Christmas Light Installation Marketing: How to Fill Your Holiday Schedule (and Next Year’s Too)

Every year, right after Halloween, the same thing happens.

One house on the street goes up first. Perfect rooflines, warm white, not a single sagging strand. And within a week, every neighbor who looked at it is standing in their own driveway, staring at a ladder, doing the math on whether a weekend of untangling is worth it.

Most of them decide it isn’t. The question is whether they call you.

Christmas light installation is one of the shortest selling seasons there is. You have roughly eight weeks to book installs, and then a second, quieter job in January taking it all down. Miss the window and the phone doesn’t ring again until next fall.

The good news: you don’t need a big ad budget. You need to be easy to find, easy to say yes to, and easy to remember next year. Here’s the plan I’d use.

The short version

• Start with Google Maps. People search “Christmas light installation near me” and pick from the map. Your free Google Business Profile should be ready before anything else.
• Sell a package, not a pile of lights. Three clear options with “install, maintain, take down” built in are easier to say yes to than a custom bid for every house.
• Send everyone to one quote page. A page that takes the address and a photo of the house, so you can quote without driving out.
• Film it at night. A ten-second clip of the lights coming on sells better than anything you can write.
• Book whole streets. One finished house is an ad for every neighbor who drives past it.
• Run a seven-day campaign. One small step a day, then put your effort into whatever booked jobs.
• Rebook before you take it down. January takedown is the best time to lock in next November.

Where to spend your time

If you have a few hours a week for marketing in a busy season, this is roughly the order I’d work in:

Channel	What it’s good for	Priority
Google Business Profile	People searching for installers nearby	Essential
Last year’s customers (text or email)	The easiest bookings you’ll get	Essential
Night-time videos and photos	Showing the result in seconds	High
Facebook neighborhood groups	Quick seasonal leads	High
Nextdoor	Homeowners on specific streets	High
Door hangers near finished installs	Booking neighbors of happy customers	High
Businesses, HOAs, and property managers	Bigger, repeat accounts	Medium
Blog posts and service pages	Search traffic for next season	Long-term

1. Start with Google Maps

When someone types “Christmas light installers Bend” or “holiday lighting near me,” the map results at the top do most of the work. Those come from Google Business Profile, and it’s free.

Before you spend a dollar on ads, make sure yours has:

• Holiday lighting listed as a service. Spell out what you do: roofline lights, trees and shrubs, wreaths and garland, commercial displays, takedown and storage.
• Night photos of real installs. This is the whole sale. Daytime photos of lights look like wires on a gutter.
• Your service area. The towns and neighborhoods you’ll actually drive to in December.
• A seasonal post. “Now booking holiday light installs, limited spots before Thanksgiving” is a perfectly good one.

Then ask every happy customer for a review, ideally the night their lights first go on, when they’re grinning in the driveway. Google gives you a review link and QR code, and the free Review Card Maker turns it into a card you can leave on the door. Reviews have to be genuine: Google doesn’t allow discounts or freebies in exchange for them.

One thing most owners don’t realize: your map ranking changes depending on where the customer is searching from. You might show up first for someone near your shop and be invisible in the neighborhoods with the biggest houses. The free Google Maps Rank Map shows where you land from 49 spots around town.

What about Local Services Ads?

Google Local Services Ads are the pay-per-lead ads at the very top with the “Google Screened” or “Google Guaranteed” badge. Categories vary by area and Google doesn’t list holiday lighting as its own category everywhere, so check what you’d qualify under before you plan around it. If you also offer something like handyman or electrical work, that may be your way in.

2. Sell a simple package

The fastest way to lose a holiday lighting lead is to make the homeowner wait three days for a custom quote. By then, the guy down the street has already said yes.

Three tiers cover most houses:

Package	What’s included
Roofline	Front roofline and peaks, timer, mid-season fixes, January takedown
Front of house	Roofline plus windows, entry, and a couple of trees or shrubs
The whole show	Full front, landscape lighting, wreaths and garland, the works

A few things that make packages easier to sell:

• Include takedown in the price. “Installed, maintained, and taken down” is the reason people hire you. Don’t make it a surprise line item in January.
• Decide whether you sell or lease the lights. Many installers include the lights and keep them, storing them over the summer and reusing them next year. Customers like not owning a garage full of tangled cords, and you get a reason to come back.
• Say what happens when a strand goes out. A simple “we’ll fix it within 48 hours” promise is a selling point, not a cost.
• Reward early booking. A small discount for booking before a set date in October or early November spreads your work out and fills the calendar sooner.

3. Send everyone to one quote page

This is the step most small businesses skip, and it’s where a lot of marketing money disappears.

Every ad, post, and door hanger should send people to one page about holiday lighting, built to get a quote request. Not your homepage. Something like:

Christmas Light Installation in Bend, Oregon
We hang them, keep them shining, and take them down. You just flip the switch.

• Roofline, trees, and wreaths
• Commercial-grade LED lights, timer included
• January takedown and storage

Get a free quote in a day. Send your address and a photo of the front of your house.

The most useful feature you can add is a photo-based quote: the homeowner sends their address and one or two photos of the front of the house. With a photo and a quick look at the roofline on a map, you can often give a price range without driving out. In December, that saved drive time is worth a lot.

If your current site can’t do that, you have options. The Instant Quote widget in the Tool Belt adds a quote form to the site you already have, or a new website built around quote requests can do it from the start. Either way, test the form before you send anyone to it, and if spam starts showing up, here’s how to stop it.

For search, a small set of focused pages helps: one for residential Christmas light installation, one for commercial holiday lighting, each naming the areas you serve. Check real search demand in Google Keyword Planner before writing a dozen pages. And if you also do landscaping or yard work, your site can change with the season so holiday lighting is the first thing people see in November.

4. Film the flip of the switch

Holiday lighting might be the most visual service a small business can sell. Use that.

A simple video formula:

1. Three seconds of the dark house at dusk.
2. Five seconds of the crew on ladders, clips going on.
3. The switch. Lights on. Hold for three or four seconds.
4. End with your business name and “message us for a free quote.”

Shoot it on your phone right at dusk, when there’s still a little blue in the sky. It looks far better than full dark. Trim it in CapCut and post it as a Facebook Reel, Instagram Reel, and YouTube Short. Get the homeowner’s OK before posting their house.

Here’s an example post to go with it:

🎄 Bend, want the house that everyone slows down to look at?

We’re booking Christmas light installs for the season:

✨ Roofline, trees, and wreaths
✨ Bright LED lights and a timer
✨ Fixes all season if anything goes out
✨ We take it all down in January

Send us a photo of your house for a free quote. Install dates fill up fast after Thanksgiving.

Canva’s free tier is plenty for flyers, door hangers, and holiday graphics. I go deeper on both tools in The $0 Marketing Department.

5. Book the whole street

Every finished install is a glowing billboard on a street full of people with the same roofline and the same problem.

Use it:

• Door hangers on the neighbors. “We just lit up 1420 next door. Book this week and we’ll install yours the same day.” Same street means less drive time, so you can afford a small discount.
• A yard sign for the season. With the homeowner’s permission, a small sign with your name and quote page link.
• Ask for a neighborhood group post. Happy customers are often glad to share a photo and tag you. That beats any ad.
• Look at HOAs. Some neighborhoods coordinate entrance displays or streetwide lighting. One conversation with a board can turn into several houses or a common-area contract.

On Nextdoor, a free Business Page lets you post to nearby neighborhoods, and paid Local Deals can target specific ones. Recommendations from real neighbors usually work best.

Don’t forget businesses

Restaurants, shops, offices, and property managers want to look festive too, and they usually book earlier, pay on invoice, and come back every year. A short list of ten local businesses and a friendly visit in September or October can fill the weekdays your residential customers don’t want.

6. Run a seven-day campaign

You don’t need a three-month marketing plan. Try one focused week:

• Day 1: Set up or tune up your Google Business Profile: holiday lighting service, night photos, service area, and a link to your quote page.
• Day 2: Publish your holiday lighting page and make sure new requests reach your phone right away.
• Day 3: Text or email last year’s customers to rebook, but only the ones who’ve agreed to hear from you.
• Day 4: Post your best night-time video on Facebook, Instagram, and Nextdoor.
• Day 5: Visit or call five local businesses about commercial displays.
• Day 6: Leave door hangers on the houses around every install you’ve finished.
• Day 7: Count inquiries, booked installs, what you spent, and any requests you didn’t follow up on. Do more of whatever worked.

7. Rebook them for next year in January

Here’s the bigger opportunity. A holiday lighting customer isn’t one job. If you do it well, they’re a customer every November for years.

The best moment to lock that in is takedown day, when you’re already at the house and they’re still happy with how it looked.

Every takedown should trigger three things:

1. A review request, if they haven’t left one yet.
2. A “reserve next year” offer, with a small early-booking discount or a guaranteed install date.
3. A note on their account: what you installed, any photos, and any changes they want next time. Next November’s quote takes two minutes instead of a site visit.

If you do other seasonal work, this is also where you mention it. A lighting customer in December might be a spring cleanup or summer maintenance customer in April. I wrote more about that in Don’t Let Your Customers Hibernate and Fall Cleanup Marketing. The free Seasonal Marketing Calendar maps out what to promote each month for your trade.

A quick word on ladders and insurance

Nothing hurts your marketing like a crew member falling off a roof. Make sure your crew has the right ladders, training, and fall protection for roof work. OSHA’s fall prevention guidance is a good place to start. Carry liability insurance and know what it covers. And in Central Oregon, a frosty roof at 8 a.m. is a different job than the same roof at 2 p.m., so plan around ice and snow.

It’s also worth saying on your site and in your quotes that you’re insured. Homeowners want to know before they let anyone on their roof.

Tools worth a look

None of these are affiliate links, and prices change, so check current plans before you sign up.

• Google Business Profile: free. Your foundation for showing up on Google Maps.
• Nextdoor for Business: free Business Page, with optional paid Local Deals for specific neighborhoods.
• Canva: free tier. Door hangers, flyers, and holiday social graphics without a designer.
• CapCut: free features, paid options. Quick edits for night-time reveal videos.

A small crew can get very far with those four, plus a spreadsheet of customers and what you installed at each house.

Common questions about Christmas light installation marketing

When should I start marketing Christmas light installation?

Ideally in September or October, when homeowners and businesses start planning and before your best install dates fill up. If you’re starting in November, you’re not too late: focus on Google Maps, last year’s customers, and door hangers near your installs, since those book fastest.

Should I sell or lease the lights?

Both work. Leasing (you supply, install, take down, and store the lights) makes for an easier sale and a natural reason for customers to rebook every year. Selling may suit customers who want to keep their lights. Many installers offer leasing as the default and buying as an option.

Do I need a website, or is Facebook enough?

Facebook can bring in leads, but a simple page with a quote form gives every post, ad, and door hanger one place to send people, and it shows up in Google searches. One good holiday lighting page beats a ten-page site nobody updates.

How much should I spend on ads?

Start small and short: a couple hundred dollars over the first two weeks is enough to see which channel books installs. Judge each one by what it cost to win a booked job compared with what that job earns, not by clicks or likes.

Want this set up for your business?

Most small lighting businesses don’t need a bigger website. They need a short-season system that turns attention into booked installs: a quote page that takes a house photo, a Google profile that shows up across town, a little local advertising, and a January rebooking routine that fills next year before it starts.

That’s the kind of thing I build. I can make you a website built around quote requests, help you show up on Google Maps across town, or fix the quote form on the site you already have. I work with businesses in Bend, Redmond, Sisters, Sunriver, and across Central Oregon.

The lights come down in January. The customers don’t have to.

Tell me about your business