Fa la la la la, la la la la! Well, you know how the song goes.
As the holiday season rolls around, lately we’ve been noticing some significant changes to websites that aim to spruce up marketing (no pun intended?) and maybe catch the attention of a few more customers. This comes as no surprise, though. Just as countless stores of all types redecorate their display windows for the holidays, the same concept applies for most websites, too. And it makes perfect sense! Why not, right? In this digital age, it becomes easier and easier for us to make purchases online within the comfort of our home. “Look ma, no waiting in lines!”
Most of the time, shopping online is your safest route because you can find discounted items simply because of the e-commerce system: These products don’t need to be shipped to individual retailers, but instead can be sold straight from the manufacturer; hence, cheaper costs for them and less of a hole burned in your wallet. I just love saving money while in my jammies.
Enough small talk, though: let’s get to some solid examples, shall we? Whether a company has completely revamped their site with a whole new theme or is just adding small flourishes here and there that add some holiday cheer, the act of change and keeping your branding fresh is a great way to engage new audiences or break expectations with repeat customers. All of this serves to keep viewers on your site for just a little longer. One site in particular stood out to me and actually inspired this post: WordPress. Yeah, not much of an obvious change at first, but if you stay on the page for an extra few seconds, you will see snow start to fall past your screen. To me, this is simple yet brilliant — an example of bringing a real world element with an emotional resonance into the digital sphere. And of course, after I looked into it, you can even make your blog snow if you have a WordPress account just by clicking a couple buttons.
Some other sites worth noting are Just Pop In, Target, Overstock.com, and even Ebay. As you can see, they didn’t require much at all to change the look and feel of these sites from their everyday standard to winter wonderlands. Consider branding yourself for the holiday season: add a new banner to your page header, throw some ribbon around that logo, or even add your own holiday gift browsing widget like Walmart created! Some efforts may be more trackable than others, but there’s no doubt that if done right, it’ll make everyone feel pretty good.
Have you stumbled across any good sites that are trying to jingle some bells or let it snow? Did they warm your heart like cocoa or leave you saying Bah humbug? Leave the link(s) in our comments section. We’d love to see them!
