s working. Test your messaging, your audiences, your creative, and work out which offers are getting attention. Then you’ve got data to work with when the competition gets louder.

Start building your warm audiences

This is where content becomes really useful. Show people what your business actually looks like (not the AI version), introduce your team, show behind the scenes, give them a look at the new summer menu. Show a recent project, film a quick video answering a question customers ask all the time, don’t make every post “BUY NOW”.

Some of the people seeing your content aren’t ready to buy today, which is okay. You’re getting your business in front of them now so that when they’re ready, they already know who you are.

Actually use the content you created

You don’t need to reinvent the wheel every week, one good video can become a Reel, then a Story, then an ad, then a website section, then part of an email, then repurposed into another piece of content a few weeks later.

Your content should feed your marketing system, not just sit in your camera roll.

Ask for reviews

Your spring customers are some of your best marketing for summer. If someone has had a great experience, ask them to tell Google about it – “Hey here’s $5 off your next visit when you leave us a Google Review” – Make it easy. Recent reviews give potential customers another reason to trust you when they’re comparing businesses.

Sort out what happens after someone enquires

This is the bit I think businesses overlook the most:

What actually happens when someone fills out your form?
Does someone get notified?
Does the customer get an immediate response?
Does the lead go into your CRM?
Does someone follow up tomorrow?
What happens if they don’t respond?
What happens if they’re not ready yet?

Because getting the enquiry is only half the job. If your marketing is generating leads but your follow-up relies on someone remembering to call them back when they’re already flat out, you’ve got a system problem.

December: Stay visible while you’re busy

By December, you shouldn’t be scrambling to work out what your marketing strategy is. The groundwork should already be done, now it’s about execution.

Don’t switch everything off because you’re busy You might be flat out, your customers are everywhere, your team is exhausted and your screaming out for some reprieve. But people are still searching, still booking and still looking for things to do. So keep showing up.

Mix planned content with real-life content

Your planned content gives you the structure, then add what’s actually happening. A packed restaurant, a busy morning, a happy customer, your team getting ready for service, a beautiful morning on the Coast, a last-minute availability announcement, a behind-the-scenes moment. You don’t need every piece of content to be polished.

Sometimes the stuff that’s happening right now is the best content you’ve got.

Keep your information accurate

This becomes really important over Christmas. If you’re closed, say you’re closed, if you’ve changed your hours, update them. Check your website, check Google, check your socials. There is nothing more frustrating for a customer than finding something online, driving somewhere and discovering the information was wrong.

Don’t disappear between Christmas and New Year

This is actually a huge opportunity. People are sitting on their phones, they’re planning January, they’re looking for things to do, and they’re thinking about what they want to get done in the new year… think of all those missed out “New Years Resolution” opportunities.

So while everyone else is posting “Merry Christmas” and disappearing until January 15, there’s an opportunity to stay visible.

Look at what’s actually working

But, don’t just roll straight into January and start again, look at the data:

what generated enquiries?
What generated bookings?
What content got people engaging?
Which ads actually produced results?
Where did your leads come from?
Where did they drop off?

That’s the information you should be using to plan the rest of summer.

What I’d do this week

If you’ve read all of that and thought, “Cool, that’s a lot”, don’t overcomplicate it. Start with these five things:

Book your content shoot – Get it in the calendar for October or early November.
Write down your key dates – Everything from now until the end of January.
Check your website on your phone – Click everything. Test everything. Fix anything that’s broken or outdated.
Update your Google Business Profile – Fresh photos, correct hours, current information.
Decide what you’re spending on marketing – Work out your November and December budget and when you want your campaigns running.

That’s it. Do those five things now and you’re already in a much better position than trying to pull everything together when December has arrived and you’re already drowning in work.

And here’s the bigger point…

Summer marketing isn’t really about posting more, it’s about having the whole thing working together.

Your content gets attention.
Your website turns that attention into an enquiry.
Your CRM keeps track of the opportunity.
Your follow-up keeps the conversation moving.
Your sales process turns the right opportunities into customers.
Your systems make sure things don’t fall through the cracks when you’re busy.
And your data tells you what’s actually working.

That’s the bit I think a lot of businesses miss, they think they need more leads, and sometimes they do, but sometimes the problem isn’t getting more people through the door, it’s what happens once they’re there.

Want someone to help you put it together?

This is exactly the kind of thing we help businesses with. We can help you plan and create your content, manage your social media, run your Google and Meta campaigns, fix or rebuild your website, improve your tracking and connect the systems behind your marketing so your leads don’t disappear into someone’s inbox.

Because the goal isn’t just to get more attention, it’s to turn that attention into actual business.

If you want to get your summer marketing sorted before things get hectic, book a free 30-minute strategy call.

We’ll look at where you’re at, what’s coming up over the next few months and what actually needs to happen between now and January.

Don’t wait until December to start marketing for summer. By then, you should be too busy running the business.