Brought to you by the fine folks at Outpost for Ghost publishers. Get more subscription revenue for your Ghost publication with Outpost 🪐
It never occurred to me that I could run a Black Friday sale as a creative service provider. I started my business as a consultant for tech companies. You're not gonna offer the team at Dropbox 20% off your services just because the mall's having a party.
When I moved into making small business websites in 2021, I rejoined Instagram and learned about the world of online businesses for the first time. Turns out holiday sales weren't just for e-commerce brands, they could also be used in the service realm. I saw other web designers, copywriters, and marketers running flash sales, promoting bundles and packaging holiday promotions. Not only that, I learned that they were making good money doing it!
Retail and e-commerce have a more obvious playbook for running holiday promotions. But the rest of us could still benefit from embracing some of this seasonal momentum. You already know you could run a sale, so what do you offer if slashing prices isn't the right move for your business?
I asked around on the internet to find out what entrepreneurs outside of retail were doing for Black Friday and turns out there's WAY more to the holiday promo game than just sales. I surfaced 20 fresh ideas, from repackaging content you've already made into a holiday series to charging more for holiday rush jobs.
Note that while I mostly refer to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, you can use most of these techniques for any December holiday, New Year's and beyond.
Filling your pipeline before next year begins
If you work with clients or sponsors, you can prioritize prebooking for the new year. Rather than discounting, creatives using this strategy are often framing it as a lock-in of this year's rate ahead of upcoming price increases. For your corporate clients, the incentive can also be about spending their remaining budget or putting the bill on this year's taxes.
Last year, Ronak Kothari, who runs digital marketing agency Ronkot Design, brought in $47k in "committed revenue" by offering existing clients an option to keep their current rate for Q1 of the new year. "Service businesses should be selling certainty and planning, not discounts," Ronak said, noting that this price lock-in makes their client feel smart for getting ahead of next year's goals.
Sophia O'Neal is leaning into that planning ahead angle by encouraging her clients to put an early deposit down with a "Get ahead of the game for 2026!" campaign. Sophia, who runs the SaaS marketing agency Ignore No More, often has lots of excited prospects towards the end of the year but reigniting those projects post-holiday can be a slog. She thought, why not get more of them committed with a little cash before the out of office messages start bouncing back?
You can use this strategy for sponsorships and partnerships too. Doug Crawford offers a 15% "early commitment" discount for schools that purchase an annual featured placement on his educational website Best Trade Schools before the end of the previous year. Twelve partners took him up on this last time, generating $45k in revenue for his site. Doug mentioned that this campaign doesn't just benefit his Q4 numbers, it's also helpful timing for his clients who want to head into January more prepared to market for the students they need to attract.
Creating gift guides and shoppable affiliate pages to promote partners
Maybe you don't want to run a sale, but you know other business owners offering useful products or programs that your audience would love. You could set up a gift guide or a shoppable affiliate page to boost your favorite entrepreneurs.
Marketer Victoria Boyd sets up a storefront (here's her recommended template) and loads in all her affiliate links for courses, products and programs, many of which have sales this time of year. "There's just so much noise for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, so it's my way of not contributing much to that," she told me. Sometimes she includes her own products, but mostly she prefers to use this opportunity to promote her partners.
Beyond making bonus cash, you can also use this gift guide strategy to strengthen your relationships with other entrepreneurs in your space. Bryan Vance, who publishes Stumptown Savings for savvy Portland food shoppers, is putting together a gift guide of unique items you can't find at mass retailers, featuring shops around his community. He's pairing his gift guide with a campaign to support local businesses, including his own.
Charging more for the holiday rush (and less for those who plan ahead!)
For some creatives, the holidays are their busiest season, and if so, it doesn't make sense to discount pricing when you could be charging more.
Brett Henrichsen, the founder of Posterprintshop, has been in business over 20 years and he knows some clients will wait until the last minute to get their custom printing ordered. Instead of holiday deals, they add holiday rush fees. But they don't just hit clients with surprise extra charges when they show up, Brett runs an email campaign in early November letting clients know when "price surge dates" will apply.
Last November, this campaign led to 67 advance orders and Brett said, "[Clients] felt smart for planning ahead, and we smoothed out our production schedule instead of the usual holiday chaos." This rush pricing strategy isn't just for print shops though. Graphic designers, copywriters, email marketers, nonprofit strategists and anyone else who has clients with last minute panic moments can educate and reward those who think and book ahead.
Packaging something new for the holidays
A lot of us create materials for our clients or members that are only available when we get hired for a project, but they could be repackaged as a standalone product and offered on a limited time basis during Black Friday.
For the last two years, blogger and blogging coach Anjali Kay has sold a Blogger's Advent Calendar, where purchasers got a surprise gift in their inbox every single day from December 1-24. Her advent calendar included trainings, printables, guides and other types of digital downloads all designed to help her blogging clients strengthen their strategy, mostly things she had created previously and was repackaging in a new way.
You can also attach a limited edition bonus to something you sell year round to give a new reason for your audience to pay attention and consider buying it. Newsletter writer and community operator JZ Tay, who runs WFH Alert for job seekers, is offering a "Job Seeker Reset Bundle" this Black Friday. JZ already offers a paid subscription with work-from-home job listings, but during the special promotion, takers will also get a private live workshop, resume audit, and first glance at December job listings. The messaging of his campaign is all about landing your ideal gig before the holiday slow down.
JZ said, "It's less about urgency and more about alignment, helping these members feel they are making a smart investment in themselves during a noisy season."
Repackaging doesn't just have to include your services and products either. Ryan Rumsey, founder of Second Wave Dive and CDO School, has created a toolkit made up of his best materials but rather than discount it on its own, he plans to bundle it with a related product from another creator. He's on the look out for something his audience will want that he can purchase at a bulk discount. I made a similar arrangement with Christy Price when she launched her web design course. She bought "licenses" at a discount to my Stay Booked Roadmap and gave it as a bonus to early purchasers of her course.
Promoting microservices as a door opener
Rather than discount their primary services, which doesn't make sense for a lot of us, some creatives opt to highlight one of their microservices during the holidays, doubling as a cash generator and a lead driver for bigger projects.
Laura Green, the chief strategist behind Impact Vector, is spending all of November and December running her two hour Clarity Workshops so she can move into the next year with more momentum. "This gives me a chance to still build and nurture a pipeline for 2026 in a way that's a little more bite-sized for clients and feels more fitting for where folks' heads are at this time of year," Laura said. Her goal is to fill 15-20 workshop spots by end of the year and she told me about 30% of the people who take one of these workshops ask for a proposal for a more substantial engagement.
Microservice offers are easily sold via email, without a sales call, and can be a way to surface potential buyers who are lurking on your newsletter list. Brand strategist Jamie Cox is offering a small discount on her Brand Quick Fix sessions (normally $399), only for her newsletter subscribers. Maliha of The Side Blogger, who makes most of her income from blog-based revenue streams like sponsorships, affiliates and products, is giving her readers a deal on 1-to-1 breakthrough sessions if you're open to having your session shared semi-publicly within her membership or on her YouTube channel.
You could also try a seasonal microservice like Shannon Kovanda is doing with her "Christmas-themed, done-for-you, one-day SEO offer." Shannon is in the midst of a pivot from copywriter to SEO expert and she is using this limited edition microservice as a way to kick off her transition.
Teaming up with partners to promote with a seasonal theme
It's not just what you offer this time of year that can be unique. It's also how you promote your work. Collaborations and partnerships are evergreen strategies but you can team up and create a seasonal promotion by attaching a theme.
For the "Job Seeker Reset Bundle," JZ Tay of WFH Alert is working with partners in the career and productivity space to boost each other's offers under the theme of "Start 2026 strong." They have a shared promotion calendar that includes daily newsletter swaps, co-hosted AMAs and LinkedIn posts. Their joint campaign runs from November 18-December 8.
You don't necessarily have to use this kind of partner promotion to sell something either. You could team up with your referral partners to introduce your audiences to each other's skillsets as a way to drum up leads for the new year.
Want to get promoted by someone else during this holiday season? Join us for the Secret Santa Swap at the beginning of November. You'll be matched with another entrepreneur who has a similar audience and they'll promote your email list so you can get some new relevant readers before. And vice versa!
The Secret Santa Swap is only available to Legends. Become a Legend for $99/year or $9/month.
Running teaser events to pique interest
Business owners are always looking for reasons customers need to act right now. Few things work as well as events. Membership operators are using the holidays as a reason to throw events that let potential members in on the experience before they join.
Michelle Jackson, founder of Creators Getting Paid, has been running an 8 week Holiday Sales Sprint for her audience across email and social. The sprint includes podcast episodes, livestreams, and blog posts covering topics like setting sales goals, targeting your audience and collaborating with other creators. While it's free to participate in the sprint and all the materials are public, Michelle timed her effort to build momentum for The Creator Income Collective, a new membership she's launching this month.
Most of Deanna Seymour's events have moved inside her membership, The Playhouse, but lately, she's been hosting public events that members can bring friends to with the goal of enticing them to join. Deanna has become well known for her themed networking parties and the holidays are no exception. Last month, she hosted a Halloween-themed networking event and coming up on December 2nd she's planned a Christmas Pop-Up Networking Party, both have been designed to give attendees a taste of what it's like being in the membership.
You can also make an event the centerpiece of your offer. Last year, Jonas Muthoni limited his December virtual wine tasting series to 100 attendees, marketing them to his readers as "intimate sessions with winemakers from Etna and Douro." He then used this timebound offer to run a Black Friday promo of his lifetime membership on ILoveWine.com. He told me that it was their biggest revenue drive of the year.
"People will pay premium prices during the holidays if they're getting something they can't replicate later, and for media businesses that means limited spots or early access," Jonas said.
Producing (or repackaging) a holiday series
Whether you're a media entrepreneur or not, it's likely you're producing content of some type to promote your business: newsletters, blog posts, podcasts, or videos. Why not grab some of your best material and turn it into an end of year series?
That's what Andy Dehnart, TV critic and founder of reality blurred, is planning to do. He is teeing up "12 Days of Must-Watch Holiday Reality TV," a newsletter series which he is creating by reusing reviews he's already written. Andy got this idea from a webinar he attended through his ad partner Mediavine led by Allea Grummert, who specializes in email marketing for bloggers.
Andy's campaign reminded me of LaShonda Brown's 25 Days of Canva from years past. Every day for 25 days, LaShonda would post a new tutorial on Canva to her YouTube channel. This is a layered growth and revenue play because LaShonda grew her own audience, nurtured her existing audience, got paid through a partnership and affiliate program, and also continues to receive ongoing YouTube ad revenue.
LaShonda had an existing relationship with Canva before the holiday season but if you want to try this without a formal partnership in place, you could use an affiliate link to make some money while educating your audience.
Rewarding referrals with gifts, even before they become projects
The holidays are already a big gifting time, so why not use gifts as a growth tool? The team at Ignore No More is planning to use gifts to entice referrals for the Marketing is Not My Job newsletter.
Sophia and her team are setting up a leaderboard to track who's sending new subscribers their way. The top referrers will be eligible for handmade prizes. One of the winners will receive an illustrated cookbook featuring recipes and stories from her team. Sophia credits the Chameleon team with sparking this idea, in particular the leaderboard piece.
It's smart to run a campaign for newsletter subscribers, because it's easy to forward an email to someone without any pressure, but you could also run a holiday referral campaign to make connections with potential clients and reward your referrers with virtual gift cards or gift baskets (I love Thnks.com for their easy to send $5-20 gifts.)
Holiday promotions aren't just about slashing prices
You don't have to cut your prices to get in on the holiday spending spree. You can leverage the holidays in your marketing thoughtfully around what your business and what your audience needs. The ideas above are just a starting point for how you could take advantage of seasonal shifts.
What I learned talking to all these business owners is that seasonal thinking and planning isn't just for our clients. The more you match your timing to where your buyer's head is at, giving them a specific reason to take action now, the more likely your promotions will work with them during the holidays and beyond.
