How to Get Your Holistic Business Christmas Ready

It's scary to think we’re just about to start the last quarter of the year and Christmas is creeping up fast. So, are you and your holistic business Christmas ready?

The last quarter of the year is the busiest and most profitable time for many small business owners. Even if you don’t offer any different services over the festive season to the rest of the year, there are still plenty of opportunities for you to market yourself, and finish your year on a high.

Christmas Party Alternatives

Not everyone wants to do the traditional boozy Christmas meal with forced festivities. But it is a time of year when family, friends and work groups gather, so what could you do to provide an alternative?

Could you offer an experience for example yoga, meditation, aromatherapy, or herb walks that a small group could enjoy together? You could collaborate with another practitioner to provide a retreat experience.

How about running a winter skincare workshop making natural products that can be given as gifts? Or a seasonal cooking workshop. Or a storytelling workshop?

Be creative based on your skills and resources - people are always looking for something different to do.

Create Christmas Gifts

What services and/or products could you turn into Christmas gifts? How could you theme them around Christmas? Or could bundle different elements together? This could be a great opportunity to collaborate with another practitioner.

If your offers are delivered online, consider how you can make them into something more tangible. Having something to open on Christmas morning takes your gift to a new level. If you’re doing online cooking classes could have a branded apron, or if you’re doing yoga classes, you could provide non-slip yoga socks.

How about creating starter kits such as making your own hand cream, or setting up a morning routine? What do you do that could be turned into a kit for someone?

Gift Vouchers

How about creating a range of gift vouchers for people to give? A friend bought vouchers for her friends and family from favourite local services and shops. I got a voucher for my hairdresser and my hubby got vouchers for the local butcher. Is this something you could offer in your business?

As with the online products above, how could you make a voucher into something more tangible? Is there a small, relevant product you could add that would give the receiver something to open like a lovely notebook, Christmas decoration, hand cream or luxury chocolates?

Create a Gift Guide

Creating a guide to buying gifts will help to inspire the buyer looking for great gifts for their loved ones. By letting them know who the gifts are suitable for will help them choose the best options so label them as for him, for her, for kids, for the family, under £15 etc. Remember to include any benefits such as free delivery and wrapping.

There are different ways you can do this from having a dedicated gift page on your website, to a leaflet that can be sent as a digital copy to your email list, or even printed out if you’re attending in-person events or have local places you can share them.

Christmas Countdown

Create a campaign counting down to the day. This doesn’t have to be the full advent calendar, you could use the idea of the 12 days of Christmas, or countdown the weeks.

Using your chosen countdown time, provide a tip, quiz question, or offer for each day, and share it on social media or to your email list. You could even use the countdown idea to run a fun, relevant Christmas challenge for your audience.

Create a Christmas Ad

Christmas ads are a hot topic every year - which of the big brands is going to make the top spot? You don’t need to let their big budgets stop you from creating your own video. My favourite Christmas ads in the last few years were by a local family-run hardware store. Their creativity soon got noticed and their 2019 video went viral and received 2.7M views on YouTube – wow! The then Prince Charles visited their shop in 2021 having heard of them and to continue his campaign to support local High Streets. What fantastic PR with a tiny budget and a little imagination!

If you’re happy on video and feeling creative, what ad could you create for Christmas? How could you deliver some festive joy to your audience?

Small Business Saturday

Get involved with Small Business Saturday, the annual event to encourage people to shop locally and online with small businesses. This year it's happening on Saturday the 2nd of December - there are opportunities to advertise your business, offers and events on their ‘Small Business Finder’ as well as get involved with the initiative and have your plans for the day promoted across their social media platforms. You can promote your business and support other small businesses by buying from them too.

Local Christmas Events

There are lots of local events happening around Christmas that provide an opportunity for your holistic business. Taking a stand at a local event is a great way to build your profile and sell your products and services. It can be very low cost and because it’s in person, you get to meet and talk to lots of prospective clients. Here’s a blog all about using stands to market yourself for more ideas on this.

As a reminder, some professional bodies have rules around what their members can and can’t offer, so double-check your professional code of conduct before doing anything new.

Promoting your products and services over the festive season is a great way to boost your income. Whether that’s a relaxing alternative Christmas event, or offering well-considered gifts, there are lots of opportunities to finish the year on a high. If you need help with this, I have a limited number of strategy sessions available in the next few weeks where I can help you understand your options, create your offers and organise your marketing to make the most of the festive season - let's have a chat.