Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and people are planning the special gifts and surprises they’ll be sending to their loved ones. It might not seem like it but actually, the general public spends an awful amount of money on Valentine’s Day. Last year, Valentine’s Day sales reached a record $19.5 billion worth of products and that too merely in the US and on average 1 in 4 Americans buy their gifts online.

Moreover, people buy all sorts of products as presents for their loved ones and not just flowers and chocolates so it would be foolish for you as an owner of an eCommerce to let this Valentine’s Day pass without taking advantage of it. As stated earlier people are willing to spend on something unique and lovely for their loved ones so it gives you potential opportunities to boost your revenue and sales. In this blog, we‘ll share some effective marketing strategies to bring more customers to your online store and increase your sales this Valentine’s Day. Let’s start right away.

Introduce daily deals and time-sensitive offers

It is sometimes necessary to create a sense of urgency as it can increase your sales by 25-30%. Customers often think too hard and wait too long hence as a result often don’t respond to call-to-action. In such scenarios raising the urgency level, can help the customer in making a decision and boost your sales. 

Customers will buy products if they have limited time to avail of an offer. That is why it is recommended to create a sense of urgency and you can offer a Valentine discount with a countdown timer. You can use Checkout Boost to create these timers and see the result yourself. You can use it to build flash sales and time-bound deals to help your customers in buying a gift for Valentine’s Day.

Promote your special deals, discounts, and offers

It is effective to reach out to the customers who have purchased your products in the past and convince them to buy your products again. All you have to do is send them an email thanking them for their purchase and inform them of your special current deals and offers.

You can use email marketing to promote your deals. A lot of big names like Amazon, Uniqlo, The Body Shop, etc send emails to their customers when their products go on sale. You can use Mailbot to send promotional emails to your customers. You can send your promotional email when the promotion starts with a CTA and links to your store so the customer can start shopping right away. You should continue to send promotional emails every day to make sure you highlight the discount and the ending date of your promotions. You can also send a reminder email with additional discounts to get the attention of potential customers. Giving additional (if it does not hurt your profit margin) discount can help you sell out on the last day.

You can also use Facebook Ads to connect with your customers on Valentine’s Day. Facebook allows you to target your customers Via Facebook Ads and all you have to do is go to Facebook Ad Manager and create a custom audience by adding email addresses of your customers. It is an easy and cheap way of retargeting your customers.

Make your store eye-catching and romantic

This is one of the most basic and well-known things done by store owners when they are preparing for a special occasion. They usually decorate the store to make give it the vibe of Valentine’s Day. It enhances the customer experience and satisfaction which also increases the chances of them to purchase more. However, creating a new theme just for Valentine’s Day will be very costly and time-consuming especially when it is meant to be used for a few days only. 

We suggest that you design a welcome coupon pop-up that will appear every time a customer enters your store. This will impress and catch their attention with a catchy image and message revolving around Valentine’s Day. You can use Better Coupon Box app. If your homepage has a slider you can make a Valentine-themed banner and add it to your slider. It will be effective to promote any promotions, giveaways, special discounts or contests on the banner because as most of your visitors will first analyze the banner to see what’s new and trendy in the store. You can use Canva to create your own banner with little to no help. If you don’t have time and space to decorate your website then you can try placing a small banner on the header bar which can be effective if used properly. You can post funny and witty messages that can amuse your customers and make them happy. For Example instead of boring and overly used “Welcome to XXX store where we offer a XX% discount” you can say “Please take our petite gifts and let us be your Valentine”. 

 Use holiday e-Gift card buttons

On other occasions like Christmas or Black Friday, customers are lured into making personal purchases. However, on Valentine’s Day customers are usually interested in finding perfect products to gift their loved ones so why not facilitate your customer by allowing them to send gifts directly to anyone with an e-Gift card? It will allow your customers to send gifts directly to their friends or relatives and increase their chance of shopping more since you are saving them from the hazard of giving presents directly in person.

You can use Gift Wizard to integrate an e-Gift card button on your page. By using this button, your customer will be able to send a gift to the email of the recipient who will then be able to modify the product’s size and color according to his/her preference.

Offer anonymous gift delivery and free gift wrapping

Everyone wants to surprise their loved ones on Valentine’s Day. Hence offering anonymous gift delivery will increase customer satisfaction as many customers will opt for your anonymous delivery services. Surely many of your customers would want to confess to someone special on this Valentine’s Day but they might not have the courage to give her/ him gift directly, in such cases this anonymous delivery will be life-saving for them.

You can use Gift Checkout to allow your customers to send a wrapped gift to someone special. It also allows the sender to include a greeting card with the gift.  

Use Campaigns to promote your store or brand

You can build a catchy and strong brand for your business. This strategy is called User-Generated Content (UGC). For Example, through the “Share the Coke” campaign in 2014 Coca Cola encouraged its customers to share pictures of them enjoying Coca Cola on social media. This will not only increase the love and trust of your customers (as they are engaging and feeling themselves to be part of something) but also expose your brand to tons of potential customers.

A UGC can go a long way in promoting your brand since in 2020 everyone is using social media way more than 2014. It is a cost-effective method and all you have to do is come up with a unique or suitable slogan. This Valentine’s Day, you can arrange a photo upload competition on social media and give free products as a reward to selected customers or you can arrange a video upload competition on social media and reward few customers at the end of it.  

 

Wrapping Up

All the strategies discussed in this article are cost-effective, easy to use and practical. We hope this article will help you in optimizing your page, promotion, and approach so you are able to boost your revenues this Valentine’s Day.