How to Add Seasonal Branding to Your User Experience

When you think of seasonal branding, your first thought might be Black Friday campaigns. However, it encompasses a lot more than a specific event or holiday. While holiday sales do account for more than $80 billion in online sales each year, there is a lot of other time that must be filled in to really get the word out about your brand.

Fortunately, there are four seasons and all the holidays within each one for you to draw on as you think through the experience of your users (UX) and how you can enhance your site. You will need to pick and choose which holidays are most celebrated by your customers and figure out some sales trends before making a plan, of course. Some basic ways to include seasonal branding for UX include:

1. Differentiate Your Brand

No matter what industry your company falls within, there is likely at least some competition. One way to stand out to consumers is to tie branding into seasonal events. Offer a special discount to celebrate the arrival of spring, stock seasonal products at Christmas or hold an event to celebrate little known holidays, such as peach month. Offer things in the color peach, for example.

Your first step is to figure out which holidays or seasons most apply to your particular customer base. Once you have that in mind, you should easily be able to match up your inventory to these occasions and come up with items and ways to feature them.

Lulus.com takes advantage of spring to push seasonal clothing options. Not only does this help move inventory, but it is likely what customers are looking for. Note how the navigation ties into spring as well, offering white dresses and prom dresses, both popular spring options.

2. Celebrate With Your Customers

When you add seasonal branding, you create a website that celebrates the same events that your customers do. While you can’t effectively hit every single holiday, you can definitely plan specials and events for the major holidays, such as the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. Celebrate alongside your customers and they’ll come to see your brand as reliable and fun.

What traditions do your customers have and how can you tie into that for your own branding? Think about creating a family get-together experience on social media or your webpage. What about holding a recipe competition where Aunt Mary can offer her best mac and cheese recipe for a chance to win a prize package? This gets your customers involved in your brand as well. As a bonus, all the family and friends of contest entrants may become engaged.

3. Connect With the Consumer

Find a way to connect with the average consumer. For example, if the meaning of a specific holiday is thankfulness, then use the opportunity to express what you are most thankful for. If the season is about rebirth and renewal, then talk about what is new in your company. There are many different ways to connect with the average consumer and relate everyday life to your brand.

Think about the true meaning behind each holiday or season. How can you tie into that meaning? What emotions are tapped into and how can you add this to your own site and the customer experience?

Meco uses the opportunity of Thanksgiving to let its customers know it’s thankful for them and its employees. Using website real estate for a simple thank you shows consumers you care about them. The sentiment is simple but sincere. It says thank you without trying to sell anything in the process.

4. Tie Into Holiday Whimsy

The holidays between November and January are filled with traditions, memories and whimsical elements. Say the word Christmas or Hanukah to people who’ve celebrated those holidays and various symbols will come to the person’s mind. If you can find a way to tie into one of these whimsical elements in your website design or on social media, then you stir up memories and warm emotions in your users.

There are any number of ways to create that holiday whimsy. You can add a few stories to your blog about how employees are helping others during the holidays. You could share old photographs of Christmas celebrations or New Year’s traditions within your company culture. You could even just add some interesting touches to your overall design that remind people of holidays past.

5. Integrate Seasonal Keywords

Adding seasonal branding can draw in users looking for specific keywords tied into the holiday. By surrounding those keywords with seasonal branding, you meet this need for the browsers who land on your page.

Let’s say you sell kitchen towels, but at Easter you have towels with pink bunnies, decorated Easter eggs or yellow chicks on them. Using those words along with the element of kitchen towels will allow your site to rank better in searches where people are looking for Easter kitchen towels.

Kohl’s has a number of season-specific dish towels. If you search for “Easter kitchen towels” within Google, this is the page that pops up near the top of the search engine results. Note that the offerings are pretty specific, including dish towels with bunnies and yellow chicks. In addition, Kohl’s further anticipates the needs of the consumer by offering filtering options by holiday, including St. Patrick’s Day and Christmas. You can also filter by color.

Seasonal Branding Adds to UX

Seasonal branding adds to the overall UX strategy for your brand. While you don’t want to exclusively focus on it, occasionally emphasizing a holiday or season of the year provides traffic you might not otherwise have received from search engines.

About the author:

Lexie is a freelance UX designer and writer. She enjoys conducting A/B testing and sending off prototypes to clients. She manages Design Roast and can be followed on Twitter @lexieludesigner.