Additional Revenue Streams for Holiday Decorators
As a Christmas enthusiast and blogger myself, working with professional holiday decorators on their websites, strategic planning, and marketing goals is a treat! Holiday decorators are passionate business owners and such visual thinkers, that it truly is a joy for me to see how my skills can help them spread more cheer. Often, one of our main goals when collaborating is figuring out how to create (and use their new website to feature) additional revenue streams for holiday decorators based off of their creativity.
Finding new ways to make money in your business is actually not new at all. No matter what industry you’re in, we’re all trying to find new ways to reach current clients and new ways to reach new clients. A business that remains stagnant, whether in their designs or structure, never stand the test of time. And since holiday decorators have particularly such drastic schedules because your work revolves around holidays, I want you to find more ways to make money. The only way to solve that problem is to start getting creative in how you package your skills and services.
After spending a lot of time working with and percolating on the holiday design industry, I’ve started an ongoing list of ways professional holiday decorators can add new revenue streams to their business. You’re more than welcome to use these for your own business. And please, if you’ve got ideas, add them in the comments section!
Service Based Revenue Stream Ideas for Holiday Decorators
- Host Decorating Workshops: Share your hard-earned knowledge by conducting workshops teaching clients how to decorate their homes or offices. What’s great about this is that you can do this any time of the year. Plus, it helps establish you as a thought leader in your field. Never be afraid to share your knowledge- but also get comfortable with financially valuing it.
- Offer Virtual Decorating Consultations: Because holiday decorating seasons are packed, most professional decorating companies can only cover a small geographic area for your services. But, by offering virtual services, you can expand your reach. The trick to this is planning out how you’ll handle a virtual design service: How much time do you give to consultations? What deliverables does the client get? Once you decide these, it’s easier to price this service and explain its worth to clients. (Also, be sure you’re sending some product link suggestions with things you get an affiliate kick back for!)
- Offer Personalized Gift Wrapping Services: You and I know how much design work goes into planning a Christmas tree. And, then, to have shoddily wrapped presents underneath it? I think not! For holiday decorating clients you already have, offer an upsale of personalized gift wrapping services, guaranteeing beautiful packages that coordinate with the tree. You can offer faux-wrapped packages that can be easily opened by the client to add gifts as they buy them or set a date to come wrap all the gifts as their home. Either way, this is a place to outsource to one of your newer employees with final approval by you.
- Offer Seasonal Home Organization: Provide home organization services with a focus on seasonal decorations. This is a great way to start your new year. As a small upsale, offer a home organization package that helps clients track, store, and protect their holiday decorations so that next year runs smoothly.
- Develop a Holiday Decor Appraisal Service: Those used to the holiday decorating industry know that there are a lot of collectibles that can be worth serious value. A great upsale to clients that have a Christmas collection or want to start one, is to offer an appraisal and sourcing service. Help them determine the value of what they currently have and source items that would help fill out or complete their collection.
- Offer Holiday Decor for Vacation Rentals: For the last decade and a half, AirBnB and VRBO rentals are on the rise, and owners love to promote them as an option for visiting family or fun locales around the holidays. Reach out to owners with a service to bring in decor (as a rental), set it up, and tear down at the end of the holiday season.
Product Based Revenue Streams Ideas for Holiday Decorators
- Rent Out Decorations: Even if your business is currently structured where clients “rent” decor from you, this is still an option! For all of those decor items that end up unused or kept from years ago, offer a rental service to clients who want to decorate themselves but don’t want to purchase and store their holiday decor. This is a great way to save your time, but still make money.
- Create DIY Christmas Tree Decoration Kits: Assemble and sell kits with all the materials needed for DIY clients to create their own holiday decorations. This trend has been on the rise for a few years now, so to be successful here you’re going to need to set yourself apart. Maybe you offer wilder Christmas tree designs or your kits are at a particular price point, but you’ll need a USP to make this one work.
- Sell Exclusive Seasonal Items: Sourcing Christmas decorations is already a big task. You’ve got Market to plan and source most of your designs and decor, but that’s also where everyone else is doing the same. Think about artisan Christmas decor, like Italian glass blowers and German glass ornament makers. If you can establish yourself as a US-based seller for these high-end, exclusive items you’ll open yourself up to more opportunities with minimal effort. Plus, think of all those lovely, business-expensed trips to Europe!
- Develop an Online Store: While most holiday decorators are offering services (which sometimes include the purchase of products for those designs) that serve a small number of clients, there’s a whole world of DIY decorators who are looking to buy their own Christmas decorations. Open an online shop and sell your wholesale purchases directly to them. But please plan for this! Successful online shops require at least one person beyond yourself to help market the products and fulfill orders.
Content & Education Based Revenue Streams for Holiday Decorators
- Create an Online Decorating Course: Develop and sell courses teaching various decorating techniques. Courses have proven themselves to continue to be a successful revenue stream. Use the knowledge you already have to either teach DIY decorators how to step-up their home decor or teach new professional holiday decorators how to have a successful business.
- Sell Decorating Books: I love a book download from a brand I admire. Share your knowledge through a book. Pick a topic (and be as niche as possible) and write a book (at least 100 pages, please) about that subject. Again, this could be how to decorate flocked trees, or how to have a professional decorating business, or how to assess your home for the best holiday decorating. Whatever you can talk someone’s ear off about, that’s your subject. Then, make sure to hire a professional graphic designer (ahem, like me) to make your book look as professional as you are.
Partnership Revenue Streams for Holiday Decorators
- Partner with Local Businesses: All too often, the easiest way to make money is to collaborate with businesses just slightly adjacent to your own. For instance, if there is a professional outdoor light company that serves the same area you do, reach out to them. Work out a kick back system between the two of you, so that you’re referring each other to more clients and making a little bit of cash when it works.
- Expand to Event Planning: As a former wedding and event planner, Christmas parties are a BIG deal. And most of those parties want to have holiday decor included in their event, but holiday decor is not something most event rental companies offer meaning that as a planner I have to source holiday decor from somewhere. So reach out to event planners and share your services with them so that when they do book those holiday parties, they come directly to you to do the decor.
- Set Up Affiliate Marketing: First, please don’t shove affiliate marketing into everything you do. That is poor business. Period. Affiliate marketing should be incorporated when it’s something you would recommend whether or not you got a kick back. And, you’ll find that in the long run, affiliate marketing tends to make you more money when you do it that way because people will continue to build trust with you and your brand.
There are so many ways to expand and scale your holiday decorating business, and I love brainstorming them. The work you do is incredible, so you deserve to have a fulfilling business to benefit from it. If you’ve tried any of these additional revenue streams for holiday decorators or have other ideas, please share in the comments. I’d love to hear more about what worked in your business!
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Having been a visual artist for over 10 years, I know that every part of a brand (even the parts that are often unseen) deserve to be expressed with honesty and beauty. I am happiest standing behind the scenes, creating every design and detail for focused and intentional business owners. I created EP Design to stand beside visionaries and thought leaders who are fueled by joy.
