From Roses To Revenue: How To Make More Sales This Valentine
This article shares few ways by which you can leverage Valentine's Day campaigns to increase brand awareness, drive sales, and increase customer loyalty
Roses are red, violets are blue. Love is in the air. Your profits can be too!
As a retailer, Valentine's Day campaigns can help you to build strong, lasting relationships with your customers. This article explores a few ways by which you can leverage Valentine's Day campaigns to increase brand awareness, drive sales, and increase customer loyalty.
Everyone is doing something special this Valentine. Your business needs to stand out in the midst of all the noise, by connecting with shoppers more meaningfully and profitably.
Here's how to make more sales this Valentine:
1. Offer Special Promotions
The most effective way to drive sales and increase revenue during Valentine's Day is to offer special promotions. As many as 15% of all Black Friday orders on Shopify were made across borders in 2023. This indicates that shoppers are now more intentional in seeking discounts and product availability. Consumers are now looking for the best deals, no matter where they are.
Whether it's a discount on a popular product, a bundle deal, or a free gift with purchase, promotions can incentivize customers to shop with you. Make sure to communicate your promotions clearly and make them easy to redeem.
However, your discounts need to be reasonable in the sense that you don’t devalue your brand. The best discounts are those who will attract shoppers who can and will still buy from you even after your discount promos.
2. Create A Personalized Experience
Personalization is key in building strong relationships with customers. During Valentine's Day, e-commerce businesses can create a personalized experience for their customers by offering customized gifts, special wrapping options, or personalized messaging. For example, a jewelry retailer might offer a custom engraving service for their customers, allowing them to personalize a gift for their loved one; or a you could simply let shoppers attach a cute note to the gifts they order for their partners.
PS: Don't leave the single ones out this season. Craft a special campaign to celebrate self love, and get single shoppers in on the gifting and the fun. You'd be surprised at the results
3. Utilize Multiple Channels
To reach as many customers as possible, it's important to utilize multiple channels in your Valentine's Day campaigns. This includes social media, SMS, paid advertising, email, in-store promotions, and your website. Develop a detailed social media and email marketing calendar outlining the content, posting schedule, and engagement strategies for your Valentine's campaign.
By reaching customers through multiple channels, you can increase the reach of your campaign and ensure that your message is seen by as many people as possible.
4. Make it Festive
A winning strategy is to always ensure that your campaigns align thematically with the occasion or event. Consistency in messaging, visuals, and offers helps create a seamless and memorable brand experience for your customers. Valentine's Day is a festive occasion, and e-commerce businesses should make sure to reflect that in their campaigns.
Use festive and love-themed imagery, messaging and product packaging to create a memorable and impactful campaign. Your content should be visually appealing and evoke romantic emotions, making your customers feel special and appreciated.
5. Utilize Customer Data
E-commerce businesses can leverage customer data to create targeted and effective Valentine's Day campaigns. By using customer data, you can personalize your promotions, messaging, and advertising to reach the right customers with the right message.
A winning strategy is to identify your most wanted products that that would make great dinner outfits or accessories, or serve as thoughtful gifts for Valentine's Day. These items could be in or out of stock. Restock the out-of-stock products and put a discount on the available ones. There's a huge opportunity to then send targeted emails to customers who have recently showed interest in these products, and make immediate conversions.
Product Alerts by Lykdat
The Products Alerts API by Lykdat helps retailers engage profitably with customers by automatically sending personalized email alerts to shoppers when their favourite items are back-in-stock, or available at a lower price.
It's also available on BigCommerce as the In-Stock Alerter by Lykdat, and on Shopify as the In Stock Alerter by Lykdat.
With Product Alerts, every discount is an opportunity for immediate sales.
Another powerful data-driven approach to executing successfully is to leverage customer feedback for your marketing campaigns. Marketing isn't just about shouting the loudest; it's also about listening intently. Customer reviews offer an unparalleled opportunity to listen to your audience, understand their needs, and craft marketing strategies that resonate deeply. By analysing customer feedback from previous Valentine seasons, you can transform your marketing from guesswork to precision, leading to increased engagement, loyalty, and revenue. It's time to let your customers guide the way to marketing success.
Retail Intelligence by Lykdat
Powered by AI, Lykdat's Retail Intelligence systematically collects customer feedback and product data from relevant online sources, sifts through the noise and identifies key themes during analysis, and provides actionable insights valuable for fashion brands and manufacturers.
6. Encourage Customer Engagement
Encouraging customer engagement is key to building brand loyalty and increasing revenue. This period, you can encourage customer engagement by launching contests, offering special promotions, or encouraging customers to share their experiences on social media. For example, a florist might launch a photo contest encouraging customers to share photos of the bouquets they received on Valentine's Day, with a custom hashtag. Make it fun and engaging!
7. Start Planning Early
Just like with any other special event, it's never too early to start planning a Valentine's Day campaign. As high as 85% of shoppers who plan to shop online typically have tabs open when waiting for sales to begin. You want those open tabs to be for your products. Teasers, countdowns, and sneak peeks generate excitement, encouraging customers to look forward to your offerings.
Shoppers are now more intentional about finding the best deals during festive seasons than ever. Preparing ahead of time gives you the opportunity to plan and execute processes, put the word out there early, get your customers excited for Valentine's Day, and even make sales before the V-Day!
Read Lykdat's in-depth guide on how to properly plan holiday campaigns.
8. Measure Performance
The final crucial step is to measure the impact of yor Valentine campaign. Effectively assessing the success of your campaigns goes beyond merely counting likes and shares—it involves extracting meaningful insights that inform future strategies.
This involves assessing your Return On Investment (ROI), evaluating customer engagement, assessing website and ecommerce analytics, gathering customer feedback, and comparing performance across channels.
By diligently measuring the impact of your Valentine campaigns, you transform data into actionable insights. These insights serve as a compass for future campaign endeavors, guiding your strategies toward continued growth and customer satisfaction.
2024 Holiday Marketing Resources For Retailers
We've put together everything you need to leverage special dates and holidays in 2024 - to connect deeply with your audience and enhance ecommerce success.
You'll get:
- The 2024 Holiday Marketing Calendar by Lykdat
- The Holiday Marketing Checklist For Retailers
- Free subscription to Ecommerce Weekly - where you get access to everything worth reading at the centre of Retail, Tech and Ecommerce.
Conclusion
Valentine's Day is an opportunity to make your customers feel special. Think of them as a partner you're trying to impress. By offering special promotions, creating a personalized experience, utilizing multiple channels, making it festive, utilizing customer data, and encouraging customer engagement, you can create an effective and impactful Valentine's Day campaign that delivers results.