Learn about the Valentine’s Day marketing strategies that are sure to get you more sales.
Online Valentine’s Day sales have been increasing year-after-year. This year, spending in the US alone, is expected to reach $24 billion, $2 billion more than the year before.
But more demand also means more competition among brands. And when the competition is so fierce, marketing ads tend to get lost in the sea of ads floating around.
So what can you do to ensure your Shopify Valentine’s Day marketing strategies don’t go to waste? Well, we have strategies we bet no one ever told you about.
Valentine’s Day marketing strategies for Shopify stores
1. Tap into Wishlist data early on
Wishlist is a section where shoppers can save items they like and might want to buy in future. This feature makes it easy for shoppers to find items when they’re ready to make the purchase.
For eCommerce sites, wishlists are goldmines. Here, there’s information about products that their shoppers already like and intend to buy. This makes it much easier for stores to promote these items and push them towards sales.
Wishlists make it easy for shoppers to come back to your site. And if you put some effort, you can easily retain these leads. Here’s what you’ll have to do:
- Create V-Day promotions around the items that shoppers have added to their wishlists
- Personalize Valentine’s Day deals and offers based on the items shoppers have added to their wishlists
- Enable shoppers to share wishlists with their friends and family members so that they can receive items from the wishlist as Valentine’s Day gifts
- When you create promotions around wishlists, use all your marketing channels such as email, web push notification, SMS, Messenger, social media, etc., so that shoppers don’t miss it
2. Entice them with store credits
Discounts, deals and freebies are common. They’ve become a part of consumers’ everyday shopping vocabulary. So, unless your offers are unique and out of this world, shoppers no longer fall into their trap.
However, there’s one thing that can be more effective than discounts in your Valentine’s Day marketing strategy – store credits or reward points.
75% of consumers favor brands that offer store credits. As psychologist Daniel Kahneman explains, we humans make two types of decisions: one type is snap decision, made on impulse; the other, more logical and thought-through.
Store credits can drive customers to make both these types of decisions. When you offer special store credits on your V-Day collection, it could work in both ways. You can lure shoppers to make impulse purchases with more store credits. Or, lead them to make a measured decision, as they’ll earn more points if they make a purchase.
Here are some exciting Valentine’s Day marketing strategies to run around store credits:
- Offer store credits to registered customers to simply log in on V-Day
- Offer extra store credits on your curated Valentine’s Day gifting edit
- Run last-minute flash sales just before the day ends and offer more store credits
Here’s an example:
3. Offer credit points all through the Valentine’s week
Valentine’s Day may be just one day, but people tend to celebrate through the week. Infact, different days such as Rose Day, Propose Day, Chocolate Day, Teddy Day, Kiss Day, etc., are celebrated from the 7th to the 13th of February.
eCommerce stores need not restrict promotions to just the 14th of February. You can use all days of the week to entice shoppers to make purchases with the help of store credits.
Now, it’s easy to create new offers for all these days if yours is a speciality gift store and you sell soft toys, chocolates, clothes, accessories, etc. But what if you don’t?
Let’s look at some ideas on how you can offer store credits through the V-Day week whether or not you’re a speciality gift eCommerce store.
- Create a different offer for all the days. That way there’s something new to keep shoppers excited everyday
- Try to collaborate with other brands that offer items that are fast-selling during V-Day and offer store credits
- Offer fixed amount of store credits towards purchases made in that week and allow customers to use the collected store credits to buy from your Valentine’s Day collection on the 14th of February
- Make customers come back to your store everyday out of curiosity by not revealing the next day’s offer
4. Harness the power of omni-channel marketing
One thing you shouldn’t miss in your Valentine’s Day marketing strategy is to use as many channels as possible. Simply because your customers are everywhere – some prefer email, others SMS, Messenger, and so on. If you ignore any one channel, you’d be missing out on potential sales.
Moreover, these days, Valentine’s Day is celebrated by everyone, not just couples. Friends, siblings, parents, family members, everyone shares gifts on this day. And so, your customer demographic is much wider than just young couples.
Now, omnichannel marketing is more than just using all channels. You also need to integrate the channels. This will ensure consistency and provide a better experience to your customers.
How does omnichannel marketing help?
Imagine this – you run a social media ad for your Valentine’s Day collection. A shopper clicks it and reaches your website. Next, the same shopper, while browsing the internet, sees an ad of your collection on another site. At the end of the day, this shopper receives an email from you promoting your V-Day collection. Now you’ve definitely got this shopper thinking about your Valentine’s Day collection and offer!
However, the key is to start your Valentine’s Day marketing campaign on all these channels early on. Don’t wait till Valentine’s week. Some brands launch their campaigns two to three months before V-Day.
5. Give your loyal customers first access to the Valentine’s Day offers
When you open your V-Day sale or collection, give first access to your loyal customers. These are customers who buy from your store regularly. And those who have been buying from you for a long time.
By doing so, you can ensure more sales because loyal customers are more likely to buy from you. Studies show that 65% of companies’ business is generated from loyal customers.
By allowing them first access, you’re making them feel special and ensuring that your best customers receive something exclusive. This way, you’re also making sure they don’t go to other websites for V-Day shopping.
Some Valentine’s Day ideas for your loyal customers:
- Give first access only to high-tier members: An important thing to do in your Valentine’s Day marketing strategy is to include your loyalty program members. Here too, you can give first access to your members. To make your customers’ experience more engaging, make early access exclusive to high-tier members.
- Offer multiple types of first access deals: Increase the excitement by allowing early access to different categories for different tiers of your loyalty program. Or you could open early access for different tiers on different dates.
6. Run retargeting and remarketing campaigns
One of the most effective Valentine’s Day ideas any marketer would share is to leverage your existing customers. More than acquiring new customers for your V-Day sales, turn to the people who’ve already visited your site and have made purchases from you in the past.
We’re talking about remarketing and retargeting. Now, you might have set up a Valentine’s Day campaign landing page, a specially curated gifting section, but have you thought of how you’re going to bring your target audience to these pages?
Make sure you have the pixels set up to bring back people who visited your site. You can run paid ad campaigns to bring back customers who have bought from you in the past.
A pro tip: start early!
Then, once your retargeting campaigns start bringing traffic to your Valentine’s Day sale, start remarketing to convert these visitors into customers. What does remarketing mean? It means that when shoppers visit your site, you should be able to target them even if they don’t buy anything on your site at that point.
All these events take time and hence, it’s best to plan your Shopify Valentine’s Day marketing strategy much in advance. Start early, so you have the time to bring in traffic, generate leads, and convert shoppers to customers.
7. Put your referrals campaign to work
92% of people trust referrals they’ve received from people they know. Referred shoppers are more likely to buy from your store. And that’s one reason why you should use referrals for your Valentine’s Day sales plan.
When you have this list of interested shoppers, half your job is done. Converting them is much easier and quicker than going all over the internet to hunt for new customers. Isn’t it?
But again, if you start building your referrals list just before V-Day, you might not make it in time. So, like we always say, start much earlier. Preferably, earlier than your competitors. Because your customers are their customers as well. And they, too, might be targeting them.
You can create engaging referral programs specially for Valentine’s Day. Here are some Valentine’s Day referral ideas:
- Don’t limit your referrals to couples. These days, people celebrate V-Day with everyone – siblings, parents, friends, pets, and even singles celebrate it by themselves. Hence, when you ask for referrals, word your message correctly. Make it inclusive. The more the number of referrals, the more your sales.
- Offer something exclusive and worthwhile in return so that your customers feel excited about sharing referrals. A mere 10% discount or a few store credits is not going to cut it.
- Offer an incentive, not just to your referrer but also to the new referred shopper. When people know they’re going to receive something in return, they feel more obliged to do something for your brand.
Here’s an example:
Final thoughts on Valentine’s Day marketing strategies
To sum up these seven actionable strategies, here are a few of the best tips we discussed within these points:
- Start early. Plan your Valentine’s Day marketing strategy months in advance, so that you can launch your campaigns in time and bring customers to your site right on time for V-Day.
- Discounts and offers are a good way to entice customers, but it’s equally important to work out how, when and where you promote your Valentine’s Day campaigns. Think multi-channel, retargeting ads, and unique offers.
- Your existing customers are the growth hack you’ve been missing out on. They’re easier to sell than new customers.
- Use data from your site from wishlist, recently viewed products, customer account page, and shoppers’ browsing history to create personalized and hyper targeted promotions.
Setting up your Shopify Valentine’s Day marketing campaigns is much easier when you have a good tool already set up on your site. Try Flits, the customer account page app, with a comprehensive suite of add-on features for your V-Day promotions.
