How websites are celebrating Christmas this year
Like many festivals and holidays throughout the calendar, the run-up to Christmas is a time when consumer-oriented retail and service businesses tend to ramp up their marketing efforts in order to capture seasonal spending and present purchases. How this is best achieved will depend on the type of business; many use their websites to spread some festive cheer and tempt in customers with Christmas on their mind. In this article, we’ll look at five ways businesses are marking the celebration of Christmas on their websites this year.
1. Imagery and graphics
Christmas imagery and graphics are a relatively quick and easy way of updating your website for the festive period. Add images of Christmas decorations, presents and trees, or update your business logo with a festive twist, perhaps by adding a Santa hat or candy cane, to instantly inject some holiday cheer. Some sites use religious imagery tying in with the Christian associations of the festival, though that is less common. If budget allows, you could organise a Christmas-themed photoshoot specific to your business that showcases your products or services, then add these bespoke photos to your site to promote your offering. We can see an example of this on the Pets at Home website, where the company's marketers have used an image of a Christmas tree surrounded by their products, and a very cute-looking dog with the tagline ‘Make your pet’s Christmas’.
2. Advent calendars
Running an advent calendar-themed campaign in the countdown to the big day is a great way to maximise traffic to your website in the run-up to Christmas. These campaigns generally work by serving up a different offer on every day of December in the run-up to the 25th. Examples of the offers include: discounts on particular products or services, multibuy discounts, free gifts with each purchase, vouchers for future orders, and free express shipping. These offers are usually only available online on the day itself, lasting for just 24 hours, so this keeps people coming back regularly in the hope that what they want is being discounted. As with a traditional physical advent calendar with a door being opened every day, each of the twenty-four daily offers will only be revealed on the day when it takes effect.
In 2024, Ikea are running a campaign called ’24 days of Christmas’, with the offer on December 4th being 30% off their MÅLA children’s easel. Clothing retailer Jigsaw are also running a similar campaign, ’12 days of Christmas’, revealing offers on their website for 12 days in the run-up to the big day. For example, on December 4th, they offered 20% off knitwear and cashmere.
3. Christmas animations
Christmas animations can be a really fun way to celebrate Christmas on your website. They could prove costlier compared with the alternatives, depending on how complex the animation is and how much work it is to create, but they do allow a business to show some personality and have the potential to increase engagement. Considerations to think about would be your budget and what return-on-investment you could achieve. Also think about your target audience, and whether an animation is something that would appeal to them? If you have a designer or design team, use them to your advantage, and ensure they have the time in the months before next Christmas to work on something bespoke.
Designer department store, Liberty have used a playful animation in which you can see snow falling over a cosy festive scene. The image shows a close up of a Christmas tree and a number of their luxurious gifts that are available for purchase.
4. Christmas-themed offers
Use Christmas-themed offers on your website to show your company's festive spirit and generosity. These could be adaptations of offers that have been used previously, or new ones designed from the ground up especially for the Christmas period. To optimise the effectiveness of your Christmas offers, consider consumer habits and spending trends at Christmas. How can you tie these to the products and services you offer to make them more appealing at Christmas time? Thinking about what customers are most likely to be looking for at this time of year, and focusing your offers on these areas is likely to bear fruit. Sainsburys are doing just that with an offer to ‘Buy 6 or more bottles and save 25%’, playing into the likelihood that more drinks will be consumed over the Christmas period.
5. Holiday messaging and communications
Everybody loves a Christmas pun, don’t they? And if not a Christmas pun, then what about some light-hearted holiday messaging and season greetings with a play on words. This is a simple, quick update that can be made to a website to make it feel current, and that can build a personal connection with the user and positive feelings about your brand. This option could be used if you have a more formal business and if animations and Christmas offers are less appropriate for use. Adding this simple nod to the Christmas period will show customers that your business is up-to-date without the need to stretch business brand and style guidelines. Technology retailer Currys is having fun this year (2024) with a number of Christmas puns featured on the slider on the home page of its website. Puns include ‘Ho Ho Home Deals’ and ‘Grab and go ho ho’.
There are a number of ways you can incorporate Christmas celebrations into your website, from the more in-depth ideas such as animations and seasonal campaigns through to imagery and messaging. Choose what is right and on-brand for your business should help you build a deeper connection with its users through shared experiences.
At GWS, we can help with all areas of website maintenance and updating. If you’d like some support adapting your website for Christmas or other holidays and special events, please get in touch.
