Christmas Light Installation Marketing: 4 Steps to a Winter Revenue Boost for Home Services Companies

The home services industry can get very busy during the holidays. Family gatherings on Christmas, Hanukah, and New Year’s Day often instigate home repairs, renovations, and deep cleaning in order to impress relatives and friends. Your business, whether it specializes in window washing, pressure cleaning, or landscaping, could benefit by making even more revenue with Christmas light installations.

Let’s be real; hanging up Christmas lights can be a tedious, time-consuming task — especially if you are a Cindy Lou Who and go crazy with decorating. Whether a homeowner is a Cindy who loves Christmas but just doesn’t have the time to hang lights, or a Grinch who is forced into hanging lights to appease a loved one, both can benefit from a professional Christmas light installation.

And, if you combine your specialty services, like pressure washing with the holiday light hanging service, you’ll be bringing in even more bucks!

I’ve got the perfect guide for you on how to make this the biggest revenue-generator for your business this year! It’s going to require a specialized marketing plan, but I have some incredible ideas to bring in enough jobs to keep you busy till after the New Year when those lights come down.

1. Reach prospects with professional holiday-themed postcards.

What is it that everyone loves so much about Christmas lights? It’s how beautiful they look on the roof, how they light up the neighborhood in the night sky, and how they bring back happy memories of family traditions. Put a gorgeous picture of a lit-up home on a postcard, and it’s sure to stop any homeowner in their tracks as they sort through their mail stack.

Direct mail marketing is a powerful marketing tactic not just because it engages different senses, like touch and sight. Prospects get to touch the paper, see a pretty picture, and also keep the postcard in their home for as long as they need it.

MarketReach reported in 2020 that 75% of business mail stays in the home for over 4 weeks and is revisited an average of 5 times! This means that the homeowner could receive your Christmas light installation flyer or postcard in October (pretty enough to put up on a refrigerator), keep it for a few weeks, and then contact you when they are ready to schedule the service.

Take a look at these sample designs:

They all have the same important design elements:

• Professional, relevant imagery that is pleasing to the eye
• Offers for a discount on services
• A strong call to action which prompts the recipient to respond

I also recommend that you also include a couple of five-star reviews. You can even put a QR code on the card to encourage the recipient to visit your website for more information. Once they connect with your brand online, you can start targeting them with digital ads. Which brings me to my next suggestion….

2. Launch coordinated, targeted digital ads to improve conversion rates.

When planning Christmas light advertising, you need to reach prospects from different angles. Sending them direct mail gives them the opportunity to learn about your business for the first time in a relaxed way (as opposed to door-knocking or cold-calling). Digital ads are a great follow-up tool that you can use to keep your brand at the forefront of their minds after they’ve received a holiday lights installation flyer or postcard.

PostcardMania’s integrated marketing plan, Everywhere Small Business, ties direct mail and digital ads together to make a powerful combo. Every prospect that visits your website following your direct mail campaign is funneled into an automatic digital ad campaign. These Christmas light installation digital ads can appear on Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Gmail.

The digital ads have designs similar to your postcard so that the prospect recalls your brand immediately and prompts them to click on it.

Here is an example of an Instagram ad that someone might see in their feed while scrolling in the app.

Best case scenario, the person stops scrolling, reads the post, and then clicks on the ad to get more information about you and schedule a service.

Recently, we’ve taken this marketing strategy to the next level and added location-based targeting and browsed-content targeting. Digital ads appear in front of prospects shopping at certain stores and searching on Google for specific items.

For example, you could create parameters around types of stores, such as holiday décor shops, Christmas tree farms, and toy stores. So as soon as someone visits a Christmas tree farm, they receive a targeted digital ad about your Christmas light hanging services.

Additionally, the Google search topics could include:

“Christmas lighting ideas”

“holiday decor”

“holiday lighting designs”

“Christmas lights on sale”

The more often your prospects visit your website or enter into these qualifiers, the more often they see your Christmas lighting advertisements and think about scheduling a service.

The Canada Post found in their research that integrated direct mail and digital campaigns elicit 39% more attention than single-media digital campaigns. Merkle also reported that marketing campaigns that used direct mail and one or more digital media experienced a 118% lift in response rate compared to using direct mail only.

3. Pick the right target audience to receive your Christmas lighting ad.

Another important aspect of your marketing campaign is who is receiving your advertisements. This is crucial because, with the right targeting, you could bring in even more annual revenue.

The key is selecting a mailing list that meets your criteria for an ideal customer. When it comes to holiday lighting, you’ll want to target homeowners living near your base of operations. Here are some points to consider when selecting a mailing list for a direct mail campaign (the list can also be used to create an audience for digital ads).

Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) List: EDDM is the most affordable option for a mailing list because it blankets entire areas and meets basic-level criteria, like zip code and property type. If you already have a specific area in mind, like a neighborhood full of high-end single-family homes, then you could mail a postcard to every house on the block and save some money in the process. The only downside is that this type of mailing list doesn’t give you access to first and last names so you won’t be able to add personalization to your cards, and there aren’t many extra options for targeting like annual income and home values.

Resident/Occupant List: This type of list is based on mail carrier routes, so every property listed on the route will receive a postcard. Some of the targeting options you have access to are: median household income, median age, home market value, and dwelling type. You’ll spend a bit more on this option but be able to send your mailers to homes in a higher-value bracket so the owners can afford your services. Or, you could mail directly to homeowners according to annual income. Either way, you’ll be able to target families who have money to spend on holiday lighting services. You’ll also be able to add first names on your postcards too.

Consumer List: Consumer mailing lists give you unlimited options for targeting, which include age, income, home value, marital status, and more. Your mailers will only go to homes that match your targeting criteria so there won’t be any wastefulness on postage. These mailing lists can get pricey depending on how specific you get, but it could be worth the extra money in order to get the right clients.

You may also want to consider mailing to an updated customer list – let’s say anyone who has used your services in the past year. We can upload your list of contacts and mail to them as well. This doesn’t cost you anything extra; you only have to pay for postage.

4. Take advantage of automated holiday light installation mailers.

Over the years, we’ve also taken the time and resources to update our direct mail technology, so you now have the option of signing up for direct mail automation. Traditional direct mail marketing campaigns typically allow you to choose a mailing schedule — weekly or monthly mailings — and then stick to a budget that works for your business. Automated mailings work outside those constraints and operate according to specific triggers you select.

For example, you could start a Website to Mailbox campaign and mail a postcard out to anyone who visits your website between October and December 20th — the week before Christmas Day. Everyone who clicks on your website will receive a holiday light installation postcard that advertises your services.

You can also mail postcards to people who click on specific web pages, new leads you enter into a Zoho or Salesforce account, and more.

Whether you choose one of our template postcards or a custom postcard design, we’ll work with you to create a marketing plan that works for your business and meets your goals for the holiday season.

Call one of our marketing consultants today at 1-800-628-1804 to turn on these holiday lighting installation marketing plans and get your revenue lit up this season!

Best,

Joy