🥁 Black Friday Started on Halloween. Phil Collins Would’ve Started in September.

Why we’re all living in one endless promo season.

You couldn’t even finish your fun-size Snickers before Costco dropped its Black Friday catalog, Target launched “early access” deals, and Amazon kicked off another “not-Prime-Day” sale that somehow still takes over your inbox.

The holiday season didn’t start early…it just never ended.

We used to have a rhythm: Fall. Then Halloween. Then Thanksgiving. Then the holidays.
Now it’s just one continuous song where every instrument’s playing at once and no one knows what key they’re in.

Retail’s become a never-ending drum circle of urgency and markdowns.
There’s no rest, no pause, no breath between promotions. It’s just a permanent cymbal crash of “LAST CHANCE” emails and countdown timers that reset every 48 hours.

The irony? Direct mail doesn’t work that way.

It can’t.

It takes patience, planning, approvals, data, print, postage…the long way around.
By the time you decide to “jump on a trend,” you’re already two fiscal quarters behind the beat.

But that slower tempo? That’s actually your advantage.

Because while digital marketers are out there mashing the panic button, good mailers know how to build anticipation. They understand that timing is everything.

When you hit the mailbox at the right moment, you don’t need flashing lights or another flash sale. You just need the right beat.

And if you listen closely—past the noise, the ads, and the fake snow machines—you can almost hear it.

A clean, steady rhythm. Waiting for the drop.

It’s faint at first, somewhere behind the chaos—like something coming in the air tonight.

Somewhere, a certain British drummer knows exactly what that feels like.

Mail is the Drum. Digital’s Just the Cymbals.

You felt it, didn’t you? That slow build. The silence. The anticipation.

And then…the drums.

Phil Collins, 1981. “In the Air Tonight.”

That moment hits harder than most marketing plans. Everyone knows it’s coming, but it still lands like a surprise.

That’s what direct mail should be in your marketing mix…the beat that everything else builds toward. The rhythm that defines the song.

Mail doesn’t chase trends. It sets tempo.

Digital channels? They’re the cymbals. The crash after the impact. The noise that follows the moment.

When you plan your campaigns with in-home timing as your downbeat, every other channel knows when to come in.
The envelope drop is your drum fill.
Email, social, and search just add sparkle on top.

Phil didn’t wait for the synth to tell him when to hit.
And neither should you.

Promos That Dropped Before the Candy Did.

A quick survey of seasonal sanity:

If you’re wondering why your November mailer tanked, it’s because your customers already spent their Q4 budget on a 75” TV and three streaming services they’ll forget to cancel.

The inbox might be infinite, but wallets are not.

The New Holiday Math.

Let’s talk timing. I guess for your Q4 2026 planning (hey, it’s never too early).

Digital marketers treat the calendar like Play-Doh. Need to move the sale up a week? Just hit “Publish.”
Direct mailers live by physics: print schedules, postal windows, and the cold reality that Santa doesn’t overnight letters from the North Pole.

So how do you stay competitive when everyone’s already shouting “FINAL DAYS” in mid-October?

Try this:

Mailing early isn’t risky. Mailing late is.
Your mail piece shouldn’t arrive the same week as Santa.

Mail First. Cymbals Later.

Plan your next campaign like a drummer, not a DJ.
Start the beat now. Let digital crash in when it counts.

Because the most memorable moments in marketing—and music—happen when the drums hit just right.

Subscribe, share, or forward this issue to the one marketer you know who’s still “finalizing creative.”
He needs this more than Phil Collins needs a new hi-hat.

Subscribe today at presortedbs.com.

Somewhere, a marketer just approved their “holiday creative.”
It’ll hit mailboxes January 8.
Don’t be that guy.