The holiday season is fast approaching. I’m seeing stores with Christmas decorations up already and hearing reports that people are hearing Christmas music in stores. And it’s not even Halloween yet.

Hopefully you’ve done some work on gearing up for the holidays. If you haven’t, now is not the time to procrastinate. Poor economy aside, people are shopping already.

What you need to get done depends on the kind of business you’re running. Some will need more preparation, others less.

This is the time to spend more on your advertising, for example. You want to get those shoppers who are already buying for the holidays. Shopping early is an easy way to spread out the expenses of holiday gifts for many families.

You should also make sure that any holiday themed merchandise is easily found. This is the time of year it will get moving.

If you write about products, now is the time to start thinking about what products will sell well for you through your articles. What do people need to know in order to buy through your links? What’s going to capture their attention?

What else do you do to get ready? How early do you start planning?

It’s fun to make jokes. Getting a laugh is something just about anyone can appreciate. This is probably why so many people love to write humorous articles for their websites. They get attention, sometimes lots of attention.

But is it the right kind of attention for your business? That all depends on what your goals are.

If all you want is traffic, then it might be. A really funny post on your site can bring tons of StumbleUpon, Digg or other social media and viral traffic. But what it probably won’t bring is sales or repeat visitors, at least not in great numbers for the amount of traffic.

Humor, used well, can generate sales, but it’s more challenging.

Think back to any television commercial that made you laugh. It could be the “Where’s the beef?” ads from Wendy’s. It could be something more current.

Do you remember what the ad was about? What company ran it? Whether or not it made you want the product?

Appropriately used humor can do all of that, but too often ads are made funny more to be funny. There’s too little emphasis on the actual product they’re trying to sell.

One of the most challenging steps can be keeping the joke appropriate to your business. You generally don’t want to anger a significant portion of your potential customer base.

If this is something you’re going to want to use regularly in marketing your home business, you need to develop something of a style in it. You may even be able to take advantage of a running gag and have people look forward to the next time you mention the purple eel or whatever the key part of the joke may be.

So how do you learn to use humor?

The first thing you need to do is look at what makes you laugh. If it amuses you, it might just be funny to others. Then again, you could just have a really odd sense of humor.

Now look at ads that have made you laugh. Especially pay attention to any that are in an industry related to your own.

Also pay attention to comedians and others who earn a living by being funny. Read the comics.

Start coming up with funny things about your home business. You can write a list down on paper, on your computer, or any of your kids who doesn’t move fast enough when you’re looking for something to write on. Just don’t use permanent marker on them. People ask so many questions….

Show your ideas to others. Get feedback.

Write the ad, blog post or whatever, including the joke you thought of. Remember to keep a call to action in there, somehow!

Write it up for your site or email campaign, and give it a try. Track your results. Hope for results beyond your wildest dreams.

Humor doesn’t work for everyone, but it has its place and can be highly effective. Give it a try if you dare.