Marketing Tricks for Valentine’s Day

There are nearly 3 weeks until Valentine’s Day and while gifts may not be on the minds of many yet, now is a great time to market them and get people thinking about how your business can help.

Email Marketing

Use the next email in your email marketing campaign to remind customers to turn to your business for the perfect Valentine’s Day gift. Some ideas:

• Since men and women tend to buy different items, split your address list by gender and create two emails – one focused on gift ideas for men and the other on gift ideas for women.
• Remind customers of your shipping cut-off dates and “last-minute deals” to create a sense of urgency.
• Focus on your e-commerce business by encouraging people to buy online during their work lunch hour – this way, their significant other can’t see what they buy.

Blog Posts

Drive traffic to your website by doing some digital marketing and creating helpful Valentine’s Day blog posts. If you’re a beauty store or a salon, write an article geared toward woman about how to use makeup to create a sultry Valentine’s Day look. If you’re a bar or restaurant, try an article geared toward men about how to make the perfect Valentine’s Day dinner. If you’re a clothing store, try a “top 10” list of articles that are bought most for Valentine’s Day to provide some inspiration.

Social Media

Try some promotional ideas on social media networks like Facebook and Twitter for an even bigger outreach.

• Facebook ads are a great way to target the audience you want to reach. The tool lets you create your ads based on location, gender, age, and more so you can easily promote specific items or offers.
• Create a “10 days of gift ideas” campaign or something similar on Twitter. Each day, post a different featured Valentine’s Day gift with information about the item and the easiest way to buy it.
• Host a Valentine’s Day raffle and offer the winner dinner for two, a limo ride, a gift, etc. Create the event through Facebook and make the entrants “like” your page to enter. Or, have Twitter users include your handle in their entry to give your business more exposure.
• Now is a great time to take advantage of Pinterest – create a board of all of the Valentine’s Day items you’re selling to help shoppers easily find them.

In-Store

Shoppers tend to gravitate toward stores that are decorated uniquely, so try gathering up pink, red, and white decorations like balloons, signs, streamers, posters, and any other attention-grabbing items to draw people in. You can even have one of your staff members dress like Cupid to help customers pick out their gifts.