Keeping it Cozy — Holiday Marketing Ideas for Real Estate Agents

The holiday season has its own rhythm — slower clients, shorter days, more family logistics, and a brain that’s begging for a break. Instead of forcing a big marketing push, this episode walks you through gentle, low-lift, seasonally smart ways to stay visible without burning out. Think fuzzy socks, holiday candles, and simple touchpoints that keep you top of mind while protecting your energy.

What You’ll Learn

• Why cozy marketing works (and why December is the perfect time for it)
• How to send a VIP holiday note that actually builds connection
• The easiest “no pressure drop-in” event you can host
• What to schedule for January now so you start 2026 strong
• How to write a grounded, non-salesy year-end reflection
• Simple surprise-and-delight ideas for past clients
• Cozy social media strategies you can do in slippers
• How to batch your content for an easier January + February
• The “Cozy Big Three” framework to guide your entire holiday season

This season is busy, tender, nostalgic, and magical — and your marketing can reflect that. Lean into warmth, connection, and presence. Cozy marketing protects your energy and keeps your business moving forward. 

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Chapters

• 1:08 The Case For Cozy Marketing
• 2:23 Seasonal Reality And Strategy Shift
• 3:01 VIP Holiday Notes With Heart
• 4:18 Host A No‑Pressure Drop‑In
• 5:28 Pre‑Schedule January Touchpoints
• 6:25 Share A Personal Year‑End Reflection
• 7:49 Small Surprise Gifts For Past Clients
• 8:34 Batch Simple Evergreen Social Content
• 11:30 Extend Content Beyond Social Platforms
• 12:30 The Energy Behind Cozy Marketing
• 13:28 Pick Your Cozy Marketing Big Three
• 14:23 Permission To Slow Down And Still Grow

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:34

I don't know about you guys, but the holiday season, which kicks off this week, is always kind of weird. You're kind of still working, kind of mentally checked out, maybe a little bit exhausted, and probably trying to plan out 2026. And what you absolutely do not need is some intense productivity guru marketing plan right now. What I really feel like you need is a gentle, low lift, still smart and intentional plan that you can do in your fuzzy socks with a holiday candle burning. I don't know about you, but like I am a sucker for those Christmas candles. They smell so stinking good. So today I am walking you through my favorite cozy marketing ideas. And these are the ones that let you stay visible without burning through your last ounce of energy. So let's get into it. Why cozy marketing? All right, let's talk about why it works. This time of year has its own rhythm. There's less daylight, there's more family logistics, clients are honestly slowing down and they're distracted with their own holiday stuff. And your brain and your body, and I'm gonna guess your nervous system is begging for rest. So instead of fighting that, what if you just worked with it? And I want you to know like cozy marketing is not lazy, it is actually seasonally smart. So let's stay connected and top of mind through warmth and connection and presence and relationships and build momentum for 2026 quietly and with ease because consistency doesn't always mean intensity. And sometimes it means just being gentle and simple and having a well-timed touch point. So we are going to dive into cozy marketing ideas that I feel like actually work. Number one on my list is send a VIP holiday note. And I do not mean an email newsletter. I mean intentionally picking 10 to 20 people maximum. I want these to be your inner circle, it could be your past client influencers, your top referrals, could be vendors who have done big ups for you this year, people who really showed up for you this year. And it does not necessarily have to be people who sent you business. It could just be people who are major supporters of you. Send them a personal handwritten note, could also even be a voice memo. I don't think it should be an email, but if that's all you can do, I feel you. It just needs to be personal. There's no call to action, no branding, no market update, just appreciation and humanity. And just expressing that you are wishing them a peaceful holiday season, whatever you want to say, and that you are just genuinely grateful to know them and for their support. This is really easy, but it also means a lot because a handwritten note is a special thing, people. It really still is. I don't know about you, I don't get a lot of mail, and getting something that is thoughtful is really amazing. All right. Next idea is hosting a no pressure drop-in. So this is basically like an open house for your people, and it can be virtual or in person. Think like cocoa and ketchup. It could also be like a zoom in sip or just like a holiday hangout. You can have this at your office, you can have it at your house, but it's like no agenda. Just pop in, say hi. You could also even get like a table at a coffee shop and just set up shop for the day. But it is an open invitation to just come say hi and connect. And this can reconnect with past clients, it could be your sphere. You could also invite any leads or people you've been working with, but it is an opportunity to just build connection and trust. Now, if you have it in the budget, hosting it at a coffee shop, it's like coffee's on me today, like come and catch up, or coco's on me today, come and catch up. This is just a super easy way to have that face-to-face, belly-to-belly connection because I really feel like that is so important to your business. Like, we can't always just be in our hidey holes. We do have to meet people in person sometimes. The next thing is scheduling out your January touch points now, because once the holidays really get into full swing, you are probably going to lose momentum. So this can be just super simple, like pre-scheduling your Happy New Year emails. It could be writing out Happy New Year notes to thank your 2025 clients. You could be scheduling your settlement statements to go out for tax time, literally anything you can do to get ahead of your January stuff, go do it. Um, you can create your January jumpstart list. So these could be like 10 people you absolutely want to reconnect with, like right out of the gate. And it could be people that are your referral partners, it could be leads you've been working with, but having that list and that focus ready to go once you're out of the holiday coma is really important. Anything you can do to set yourself up for success for January. The next cozy marketing idea is to post a personal year-end reflection on social media. So this can be a reel, it can be a post, it can be a carousel, whatever you want it to be. But we're gonna skip pitches, we're gonna skip being salesy. People wanna know about the real deal, your grounded reflection. So you're gonna talk about your biggest lesson of 2025. Maybe it's a client moment that meant so much to you that you'll never forget, or how your business shifted. Also, people love hearing how your life has shifted. And really, just like anything that is vulnerable, like people really want to know like what happened for you this year. I think we are so starved for positive news that anything that's like, oh my gosh, how awesome that person is living their best life and they're putting positivity into the world. Like, that is just so powerful, and people want to be cheering you on. So the key to this is just making sure that you're not being super salesy or cheesy or bragging about yourself, like leave your sales numbers off of this, like even putting like how many families you helped, I think like kind of is a little braggy. So it's all about that like really grounded real reflection. And I think people love seeing that. And honestly, whenever I do these kind of posts, like they're the ones that get the most engagement. All right, cozy marketing idea number five is to surprise a past client or five, whatever you have bandwidth for. But this could be just small impact, small gifts. This is not a fancy pop by, but it's just thoughtful and simple. So it could be a bakery treat, it could be a gift card, it could just be a cute ornament, it could be a small plant, it could be a scratch ticket, um, literally whatever. And it does not have to be a big deal, but just that you were thinking of them. So this can go. I personally would do this for my VIP list. I'd send this to probably my top influencers that I have in my database, but these are the things that you can just tell people, hey, I was just thinking about you. And it goes a long way. Now, lastly, I don't know about you, but social media content creation is always tricky because sometimes I'm in the mood, sometimes I'm not. And I feel like a cozy marketing technique around social media is to batch your content. So this is really when you have time and energy, you create space in your calendar. It could be a couple hours, it could be a full day, whatever you have room for. But this is all about batching out content to help your future self. And I promise you, like your future self will be so grateful. I'm always so grateful when I go into my reels and my draft folder, and I have drafts that I can send out or just post because I'm like, yes, good job, Lindsay. You did it. Hooray. So instead of planning, just pre-create stuff. So I'm a big fan of like three to five evergreen reels. These are literally super simple. It could just be b-roll and text. So simple topics that you can use like any week in January or February. So examples could be like if you want to buy in 2026, start with these steps. Um, the biggest mistakes that sellers make in winter. Also, hot tip add your market area to these because it really helps with the algorithm. One thing that will make your spring move easier in New Hampshire. This took me 20 years to learn about real estate. So, like anything you can do, obviously, AI is such a like great brainstorming tool for um brainstorming ideas and hooks and things. But the key is just keep it ultra simple. It can just be B-roll. It just doesn't have to be you even. So keep it cozy. Cozy means you can be in slippers while you're doing these, which is great. Um, you can film your B-roll while you're in slippies, that's the best too. Um, so these are just super easy. There's no talking. Like this is cozy reels at its finest. You can also create maybe some carousels in Canva. So, like three things to do this winter if you want to buy a home in New Hampshire in the spring, um, small winter upgrades that can boost your selling price in 2026. And these are just like easy evergreen things you can just have to post. I'm also a big fan of getting those January posts ready to go. So, like, what's your one-word posts always perform really well. So it's like my word for 2026 is limitless, and then talk about what that means to you, and then ask people what their word is. I always get posts on that, like comments, engagement on that. Could also do one about what you're focusing on 2026, what you're not doing in 2026, or how you're supporting clients differently in 2026. This is kind of like behind the scenes content, but it really just like gets you set up so you have some stuff that you can talk about. Now, I know that I've talked about all of this stuff being on social media. This can also be blog posts, this can also be postcards, this can also be email newsletters. So, whatever strategy you're using to get your content out into the world, you can use these cozy marketing ideas to batch some content. Um, so however it's effective for you. Again, this does not have to be just social media. I really like just setting a timer. So maybe it's for like 25 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes. I love making a cup of tea because it's super cozy. I like to sit somewhere cozy, like my couch. Um, and then I also just like batching stuff because I am a big fan of when you have the time and you have the energy or things are slow, taking advantage of that time and energy, and then just like getting it out. I batch record this podcast when I have time and energy. So I am a massive, massive fan of batching. So I want to close this out with just the energy behind cozy marketing because cozy marketing isn't necessarily about doing less, but it's about choosing the right things for your energy. And as real estate agents, our energy wanes and ebbs and flows and it it like fluctuates throughout the year because we're human beings and we also have market cycles we're dealing with. So, in times where you want to get cozy, like it's totally okay. I'm giving you permission because it protects your creativity, it protects your bandwidth, it protects your authenticity, and it can also still create momentum in a gentle way. And it also is human. Like, I really think that it boosts trust, it boosts warmth, it boosts your visibility, it can create more emotional connection, um, and it also can create more referrals. And it's all about being top of mind and showing people that you're not just like a real estate machine all the time. So I want you to pick your cozy marketing big three. I want you to pick one connection touch that you're going to implement this season, one future-facing touch. So this could be like a January, and then one social touch. And that's what you need for this cozy marketing holiday season. I want you to know that you do not need to hustle through the holidays to be a good real estate agent. You do not need a December posting schedule that is packed to the gills, and you do not always have to be on to be effective. Really, it's all about connection and warmth and presence. And I think that that's the case throughout the entire year, but even more so during the holiday season. People are feeling nostalgic, they want to like connect, they want to be emotionally fulfilled. Like there's just like this magic about the season, and you can really play into that and also take advantage of it, not in a creepy, gross way, but just like get holiday spirit, right? So this month, I am encouraging you do what feels cozy, do what feels fun, do what feels doable, do what feels aligned because you can still slow down and you can still grow and you can still rest and you can still stay visible and you can still generate momentum. So I'll see you next week, and I will probably be in my cozy socks.