How to Increase Holiday Income

The best income opportunities for a blogger or influencer come during the holiday season. If you are not tapping into this opportunity, you are really missing the boat. If you don’t know where to start, take a look at these tried and true methods to increase your holiday income.

10 Ways to Increase Holiday Income!

1. Write Seasonal Material

If you write it they will come. Well, maybe that isn’t always true. There are a lot of myths about blogging out there, but I guarantee that if you do not write holiday material, you will definitely receive zero views. Since this is probably the number one way to increase holiday income, it makes sense to devote the time to do so.

Now, if you are thinking that your niche isn’t conducive to holidays, take a moment to rethink that. Sure, food bloggers and home interior sites are a shoo-in for this time of year, but any niche can take advantage of this time of year.

Some Ideas for Material:

Write up a gift guide. It doesn’t matter what niche you are in, you can offer suggestions for gifts. If you have a homeschool blog, write about the best gifts for homeschooled children. If you are a fitness blogger, write about tips for avoiding holiday weight.

I could go on, but I think you get the point. There is always room for the holidays!

Solve a seasonal holiday issue. You just have to address what your target audience’s needs are for this time of year. If you don’t know what that might be, consider what you yourself struggle with, in relation to your niche.

Then, do your research and find a solution. If you can solve some otherwise ignored issue, you should be able to see a significant increase in your viewership. Which in turn, multiplies your opportunities to increase your holiday income.

Do a round-up. Yeah, I know these aren’t generally the best – content wise. But, if you are thorough in your round-up and don’t just jot down a list (i.e fill in the gaps with detail), you should be able to come up with a high-quality version.

2.Promote Holiday Deals via Newsletters

During this time of year, you will find a lot of special deals from your affiliates and ad company. Your audience is out there looking for deals, so make use of those.

Include a section in your newsletter for current holiday deals. Or better yet, do a holiday-themed newsletter. Talk about it frequently leading up to the holidays and promote the hell out of it.

You will likely see a surge in subscribers and your audience will be looking forward to those newsletters, knowing that there are going to be deals inside them.

3.Increase Holiday Income with Banner Ads

Every affiliate will have some sort of holiday special. Give it a prime spot on your sidebar. Be sure to change it out frequently so that it doesn’t become stale.

You can even set-up a rotating widget that will automatically change the ad at a given number of seconds. To make it even more eye-catching, add a vibrant border that contrasts with your normal theme colors.

4. Push Specials on Social Media

Don’t forget about your social media accounts. This is a great way to get extra clicks. Tweet out daily and weekly deals. Use Facebook and Instagram to create visual promotions that will appeal to your audience. (just make sure that you are following policies and terms of use for all parties).

5. Create Curated Holiday Themed Stores

Curated stores are simply a collection of affiliate products gathered by you and provided in one place for the ease of the user. If you already have curated stores, you know how much these bad boys can do for you.

If you have not yet stepped into the waters of curated material, you really should consider doing so. Probably the easiest way to create a curated store is through Amazon’s influencer program.

However, there are so many other options available for anyone wishing to get started with curated stores. The only important thing to keep in mind is that the most successful ones are very niche specific.

Since people tend to search by categories, try to stick with specific themes – such as “Ugly Christmas Sweaters” or “red and green Christmas decor”.

6. Create Holiday-Themed Pinterest Boards

Pinterest is the best visual search engine out there, and what is more visual than Christmas? Regardless of your niche, you should have a Christmas themed board.

It doesn’t have to be about decor or recipes if that isn’t your niche. But, you can always create a board that will fit your target audience.

Think about what your target audience is looking for or what problems they would have during the holidays. Then, make a board that will address those topics.

It could be something as simple as “Homeschooled Christmas” or “Have a Fit Christmas” or Christmas for [fill in the blank].

If you can’t come up with a board idea, do a search for the term “Christmas” and whatever your niche or favorite topic is. See what types of pins come up and use those to come up with an idea.

7. You’re an Influencer, so INFLUENCE

Regardless of your niche, your followers are going to be shopping for gifts. There is no reason why you can’t step outside of your niche for just a moment each week and offer something different.

Use it as a way to be relatable and let your audience get a sneak peek inside your life. Do a selfie wearing a new outfit. Tell a cute antidote about your shopping experience and then drop the affiliate link for purchasing the item.

If clothes aren’t your thing, you can do this same process with just about any item available – accessories, books, jewelry, tools, etc. Remember, people are actively looking for gift ideas during this time. It might as well be you who is giving it to them.

8. Tap Into Trends to Increase Holiday Income

It never fails. Every year there is some sort of trend that is popular. It could be a song, a new diet, a dance move, or a slew of other things. These can help you stay current and can sometimes be useful in helping you pick things to promote.

For instance, farmhouse decor became super popular once Joanna Gaines came on the scene. Take a look at how many Instagram accounts promote these types of products. They do so because it works.

9. Be Diligent

Just throwing out one post or one promoted product is not likely to earn you much reward. Like everything else, this is a numbers game.

If you are just now starting to write holiday content, don’t get discouraged if things don’t improve as much as you would like. It takes time to amass enough content to sustain and/or grow your viewership for this season.

For example, when I first started adding Christmas material on my home improvement blog, I went hot and heavy for two months. I created several DIYs centered around this theme.

In the first year, I saw my previously seasonal decline start to stabilize, which was a welcome improvement. But, it wasn’t until the next year that I saw a slight uptick in holiday numbers.

Each year showed more improvement over the previous as the available content gradually grew. The best part, the results tend to compound each year!

10. Start Early!

You know how it goes. The early bird always catches the worm! If you have ever walked down the aisle of any store, you know that Christmas comes earlier and earlier every year.

Let the stores guide you. If they are putting out Christmas in July, you should do that, too.

Hopefully, it will never get that bad, but you should at least begin your holiday material in October. Depending on your niche, September may be even better. Then, ramp up as soon as Halloween ends.

With some content, such as Pinterest pins, you have to get those out in circulation several months before you want them to peak. So, keep that in mind if Pinterest is a big delivery system for you.

Final Comments

These are just some of the ways that you can kick start your holiday income. I would recommend that you build on these and try to find creative ways to make big pushes during the last quarter of the year.

This is generally the most productive quarter for all bloggers, and can often see as much income as the other three quarters combined. Make the most of it!