Are you planning on running a Christmas promo? I am genuinely interested in the decision process.
I have (and had) clients (course creators primarily) who would run a massive Christmas campaign (and a New Year campaign), right after a massive Black Friday promo, and the results would be consistent with previous monthly promos.
At the same time, I know many course creators (solopreneurs or operating with small teams) are so exhausted after BFCM, they’re mostly thinking about sending a one happy holidays type of email, and that’s it.
No judgment either way.
I also know of other companies that would like to run a Christmas promo but are afraid of backlash from their audience… so where do you stand?
Personally, I like to take into consideration multiple factors, one of them being spending trends:
➡️ According to PWC’s Holiday Outlook 2025, Gen Z consumers expect to reduce their holiday budgets by 23%. By contrast, millennial, Gen X, and baby boomer respondents expected to maintain or even increase holiday spending.
➡️ Same study says consumers expect their seasonal spending to decline on average by 5% from 2024 — the first notable drop since 2020.
➡️ Whereas 84% expect to cut back over the next six months, citing rising prices, new tariffs and the higher cost of living.
So what does this mean for you? If your audience skews Gen Z, your messaging might need to highlight non-monetary value, payment plans, or offer an emotional reason to invest now—while older audiences may still be open to higher-value gifts or learning investments.
The second most important factors are timing and context.
It’s not just can you run a promo right now? It’s should you? Let’s break that down.
Is Your Offer Relevant Right Now?
Before scheduling that email or dropping a discount, ask:
“Does my audience need this right now?”
Some course topics are a perfect fit for end-of-year energy:
- Goal setting, vision planning, habit-building, or business planning courses make total sense as we end one year and head into January.
- So do mindset, mental health, and self-regulation offers—especially during a time that’s emotionally complex for many people.
- A creative hobby course or short masterclass can be a perfect digital gift for someone who wants to slow down and recharge.
On the flip side, if your course is about productivity, scaling, or launching something big—it may be harder to sell during a period when your audience is intentionally unplugging.
This doesn’t mean it’s impossible, just that your messaging needs to match their state of mind.
Who Is Your Audience—and What Are Their Holidays Like?
Context is everything and it's very important to understand we don’t all celebrate in the same way. Some may be:
- Traveling to see family (and maybe feeling overwhelmed, stressed out, emotional)
- Working through the holidays (and feeling burnt out, maybe frustrated, ready for a change)
- Planning downtime (this can either mean unplugging, so less time online, or actively scheduling time to play video games, binge Netflix, which could mean they would be open to buying)
- Grieving, navigating financial stress, or dealing with social pressure
Understanding their reality should shape your tone, timing, and even your offer (if you choose to send a promo).
So, ask yourself:
- What’s going on in your audience’s life in mid-to-late December?
- Are they reflective and preparing for next year? Or swamped and unable to process anything beyond wrapping gifts and getting through dinners?
- What would make them say yes right now?
When you align your message with your audience’s headspace and environment, even a simple email can outperform a complicated campaign.
Let me give you a few examples
For one of my past clients, we knew from extensive customer research that their audience was struggling during the holidays. Many were visiting family but having a hard time coping emotionally with the stress, so the Christmas promo started a few days before December 25th and each email was designed as a helpful stress-coping instrument. The pitch was very soft and integrated as an invitation to unlock more stress-management tools for navigating the holiday season. The discount wasn't the primary incentive, but the outcome and practical aspect of the offer.
For another course creator, the research told us the audience was struggling to juggle family and work time. Many of the people in the audience were business owners, a big percentage in their first few years, still struggling to find their ideal clients, still figuring out their fees and so on. We also knew based on the same research, these people really wanted to know how this course creator was able to solve the problems they're currently struggling with. So the December promo started before Christmas and it was positioned as a year in review plus building the vision for the year to come. It had a lot of personal and business lessons, with individual soft pitches to products that could help solve the problem discussed in each email.
But courses can also be offered as gifts.
A particularly great idea if you haven’t had time to shop for something physical. Do it right and you could solve an interesting pain point for some shoppers. According to the Mixbook Gifting Paralysis Survey, there is something called gifting anxiety and 12% of adults say they do not find anything to be more stressful than gift shopping, including managing personal finances, preparing for a milestone event, or negotiating for a raise or promotion.
About 8 in 10 turn to less personal gifts when strapped for ideas, with gift cards and cash the most popular alternatives. 8 in 10. That's huge. And it makes sense. First we all have crazy busy lives, sometimes the holidays seem to come out of nowhere. Second it's overwhelming to think of a gift that's actually good (something they don't have, something they would need, something that matches both of our value sets etc).
The same survey lists the solutions:
- 60% turn to gift cards
- 42% ask the person what they would like
- 35% give cash
- 17% pick up generic items like candles or snack baskets
I don't know about you, but I'd take a Masterclass or Mindvalley subscription any day. If that's out of the budget, you can always give gift vouchers for udemy.
So, where does this leave you?
Well, you can position your promo simply as Offer this as a gift, here's how, or you can go for a more intensive positioning, such as Buy One For You, Gift One to a Friend. Commune was offering this a few years ago.
I do want to mention something at this point. Don't assume you know where your audience stands when it comes to gift-giving or what they're doing for Christmas. Ask them with polls and/or surveys and do it in early December. Those insights should inform your promos, not trends.
Principles of a good Christmas promo
Christmas promos aren't Black Friday campaigns. You can still make an offer, but don't waste the opportunity to strengthen your relationship with your audience. That being said, here's what you can do:
1. Use emotion, ideally nostalgia
Nostalgia creates instant emotional warmth at it activates the brain regions associated with comfort, belonging, and safety. When people recall positive memories—childhood traditions, family rituals, holidays past—they experience a physiological shift that makes them feel more open and connected.
This emotional warmth translates into:
• Higher trust
• More openness to messaging
• Greater willingness to buy from someone they feel connected to
In other words it softens resistance, I'd say this is even more important given the uncertainty we're all living in.
Nostalgia does another thing really well, and this is where you should be focusing on building a relationship with your audience during Christmas, not just sell.
Nostalgia isn’t just remembering the past, but about remembering who we were, and the moment someone taps into that identity, questions naturally arise:
• Who do I want to be next?
• What do I want my next year to look like?
• What do I want to change?
This is EXACTLY the psychological doorway course creators should step into and realize that you’re not just selling a course, but the next chapter of someone’s story. If you're selling courses that teach a skill that can be monetized, a skill that has the chance to change someone's life, that's what you're tapping into.
And studies indicate that nostalgia... sells:
- A 2023 paper titled The Effect of Nostalgia Marketing on Consumers’ Purchase Intention found that invoking nostalgic memories through marketing materials significantly increased the likelihood that consumers would buy — across a sample of 512 individuals.
- Similarly, a recent 2025 study A Study on the Impact of Nostalgia Marketing on Consumer Behaviour demonstrated that nostalgic appeals affected consumers’ emotional connection, brand preference, and ultimately their purchase behavior — especially when the nostalgia elicited feelings of comfort, familiarity or social connection.
Plus, I can't think of another season when nostalgia is so present.
Think about it: the entire month of December is coded in nostalgia (old songs on the radio, old movies, childhood foods, traditions etc). This is your context. Tune in your copy to make it contextually relevant.
So, how do you do that?
Well, we can use an insight from PwC's Holiday survey that indicates a trend for doubling down on what matters most — food, family and familiar rituals. "Almost three-quarters (72%) plan to gather over a home-cooked meal this year, pointing to a return to tradition amid economic uncertainty. Those who typically have a traditional home-cooked meal are more likely to cite cost-savings (39%) and family or cultural tradition (56%), as well as the enjoyment of cooking (44%) as the factors that drive this choice."
This tells us: people will be spending time with family, there will be a focus on being together, and what does that mean? Making memories and capturing memories, which makes for a great opportunity for someone who is teaching photography.
Here are some examples designed for selling a photography class:
“Remember when Christmas felt magical? When the smallest thing, a story, a moment, a spark, could stay with you for years? This season, give someone a gift that brings that feeling back.”
“The warm glow of lights, the steam from a cup of hot tea, the laughter across the table…
The holidays are full of moments worth capturing — if you know how.”“If you’ve ever looked at a holiday photo and thought, It doesn’t look as magical as it felt, this course will change that.”
“Some gifts get used for a week.
Photography lasts a lifetime.
Give someone (or yourself) a creative skill that shapes next year.”“If your holiday camera roll is usually a mix of dark photos, missed moments, and hopes for the best… it’s not you. It’s the technique. And you can learn it.”
“Years from now, the photos you take will matter more than any gift under the tree.
Learning photography is a gift your future self will thank you for.”
2. Start early to avoid decision fatigue
Holiday inboxes get crowded, and people get overwhelmed, so if you want your audience to buy from you, don’t show up last minute.
Start warming up your list in early December—before the peak rush. Use your first email to help subscribers brainstorm or plan. Position your offer as the “I’ve got you covered” solution.
“Not sure what to get them? Here’s one gift that doesn’t get lost in the mail—or forgotten by January.”
You’re reducing their mental load and making the decision feel easy.
3. Focus on meaning, not price
Your audience is likely comparing prices, watching their budgets, and feeling a little stretched. They already invested significantly during Black Friday, spent a considerable amount of their budget on traveling to see family or on hosting family during Christmas.
So your promo should lead with value and intention, not just discounts. If your course helps people develop a skill or feel more confident, highlight that emotional benefit more than the feature list.
So, what goes into a Christmas promo email?
In the video below I break down an example that hit my inbox last year. Whether you’re a course creator planning your holiday campaign or just curious about what works, this teardown will show you a good example of a Christmas sales email. From the wording to the design, the urgency to the offer, we’ll break it all down so you can apply these insights to your own holiday promotions.
In conclusion...
The holidays are a unique moment in your customer’s yea, filled with emotion, nostalgia, reflection, overwhelm, financial pressure, generosity, and meaning. And that’s exactly why Christmas promos shouldn’t be treated like a second Black Friday.
Whether you decide to show up with a full campaign, a simple gift-the-course email, or a soft, supportive message that meets your audience where they are, the most important thing you can do is stay intentional, be thoughtful, relevant and human.
Because during a season that’s crowded with noise, the brands that stand out are the ones that choose connection over pressure, value over volume, and empathy over “end-of-year revenue panic.”
And if you do choose to run a Christmas promo this year — even one email can make a meaningful difference, both for your audience and your bottom line.
Want to learn email copywriting?
Start by analyzing what others are doing. My Email Teardown series showcases some of the best (and sometimes worst) examples of sales emails that have hit my inbox. Here’s the link to the playlist. I publish new email reviews regularly.
Need help with your strategy?
I’m a conversion copywriter who has worked with 100+ course creators worldwide, helping them strategize, write, and optimize sales funnels and email promos that have generated millions of dollars in revenue.
I bring a mix of psychology, customer-centric strategy, and deep experience in high-volume seasonal campaigns like Black Friday, Christmas, and New Year’s.
If you’d like help planning your Christmas promo, mapping your messaging, or writing emails that your audience actually wants to open, I’m just one message away.
📩 Email: hello@monicabadiu.com
💬 Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/monicabadiu