How to Get Christmas Light Customers: 7 Sourced Channels

Who should you contact first?#

Last season's customers, in August. A homeowner whose strands are in a labelled bin in your garage is a re-install at a third of a lights-included season on GlowBid's default card, with no measuring, no mockup and no selling. LightQuoter's rebook guide (April 2, 2026) says the installers who start in July rebook the most, and claims 60 to 80 percent rebook rates without a source; the timing advice is sound even if the percentage is not proven. Year-two pricing covers what to charge the returning customer.

The text is one message: the lights are tested, here is the price, reply with a week. Under CASL a signed job gives you implied consent for two years, as long as the message identifies your company, gives a contact and carries an unsubscribe. Send it from a business number so the consent record and any STOP live somewhere other than your personal phone. A signed multi-year lease in GlowBid creates the renewal touchpoint for each season on its own, next to that season's install and takedown jobs.

How do you get found on Google?#

By being the closest complete profile with recent reviews. Google's own local ranking page names three factors: relevance, distance and prominence, and says more reviews and positive ratings can help local ranking, that replies to reviews help a business stand out, and that there is no way to pay for a better position. So the work is the profile: the right category, service area, hours, your own photos of your own installs, and reviews.

The review numbers that matter come from BrightLocal's 2026 survey of 1,002 US consumers: 97 percent read reviews for local businesses, 74 percent look for reviews from the last three months, 68 percent will only use a business with four stars or better, and 47 percent will not use one with fewer than 20 reviews. Twenty recent reviews is the bar. Ask at the January takedown, when the customer has had the lights for six weeks and you are on their driveway, using the link from the Ask for reviews button on your profile. Never attach a discount: Google's review guidance says offering free or discounted goods or services for reviews is prohibited as fake and misleading content.

Reply to every review, including the bad one. Google says replies show you value the feedback, and the next homeowner reads the reply as closely as the review.

Do yard signs and door hangers still work?#

Yes, because the mechanism has not changed: the neighbours saw the lights go up and the sign tells them who to call. Vistaprint Canada lists lawn signs from $10.99 each, stands sold separately, so 40 installs is about $440 in signs. Put the sign in the day of the install, with the customer's permission written into the agreement, and pick it up at takedown.

Check the by-law first. Ottawa's Temporary Signs on Private Property By-law restricts temporary signs on residentially zoned lots to a short exempt list, so a sign on a customer's lawn may need a permit or may not be allowed; call 3-1-1 before the first one goes in. Your city has its own rule, and a sign on the road allowance is a different by-law again.

Door knocking is the channel with the most honest numbers, and they are Jason Geiman's, not ours. His door-knocking post (November 11, 2024) profiles an installer who went from 40 to 367 accounts in one season and gives the working figures: about 50 doors per sale, 50 to 100 doors in a four-hour evening, 4 pm to 8:30 pm, and a script that asks whether they have someone doing their lights. Those are his figures for one company. Door hangers after each install are the low-effort version: the 20 or 30 nearest houses get a card that says whose lights those are, the day the lights go up. Strandr's marketing page prices hangers at $0.15 to $0.25 each with no supplier named, so price them locally.

What referral rule actually pays?#

One the customer can repeat in a sentence, paid only after the referred job pays. An example setting, not a GlowBid default: a $50 credit on the referrer's next re-install for every referred household that signs and pays a deposit, with no cap. The referred household gets the same $50 off. The rule works because the neighbour has already seen the house; the credit only has to get them to send a text.

Keep the referral credit and the review request apart. A referral credit is a normal commercial arrangement; a credit for a Google review breaks Google's policy. Two asks, two days, two different sentences. Put the referral rule on the quote PDF and on the takedown invoice, because those are the two documents the customer reads to the end.

Nextdoor, HOA boards and realtors#

Three channels that cost time rather than money, each with a mechanism you can verify.

Nextdoor. A business page is free, and the platform runs on neighbours asking who did a job and other neighbours answering. Nextdoor's own page claims 79 percent of neighbours were influenced by a recommendation on it; that is their figure about their platform, so treat it as a reason to have a page, not a forecast. Ask the customer who leaves the Google review to recommend you on Nextdoor the same week.

HOA boards. In communities with an association, a permanent lighting system almost always needs Architectural Review Committee approval, according to Mulcahy Law Firm's October 31, 2025 note, and most covenants set a window for seasonal displays. That makes the board a channel: bring a one-page package with the product, the colour options that match the community palette, the seasonal date window you will honour, and a sample of the permanent installation agreement. A board that has approved your package once sends every homeowner who asks to you.

Realtors. Agents buy closing gifts and stage listings through November and December. A gift certificate at your minimum job, made out to the new homeowner with the agent's name on it, puts your sign on a house that every neighbour is watching. No number to give you here; it is a relationship with three or four agents, built in October.

What do you show them once they call?#

Their own house with the lights on it, priced, within hours. Geiman's quoting guide (November 2, 2025) says to get the quote out within 2 to 4 hours during business hours and to expect a 15 to 25 percent close rate at premium pricing. A mockup drawn on the homeowner's own photo, with the footage by run and the price from your rate card, is what turns the call into that quote; how to make a Christmas light mockup walks through it, and the free roofline tool does the drawing and the measuring with no login until export. Photo measurements are estimates confirmed on site, and the quote says so.

Then the quote gets followed up on a schedule, not when you remember. Our 21-day quote follow-up sequence is five touches, day 0, 2, 5, 10 and 21, with the consent and opt-out lines written in, and it stops the moment the customer replies or signs. In Canada the CASL templates cover the wording; the penalty ceiling under section 20 is $10 million per violation for a business, which is why the consent record matters more than the message.

Worked example: one install day's marketing, and the season#

An illustration with only verified prices and one labelled example setting. A two-storey install goes in on a Tuesday in November.

Over 40 installs that is $439.60 CAD in signs, about $318 USD at the Bank of Canada's 1.3840, plus stands and hangers. If 10 of those customers each send one neighbour who signs, the referral credits are $500 CAD on next season's re-installs, and the season's marketing spend is $939.60 CAD plus print, against 10 new jobs that arrived with the house already seen. What we will not do is tell you how many of the 40 neighbours call, because nobody has published that with a source. Draw the neighbour's house in the free tool the day they call, and the quote goes out the same afternoon.

What Strandr and LightQuoter publish, and what they do not source#

Strandr's twelve strategies (updated September 2026) give a number for nearly every channel: 200 jobs in a season from a Google profile, 50 reviews and a 4.8 rating to outrank competitors, $5 to $15 per Facebook lead, a 60 percent close rate on referrals, 30 to 50 percent of capacity booked from one email. None of them links to a source, and the one consumer figure it uses, 74 percent wanting reviews under three months old, is BrightLocal's. LightQuoter's rebook guide has the right calendar (January thank-you, July and August renewal, September and October follow-ups) and an unsourced 60 to 80 percent. Both lists are worth reading for the mechanisms. Neither tells you which numbers are theirs.

Mistakes that waste a marketing season#

• Ads before reviews. A click lands on a profile with three reviews from 2024 and goes to the next result. Twenty recent reviews first, then spend.
• A discount for a Google review. Against Google's policy, and a profile can lose its reviews over it. Credit the referral, not the review.
• Texting last year's list from a personal phone. No consent record, no STOP log, and the number leaves with the phone. Business number, dated agreement on file.
• Signs on the road allowance or in a zone that bans them. A by-law officer pulls them and fines the customer. Read the by-law, then ask permission in the agreement.
• Starting in November. The August re-book text and the September door knocking are the season; November is install days.
• A quote with no picture. A price on a scrap of paper is compared on price. A mockup on their own photo is compared on the house.
• No follow-up after the quote. Day 0 and then silence. Five touches over 21 days, tied to the quote's status.

GlowBid Pro keeps the customers these channels bring: the pipeline board with its Re-book stage, quote-view tracking, the automated follow-up sequence through Twilio with consent handling built in, and the renewal touchpoint a signed lease creates each season. Founding pricing is $299 a year for Core and $499 for Pro on the pricing page, 7-day trial, no card, 100 founding places, full product open November 1, 2026.