7 Tips for Low-Stress Seasonal Branding

The hol­i­day sea­son is full of joy and excite­ment — par­ties, time with fam­i­ly, and hon­or­ing long-held tra­di­tions. But, it can also feel incred­i­bly over­whelm­ing. Par­tic­i­pat­ing in 3 months of cel­e­bra­tions can lead to burnout fast! 

The same is true for brands. Dur­ing the hol­i­days, cus­tomers are primed to buy. The hol­i­day sea­son offers brands a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to cap­i­tal­ize on the sale of their prod­ucts and ser­vices. This can also be incred­i­bly over­whelm­ing for small busi­ness­es. Cre­at­ing hol­i­day cam­paigns takes a lot of extra time, ener­gy, and effort. 

But what if you could work smarter, not hard­er, this hol­i­day sea­son? We always want to help you avoid con­tent cre­ation over­whelm, and we think it is espe­cial­ly impor­tant dur­ing the hol­i­day season. 

We have 7 tips to help! 

7 tips for low-stress seasonal branding.

1. Be Honest About Your Capacity

It’s ok if you can’t run a Black Fri­day, Cyber Mon­day, Christ­mas, and New Year’s sale. Decide what type of sale and tim­ing would have the biggest impact, and focus your resources on that. 

2. Make a Plan

Once you have iden­ti­fied the hol­i­days you will be cre­at­ing con­tent for, you can nar­row down what type of designs you will need (social media, newslet­ter, ads, etc.). 

3.Keep Holiday Campaigns Aligned With Your Brand

Don’t cre­ate hol­i­day posts or cam­paigns just for the sake of cre­at­ing them. Make sure they are aligned with your brand mes­sag­ing. Brand con­ti­nu­ity mat­ters dur­ing the hol­i­days too! Per­haps run­ning a hol­i­day sale doesn’t make sense for your brand. Maybe a mes­sage of giv­ing feels more brand-aligned, so you donate to a Giv­ing Tues­day cam­paign instead.

Before you cre­ate any hol­i­day con­tent, get clear on your pur­pose. You can start with a sim­ple list, like con­tent buck­ets that reflect the type of con­tent that you can share relat­ed to your prod­ucts or ser­vices. Next, you want to define who you are try­ing to reach and how your prod­ucts or ser­vices will help them. You should be able to draw a clear line from your hol­i­day mes­sag­ing to your ide­al customer. 

4. Create Custom Branded Templates 

Cre­ate brand­ed tem­plates ahead of the sea­son so you can be inten­tion­al about con­tent, stay on brand, and speed up your con­tent cre­ation work­flow. We design tem­plates for our­selves and our clients using Adobe Express. It’s effort­less to use and doesn’t require them to learn Illus­tra­tor or Inde­sign. Adobe Express will help you main­tain brand integri­ty and take com­plete con­trol over your brand­ed content. 

If you want to learn more about how to lever­age cus­tom tem­plates for your brand, check out this blog. And if you need some inspi­ra­tion, check out Adobe Express’s free hol­i­day templates. 

5.Use Color To Your Advantage

Dur­ing the hol­i­days, use the col­ors red, green, white, gold, and blue to your advan­tage. It’s also a good idea to use a spe­cif­ic col­or for your call-to-action but­tons or text to dri­ve atten­tion and grab clicks. 

If you have an audi­ence who may not cel­e­brate Christ­mas, lever­age gold and blue hues to con­nect and still cre­ate a hol­i­day feel. You can learn more about how to lever­age col­or for your hol­i­day adver­tis­ing in this blog. 

6. Create Content for the Right Platform 

Make sure to take a look at your ana­lyt­ics and insights to see what con­tent has per­formed best. That way, you can build your hol­i­day con­tent around things you know have con­nect­ed with your audi­ence in the past. 

Mar­ket­ing with empa­thy helps keep us from com­ing across as pure sales­peo­ple. If you need some help cre­at­ing con­tent for your audi­ence, be sure to check out our ebook: Define and Under­stand Your Ide­al Client with Empa­thy Mapping. 

7. Schedule Your Campaigns in Advance

The hol­i­days are incred­i­bly busy, but they should also be a time for rest and relax­ation. You don’t want to spend your Christ­mas plan­ning your New Year’s sale! Plan ahead, cre­ate your con­tent, and sched­ule in advance so you can be as hands-off as possible. 

We love using Plan­nThat to plan and sched­ule con­tent on Insta­gram, LinkedIn, Face­book, and Pin­ter­est. You can cre­ate a cohe­sive feed or fold­ers with your media files, and even devel­op a col­or-cod­ed con­tent strat­e­gy along with hash­tag sets. It makes hol­i­day sched­ul­ing quick and easy.

The hol­i­days real­ly are a mag­i­cal time of the year. Don’t let the stress of con­tent cre­ation steal your joy. With these tips and resources, you can cre­ate hol­i­day con­tent for your brand and still have time to enjoy your favorite things about the season. 

Have any oth­er tips for hol­i­day con­tent cre­ation? Share in the comments! 

*This post con­tains some affil­i­ate links, mean­ing that if you choose to make a pur­chase through our links, we get  a com­mis­sion at no cost to you.