How to add a festive flair to your website for the holidays

8 simple seasonal website branding tips

Are you decking out your home with holly, stringing lights on your porch and setting up Santa in your front yard?

For many people, it’s time to start celebrating the most wonderful time of the year. While you’re doing that, don’t forget to give your business website a makeover!

Seasonal website branding is an ideal way to showcase your small business and put people in a festive shopping mood.

I’ve been sharing content on how COVID-19 will impact shopping this year. So now I’d like to focus on something more fun: 8 ways you can add holiday elements to your website.

1.  Spruce up your website home page

By placing your best deals front and centre on your website, you’ll attract your target audience’s attention right away. Especially this year, people are looking for quick and easy ways to shop, so adding in benefit copy around free shipping or private shopping is a great idea.

Get creative and think about ways to stand out even more by giving your promos a catchy name. For example, instead of “Holiday Deals” why not “12 Days of Deals” or “Santa’s Specials”?

Your home page is often the first thing customers see, so spend some extra time on it as you add holiday elements to your website.

2.  Offer unique gift ideas

Maybe it’s creating a list of your top 10 presents or providing inspiration on what to buy for the person who has everything.

Another popular idea: putting together boxed gift sets. Do you have multiple products that could work together as a bigger gift?

Because people can’t go out and enjoy many of the experiences they used to, these boxed gift sets are becoming more and more popular. For example, Twisted Toffee features mouth-watering, homemade toffee gift baskets on their home page—a perfect gift for the hard to buy for!

3.  Design a customized Christmas logo.

Why not create a holiday version of your logo? While your logo is an important part of your brand and should stay consistent, there’s nothing wrong with adding a wreath or Santa hat to it!

Or you could change the font colours to red and green, or sprinkle in some gold sparkles to add holiday elements to your site. It doesn’t need to be as elaborate as what Google does each year, but it does help your brand stand out!

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Read: 3 Easy Steps to Embrace Your Holiday Brand Voice during COVID-19

When it comes to defining your brand it’s easy to get caught up in the visuals: the logo, the font size of the text, the imagery you want to represent your business…

But defining how you’re going to speak to your customers is essential too. Infusing your tone with some holiday cheer, urgency and excitement can be a great way to encourage your audience to do their holiday shopping with you.

Here’s how to differentiate your seasonal marketing campaign in 2020.

Read more on our website.

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4.  Display your November/December/January hours

While most people are sticking close to home—or staying home—this year, you still may want to take a few days off to rest and recharge. If you are taking time off or closing early for the holidays, let your customers know with a festive graphic.

Also, many small business owners have altered their hours because of COVID-19. If you’re not open every day or have changed your hours of operation, make sure people are aware so that they don’t arrive at a closed-up shop.

5.  Make your content fun and festive

While you don’t have to completely overhaul your website, crafting a heartfelt greeting or a blog post for the holidays is a nice way to reach your target audience.

Remember to own your brand. For example, some small business owners avoid using the word “Christmas” in their marketing efforts, while others embrace it.

Whatever you decide is fine, but think about your brand persona, tone and voice as well as your target audience as you add holiday elements to your website.

6.  Decorate your social media accounts

Don’t forget to bring some winter cheer to your social media platforms too. Update your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram profile and/or banner pics with seasonal images that incorporate your brand colours and logo.

You can also share deals or promos and content with your social media followers. Make it easy for enthusiasts to find you by creating hashtags like #diy, #stockingstuffers, #bestgifts, #newyears and so on.

7.  Post family photos

I’ve shared quite a bit of info on empathetic marketing techniques this year. Making that emotional connection with your customers can include sharing a bit of personality.

Whether it’s photos of your cats attacking the tree (we have a few of those) or your family out in the snow, let people get a glimpse into your life with your seasonal website branding.

8.  Give your customers a gift

You could offer a free gift with each purchase over a certain amount or send an email promo enticing people to shop at your store and/or eCommerce site this year.

This form of seasonal website branding doesn’t have to be something expensive—maybe it’s a guide to navigating entrepreneur life in 2021 or a graphic they can share on their social media profiles.

When you add holiday elements to your website, it not only spreads cheer among your target audience, but it also puts people in the mood for gift shopping.

Spend some time on seasonal website branding and you can be rewarded with increased engagement, leads and sales! Are you doing anything to share Christmas spirit this year? I’d love to see your examples!

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(Featured image by 46173 via Pixabay)

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