The Importance of Using Holiday Designs at the Right Time

When planning out your content calendar for the upcoming months, you should always take into consideration any holidays or special celebrations in the near future. When you infuse a little of what is happening in the world into your marketing designs, your readers will feel more connected to your brand.

Freepik releases holiday related graphics all year round, from Valentine’s Day to Chinese New Year. All these will help give that little extra love to your social media posts, emails and other marketing graphics.

What kind of graphics benefit from a holiday infusion

Holidays are timely. That means that the graphics you add a bit of holiday design to, should also be timely. For example, an infographic that accompanies a blog post should not be infused with holiday designs. The idea behind an infographic is that it stands the test of time and is shared freely and without borders.

Unless your blog post and infographic are about the actual holiday.

Social media headers create a wondeful impact when a bit of holiday design is added to them, just make sure you change it once that particular holiday is over. Social media posts and emails can be more involved into the holiday with special sales and promotions in celebration of that sale. Your website could be decorated to show some holiday spirit with a dedicated banner.

How to stay timely with holiday designs

First of all, you have to decide if you will use the holiday as a marketing angle or if you just want to wish a happy something to your readers and clients.

If you are planning a special sale or promotion, create your holiday designs three weeks before the holiday and start posting two weeks before. Create hype around the promotion as the holiday approaches with special graphics. You could create a countdown, or use different takeaways from the holiday for each graphic.

Use icons specially designed for that holiday to add to your emails. Use emoji that has to do with that holiday in your messages and social media posts. Make sure to remove all designs about that specific holiday once its over.

Stay true to your clients and your team

It is important to always have your client in mind when choosing to use a holiday as a design prompt. If you run a multicultural business and have multicultural clients, use designs that represent their holidays and yours. Celebrate the members of your team by acknowledging their celebrations. Choose which holidays fit your business better to use in promotions and which holidays are best not mentioned or maybe only on the actual day of the holiday.

Always be mindful as to how you use the holiday designs and if you aren’t sure about something, ask someone in your team to clarify. Sending Diwali greetings with a menorah wouldn’t make much sense!

Christmas is not the only holiday

Christmas is by excellence the holiday with the most hype all around the world. No matter where you are, Christmas can be seen and felt in twinkling lights and santa hats even if only minimally.

Tapping into the Christmas frenzy is always a good idea for your business. Christmas sales, along with Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the most successful online and in walk-in stores. If you are using Christmas as a holiday prompt for your promotional designs, why not try the other holidays as well?

If your business is in a country that has it’s own special holidays, use that opportunity to reach your local clients and make a connection.

Remember, nobody likes a marketing fail, especially one that is culturally inclined. Always make sure that the message you are sending with the holiday infusion is respectful, correct and positive.

Non Holidays

Apart from cultural and religious holidays, you also have the possibility of using “International Day of … “. Almost every single day of the year has a special sort of celebration that you can tap into for marketing and design purposes. Some of the most common of these celebrations are International Women’s Day, Earth Day, World Mental Health Day and Pie Day.

Using International Celebration Days, or National Days, is great for Social Media. Use the hashtags that match each day for better coverage and engagement.

Check this comprehensive article and downloadable list of International Celebration Days and their correspondint hashtags:

https://sproutsocial.com/insights/national-days/

Choose the national days that match your business best. If you have a bakery, then you should definitely use Pie Day and Cupcake Day. If you own a sports and recreation business then you should definitely use National Parks Day.

Some of these hashtaggable days fall on the same day as regular holidays. Choose appropriately as to which one is more important for your business or at all.

Over to you

Do you already use the holidays in your designs? How do you plan to infuse your marketing with appropriate holiday celebrations this year?