10 Ways to Create Fun Seasonal Branding and Website Changes with Minimal Effort

Seasonal branding is a time-limited makeover for your brand that can become a boosting part of your marketing strategy for the holiday season. It doesn’t have to be super complex or cost a lot, but it will go a long way in building better relationships with your clients and followers, keep you current, and boost your traffic at times where people might not be looking for your services.?

Can seasonal branding really make a difference??

The short answer is yes, seasonal branding really can make a difference – especially for health coaches.?

When it comes to health and fitness, nothing is more reflective for your customers than the holidays. It could be them realising they aren’t where they want to be, they could be looking for gifts for loved ones, or they might just want to check in with their health! Either way, being present during the holidays is more personal from your brand, increases customer loyalty and strengthens your brand’s identity even more.?

People love the holiday season and that cozy warm feeling that goes with it. If your brand can tap into those feelings, it’s going to have a huge impact on memorability as well. After all, your customer’s decisions are?driven by feelings, not logic.??

So it’s not surprising that many brands are taking the opportunity to do a seasonal twist on their products, or release seasonal time-limited merchandise.

All about the #PSL

Just think of Starbucks and their seasonal coffee flavours! People wait all year round for pumpkin spice lattes, the hashtag is trending, and it’s even become part of recent culture (Halloween showed some amazing costumes that include the PSL accessory.)

Last year, Starbucks even introduced?reusable cups with seasonal messages?and greetings and the added bonus was that if you go to your local Starbucks with your own cup, you will get a discount off your coffee. The gold cup was hot last year, and this year, it’s all about?glitter, pink, and Christmas blends!

Of course, Starbucks is huge and therefore has a huge budget to make all that happen. But guess what? You don’t need their budget to jump on the seasonal branding train! Your wellness brand can spread some holiday cheer without spending tons of money and still create that iconic vibe among your following too! (perfect for building awareness, and connection you can convert later in the year.)?

With that in mind, I wanted to share ten of my favourite ways to dress up your brand for the season with minimal effort that will still bring you the maximum bang for the buck!

#1 Create a holiday landing page

On your website, create a seasonal landing page for some holiday cheer! Seasonal colour themes are a way to go here, so go for red and green for Christmas, some orange and black for Halloween, or some pastels, white, and gold for Easter.?

You don’t have to go over the top with colours. Your branding should still shine through all the glitter, gold, green, or orange.?

Rearrange elements around your landing page and emphasise the most important things for the upcoming season – be it a countdown timer for new deals, special offers and links to seasonal guides, checklists, and blog posts.

#2 Social media banners

Your social media pages don’t leave much room for customisation, but your logo and banner can still be changed there. Instead of the usual banner you have on your Facebook/Twitter/YouTube page, create a holiday-themed banner for the season.?

Be sure to pick something that your visitors associate with your brand. A Christmas tree or ornaments are great, but do they really tell people it’s your brand? Try adding a Christmas tree to your studio instead, or put a few festive ornaments onto your front desk and take a picture of that. This way, you will maintain that connection with your branding.?

An even better idea is to have some Christmas ornaments with your actual branding! Do you have a signature coffee cup? Now it’s time to give that coffee cup a seasonal Santa hat, or maybe a pumpkin with your logo carved into it!

#3 Add seasonal images

Change the usual images you have on your website and add seasonal elements to each. One or two tiny details is usually enough so you don’t have to overhaul your entire website imagery!?

On your About page, where you display your headshot, you can add a holiday scarf or hat for Christmas holidays, a photo with a black cat for Halloween (and a shoutout that black cats need loving and adoption too – which means you can collaborate with the local animal shelter), or maybe a basket of Easter eggs before Easter.?

You don’t even need a professional photoshoot for that; you can?do a photoshoot on your own?with only a few props to make it seasonal!?

#4 Seasonal logos

You don’t need to do many changes to your logo – add a candy cane or bunny ears, and you’re good to go!?

While you’re at it, it’s not a bad idea to do a whole set at once that you can reuse each year. Instead of preparing your logo for the upcoming holidays and then add extra work to your plate, create a whole set of logos that will cover all the holidays throughout the year that you want to celebrate. After all, it will be cheaper in the long run to do it in one go with your designer.?

#5 Spruce up special offers?

Special holiday offers are the key part of your holiday marketing campaign, so display these front and centre. If you’re running holiday ads, make sure the copy makes it clear that you have a promo waiting on your homepage, and display discounts and codes prominently on your pages or online store.?

For this part, you should know that social media and email marketing remain the?top channels to use for seasonal promotions. So make sure you have promos running on social media and via email that will lead prospects to your holiday landing pages.?

#6 Add countdown timers for urgency

A sense of urgency is what makes the holiday season fun (but also stressful!). So many offers and awesome discounts and super deals, but all are time-limited.?

A great way to help clients and customers remember that you have new offers lined up and waiting is to put a countdown timer on your website. Have timers for current deals and how long they remain active, and give them a hint of the upcoming deals that await.?

These timers are a great opportunity to get some new opt-ins for emails. Have a form where visitors can opt-in for reminders for upcoming or current time-limited deals, so they don’t miss the opportunity and send an email when time is running out for higher conversion rates.?

Top Tip: Take a screenshot every few days of the timer that is on your website and share to social media. It’ll give you easy content and remind your audience regularly.?

#7 Remember the follow up?

The number one mistake is to put a lot of effort into seasonal branding, but do nothing with your sign-ups! Once you get new opt-ins for reminders, you can start a whole email sequence with them. For example, when you send out those reminders, offer additional discounts or bonus deals if they subscribe to your newsletter.?

#8 Create an event calendar

An event calendar is how your visitors can keep track of all the things you have prepared for them over the holiday season. Special sessions on prepping healthier versions of holiday food, or how to bounce back if they went overboard with treats, or a great routine to get back to exercising are some things that you can add to the calendar, alongside new discounts and offers you have for the season.?

Event calendars work well when they coincide with a natural countdown like advent or between Christmas and new year. Either way, make sure you let people know what you’ve got coming up so that your audience can follow along and come back.?

#9 Craft a seasonal guide

What better way to add some relevant content to your blog than to create a seasonal gift guide that will target your ideal customers? You will be eliminating some of the holiday gift-buying stress for them. And as a bonus, you can also place some of your services into the list of cool holiday gifts for others, turning away from the usual advertisement and presenting them as personalised experiences.?

Collaborate with other businesses for the guide and showcase their products and services, helping them gain more exposure. In return, they could list your brand and services in their guides and seasonal messaging too which is a bonus!?

#10 Add festive greetings

Give a seasonal twist to your usual greetings for each new message you get from your clients. During the holiday season, craft a special holiday-themed message for your automatic responses – for your Facebook messages, for example, or?if you have a chatbot?on your brand’s homepage, make sure to make it festive too.?

Speaking of chatbots, remember to give the bot a seasonal makeover if you are using an avatar for it. A small Santa hat, or Santa himself, or maybe bunny ears or the Easter bunny, a pumpkin with a witch’s hat, or vampire fangs and cape, depending on the season, is all you need to make it more festive.

Seasonal branding must look good to do well

All these seasonal branding changes are minimal and most of them don’t require much effort, but you must make sure they look good and make sense for your overall brand and tone of voice.?

If you go over the top or do a choppy or sloppy job, it will not bring the loyalty or conversions you are hoping for. Professional help can go a long way here to save you time and money, so if you need help with seasonal branding or updating your website for the holidays,?get in touch?and I’ll see how I can help!?