Holiday lighting marketing: 20 ideas to book early and renew every year

This is our ranking for holiday lighting installers, from the cheapest booked job to the dearest, based on how each channel charges and how holiday lighting customers hire. It is not a survey and it has no made-up percentages. Check it against your own books with the cost per lead calculator.

The pattern is the same in most trades: the channels you own get cheaper every month you keep them up, and the ones you rent cost the same on the last day as the first. For holiday lighting installers, the phone sits near the top because a dark display days before a party is the call that cannot wait.

For holiday lighting installers the year turns on October through early December, and it goes quiet in spring and summer. Move these rows earlier or later to match your region.

The "get ready" months matter most. A reminder that lands two or three weeks before October through early December books work for the rush; the same reminder sent during the rush only adds to a phone you already cannot answer.

You can run all twenty yourself. Where Koira does one for you, the feature is named and linked.

Get found

• 1. Build a town page for each place you serve. People search "holiday lighting installer near me" and the town name, and a page about your work there matches that search. Town pages come with Koira's SEO, written from your own jobs, not copied.
• 2. A page for each service: wreaths and garland, storefront and commercial displays and the rest. Each service is its own search for holiday lighting customers. One page that lists everything, from roofline lighting to takedown and storage, matches none of them well. The Koira website is built from your services, so each one gets its own page.
• 3. Post a finished job every month. Before and after photos of your takedown and storage, the town and what you did give search engines something new and give the next buyer proof. Koira writes a monthly post from the photos you already take (website).
• 4. Fix listings that disagree with your site. A wrong number or old hours on a listing costs you the call from someone ready to book a roofline on a small house. Change your hours once and Koira updates Google and Bing to match (listings).
• 5. Let people price a roofline on a small house without calling. Most people want a number before they call, and a roofline on a small house is simple enough to price without a visit. Koira's Get a price button answers from your own price list, day or night, and never invents a number.
• 6. Check your listing against the competition. Search "holiday lighting installer near me" the way a customer would, from a phone, in a town two over. The free AI report takes about a minute and shows where you are losing calls.

Win the call and the bid

• 7. Text back every missed call within a minute. When the call is about a dark display days before a party, a voicemail greeting loses the job. The receptionist replies within about a minute and books the job straight onto your day.
• 8. Book wreaths and garland by text instead of phone tag. Phone tag is where holiday lighting jobs go quiet. With booking by text, the customer replies with a time and the visit lands on your day.
• 9. Follow up every estimate for a full roofline, trees and wreaths for a large home on day two and day four. Big tickets like a full roofline, trees and wreaths for a large home take time to decide, and a quiet holiday lighting estimate is usually a forgotten one, not a no. Bid follow-ups send two polite nudges on a set schedule and stop when they sign or say no.
• 10. Send good, better and best on every quote for tree and shrub wrapping. Choices make it easier to say yes on tree and shrub wrapping, and many buyers pick the middle. With Koira estimates, the customer picks an option, signs and pays the deposit from their phone.

Bring them back

• 11. Ask for the review an hour after the invoice is paid. Customers who just paid for a roofline on a small house or a full roofline, trees and wreaths for a large home are as happy as they will ever be. Koira texts the ask with your Google link one hour after payment, every time (reviews). Google does not allow offering anything in return, so it never does.
• 12. Reply to every review and name the job and the town. A reply that mentions tree and shrub wrapping and the town reads well to the next person comparing holiday lighting installers. Koira drafts replies as reviews come in (reviews); bad ones always come to you first.
• 13. Send a card to the neighbors of each job. A lit roofline the whole street sees every night for weeks. The homes nearby already noticed your truck. Neighbor postcards do it for you: no list to buy, no design, no printer.
• 14. Write to past customers ahead of October through early December. People who hired you for roofline lighting once are the easiest booking you will get, if they hear from you before they start looking. Koira campaigns text and email past customers when the season turns, with one reply to book.
• 15. Offer the yearly install, takedown and storage before you leave. A plan turns one visit into steady work and makes you the first call when a full roofline, trees and wreaths for a large home comes up. With maintenance plans on Front Office, customers join with one tap and Koira books each visit.
• 16. Ask happy customers to send a neighbor. Word of mouth works better when someone asks, right after the tree and shrub wrapping went well and the invoice is paid. Koira asks after a paid job and a good review and gives the customer a link to share; you set the thank-you (referrals).

Grow past one-off jobs

• 17. Build a referral swap with landscapers. They meet people who need holiday lighting before you do, and you meet people who need them. Koira's reporting shows which source each paid job came from, so you know which partners send real work.
• 18. Write to shopping centers near you. Shopping centers, restaurants, HOAs and property managers hire again and again, so one yes is worth many one-time jobs. Front Office's commercial outreach finds the buyers near you and writes to them.
• 19. Set up the quiet season early. The quiet stretch is when shopping centers and old quotes for a full roofline, trees and wreaths for a large home finally get your attention, so set it up ahead of time. Koira can run a campaign for the next season while you work through old quotes.
• 20. Count which channel paid for itself. Busy is not the same as profitable. A holiday lighting company needs to know what each booked job cost to win. Use the free marketing budget planner, then check it against Koira's reporting.

There is no right percentage for every holiday lighting business, and we will not invent one. Start from the jobs you want: how many roofline lighting a month, what each is worth to you, and how many leads it takes to win one. The free marketing budget planner turns those into a monthly budget, and the cost per lead calculator shows what a booked job really costs from each source.

Each month, write down where each lead came from, which ones booked and what each source cost. A channel that brings plenty of calls about a roofline on a small house but few booked jobs like a full roofline, trees and wreaths for a large home may look busy and still lose money. For holiday lighting installers, also count missed calls: the free missed call calculator puts a number on what a dark display days before a party going to voicemail costs.

Owned leads come from things you built: reviews, your site, past customers, the street around each job and landscapers who refer you. Rented leads come from platforms and ads, and stop when the payments do.

In its 2025 annual report, Angi describes lead fees as owed for each consumer match, regardless of whether the pro ultimately provides the service. Google counts a missed call during your business hours as a charged lead if the caller stays on the line for more than 20 seconds. Neither is a reason to avoid paid leads, but both are reasons to build the owned channels first. See holiday lighting leads: where to buy them and how to need fewer for each platform's own rules.

Everything above can be done by hand. Koira does the repeating parts for a holiday lighting company. On the free Office plan: a site with Book online and Get a price, Google and Bing listings kept matching, a review ask after every paid job, estimates and invoices. Neighbor postcards are one flat price per card on every plan.

Grow costs $249 a month plus usage at cost, meaning texts, call minutes and emails with nothing added. Grow adds the receptionist and text-back on a Koira number, campaigns, referrals and bid follow-ups. Koira Front Office is $499 a month flat, with usage included. It adds commercial outreach and maintenance plans. There is no per-person fee: one person or fifteen pay the same. See pricing, or how a holiday lighting company runs on Koira.