The weeks leading up to a holiday are the time for e-commerce marketers to revamp their tactics and increase sales, and there’s hardly a better day for this than Valentine’s Day. In the U.S. in 2019, more than 135 million people purchased gifts for Valentine’s Day–that’s around 2 of every 5 Americans.
For your business’s Valentine’s Day promotion, you’ll want to focus on getting a few of those 270 million eyes on your products and converting them into paying customers. When you combine those millions of shoppers looking for the right gifts with the right Valentine’s Day marketing ideas, you can make the day big for both customers and your business. For that purpose, we’ve curated a handy checklist of Valentine’s Day promotion ideas just for you.
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1. Plan ahead
Before we jump into some Valentine’s promo ideas, we want to stress the importance of planning ahead for all your marketing activities. When people buy products online, it takes time to ship them out, which means customers will purchase gifts ahead of time. With that in mind, you will want to start advertising your Valentine’s Day promos a couple of weeks before the day. Additionally, as everything worthwhile takes time, make sure you plan your Valentine’s Day marketing activities well in advance so you don’t lose time.
2. Analyze last year’s metrics
Now that you know to plan ahead, your first step in the planning phase is to analyze your business’s Valentine’s Day metrics from last year. Go back into your files and analytics and look at which days were the busiest around February 14. This will give you an idea of the best days to release your promos and deals. Another metric to look at is which products were the most popular last time. With that information, you can create promos for those products and advertise similar items.
3. Revamp your website with themed material
For e-commerce businesses, you know that your website is the most important thing; when it comes to Valentine’s Day, it’s as true as ever. Before the day comes around, you’ll want to revamp your website with Valentine’s Day-themed material. Add a banner with a pink background and red hearts to add a little flair. Or, redesign your entire homepage with photographs, icons, phrases, and more to show your customers that your business is the perfect place to find Valentine’s Day products.
4. Create a gift guide
Among the most popular marketing tools for Valentine’s Day are gift guides. Everyone knows that finding the right gift can be tricky–this is where e-commerce businesses can help. Creating a curated Valentine’s Day gift guide for your products can give your customers some inspiration with added coupon incentives. This is a great way to generate more sales. Furthermore, you can develop new leads if you require the customer to input an email address to download a gift guide.
5. Bring some love to pop-ups and social media posts
As Valentine’s Day approaches, just like when you redesign your website, you will want to bring some Valentine’s Day themes to pop-ups and social media posts. You can keep the traditional Valentine’s Day styles of pinks, reds, hearts, roses, candies, etc., or you could create something original for your specific business. Either way, each time you have a pop-up on your website or a new social media post, you’ll want to remind followers and customers that Valentine’s Day is coming soon and that you have the best gifts.
6. Promote relevant products
To make it easy for your customers to find the perfect gift, promote relevant Valentine’s Day products. If you sell jewelry, which is what most people buy for Valentine’s Day, you can’t do better than promote themed jewelry, like heart-shaped necklaces, ruby rings, or rose-gold earrings. No matter what you sell, you can promote specific products and give them a Valentine’s Day flair. For instance, if you sell video game consoles, you could run a BOGO deal for controllers for couples that want to play C.O.D. together.
7. Build brand loyalty with Valentine’s Day coupons for current customers
You probably know that retaining a current customer is vastly more profitable than acquiring a new one. E-commerce businesses should keep this in mind for Valentine’s Day promos and consider creating some deals and coupons just for current customers. Imagine if you were in their shoes and saw an email from a business pop into your inbox with the phrase, “50% Off All Earrings for Valentine’s Day.” Targeted deals like those are sales generators.
8. Offer great, short-time deals for first-time shoppers
Building brand loyalty with current customers should not stop you from marketing to new ones as well. Get fresh eyes on your products and make sales by offering one-time Valentine’s Day deals for new customers. Not only do deals and coupons bring in sales, but you will be gaining new contacts that could become a loyal customer base from now on.
9. Add limited-time freebies and free shipping
Along with targeting both first-time customers and loyal shoppers, holidays like Valentine’s Day are always a great time to break out those free shipping and freebie add-ons. Keep in mind that free shipping deals are only good for customers in the days leading up to Valentine’s Day. Also, make sure you maintain restrictions on that deal for shipping speed and/or size and weight of items. You don’t want to end up paying a fortune to ship furniture because you didn’t put any caveats on your free shipping deal.
10. Run a survey with a coupon
One last Valentine’s Day promotion idea you can include on your marketing checklist this year is to create an interactive survey for your customers. Tell them you love them and want to know what they think about your products or recent deals and that they will get $5 off for completing the survey. With this offering, you can get an idea of what your customers like and dislike and generate sales through the coupon.
Conclusion
With this Valentine’s Day promotion checklist, you can be sure your business will be ready for the holiday and its customers. Don’t let the high demand for gift shopping slip by.
If you need to give your e-commerce website a boost this Valentine’s Day or are looking for the best Magento 2 extension tools, Amasty has everything you need. Check out our solutions for Promotions to find the right tools for your online store’s Valentine’s Day promos!
