Love it or hate it, Valentine’s Day is a great opportunity for businesses to increase their sales once the Christmas period is over and the lull in purchases settles in.
Valentine’s Day is no longer a day specifically reserved for card and chocolate shops, with more people branching out with their gifts, making the day more accessible to a wider range of businesses. These can include restaurants, beauty salons, spas, hotels and many other industries and establishments.
Here are some marketing ideas that businesses can implement to ensure they have a profitable Valentine’s Day.
Dedicate part of your site to Valentine’s Day
If you are a business with a digital presence you should make sure that your Valentine’s Day offering is advertised on your website and not just offline. This means you’ll have content to share on social media platforms, and can send customers to pages with the potential to convert, instead of leaving a call to action that is simply ‘visit us in store’.
You can create a landing page dedicated to Valentine’s Day. This makes it easy to tailor the content on the page without having to edit the rest of your website too much. If you are an ecommerce business this page would be where your customers find your Valentine’s items and offers. If you run a hospitality business it may be where your Valentine’s menu, event details or room rates are displayed with a way to book.
SourceFor example, Not On The High Street have a dedicated section of their website in which they have grouped items appropriate for Valentine’s gifts. This improves the user’s experience as it simplifies their search journey, giving them easy accessibility to gifts that are relevant for Valentine’s Day.
Offer 2 for 1 promotion and discounts
Valentine’s Day is all about couples; therefore this should be your target audience when marketing your Valentine’s offering. A way to reach out to this audience is by running two for one promotions in the lead up to and on Valentine’s Day itself. These promotions involve the client paying full price for one item/service and receiving another for free or for a discounted amount.
SourceBicycle rental company, Bike and Go, have jumped on the Valentine’s two for one strategy by offering two bikes for the price of one between the 14th-16th February, encouraging couples to take a bike ride together.
Although these offers are technically the same as ‘buy one get one free’ offers that are seen all year round, phrasing the offer as two for one doesn’t cheapen the experience with the word ‘free’ and also emphasises the idea of a couple with the number two in the offer.
Create Valentine’s Day product bundles
Similar to Christmas, Easter and other holidays, people are guilty of buying more when it comes to gifts. Although this isn’t great for the pockets of the consumer, it presents businesses with the opportunity to upsell through the creation of bundles.
Bundles have the appearance of being an easy, good value option for consumers, particularly if the price is discounted compared to buying all the items separately. Although this will reduce the amount of overall profit received from these items, it is more likely that someone will buy a ready-made bundle of products rather than purchasing the items individually.
SourceBundles also improve the customer’s browsing experience. If they are looking for specific items on your website, it would benefit them if they were already grouped together: this is more likely to lead to a conversion as people won’t need to search through several sections of the website, potentially leading to frustration and a negative experience. Bundles could also prevent the customer from forgetting an important addition to their gift. For example, if you are buying a camera you will need to gift an SD card as well, otherwise the camera is useless. Bundles can ensure that a person is receiving everything they need which is likely to give them a more positive shopping experience.
Bundles do not always need to be products. A beauty salon, for example, might offer a Valentine’s bundle with a facial, massage and pedicure as an all-inclusive gift.
Create a retargeting strategy
Consumer driven holidays like Valentine’s Day are an excellent time to retarget past clientele, encouraging them to return to your site with seasonal messaging.
One effective retargeting method is through paid online advertising. This can be set up through the Google Display Network or social advertising platforms like Facebook Ads. Retargeting involves showing ads to people who have visited your store or website before and left without converting. These can be on their social media platforms, on news websites and even blogs, meaning you are reaching them at times they are not actively shopping, so are less likely to be comparing prices and are more likely to make on the spot purchases/ bookings from these ads.
Your ads will be displayed the number of times you specify over a set time period. For example, you may want to set a frequency cap for impressions per user each month. This means that your business will have a strong presence in front of your users but your retargeting efforts won’t harass them.
In addition, it’s important that your ads are well-branded; the people who you’ll be targeting will have already visited your website, so ensure your logo is clear in order to trigger recognition. You’ll also need to feature a strong message, whether that is a certain product you are pushing or an exclusive Valentine’s offer. It is equally important that the ad has a relevant landing page, taking those that click through to the right product/page.
Online advertising could be an uncounted for activity in marketing strategies and may require funding. Luckily there are alternative finance options that could help give some extra cash for marketing efforts. Use a business loan calculator to work out how much you could borrow and what the repayments would be. This way you can judge the ROI from the ads compared to loan repayments.
Limited time offers
No matter what time of year it is, limited time offers will often see an influx in sales. People are constantly on the lookout for a bargain. If you want a way of boosting your sales around Valentine’s Day then the best way is by running a special offer.
They’re not a strategy for retaining customers or converting them into loyal customers, limited time offers are great for creating a sense of urgency. They force potential customers to convert during a set time period, rather than waiting until a later date to complete purchases.
SourceThey can also help you sell out of a specific service or product. For example, a restaurant may offer free desserts with every starter and main meal purchased on Valentine’s Day. This would encourage consumers to book a table on Valentine’s Day to receive this limited time offer, while also ensuring that the business owner has a full restaurant for the day/night. For example Zizzi’s, the Italian chain restaurant are offering a three course meal at £19.95 per head between the dates of 10th-14th February.
Special merchandising
Even though Valentine’s is only one day, it is still a good idea to merchandise appropriately. This is particularly effective if you are a bricks and mortar business, such as a beauty salon, hair salon or shop.
Effective merchandising, particularly on the outside of a business premises, can encourage more foot traffic which will have a positive impact on your sales. Themed merchandise is likely to remind some shoppers that the day is approaching which may inspire them to take a look, despite them perhaps not having planned to originally.
Internal merchandising can allow you to group products together in one area of your business, making it easy for consumers to find what they are looking for, while allowing you to push certain items that are specific to Valentine’s Day.
SourceMerchandising is not a free venture. Some businesses may consider their ROI before choosing to commit to spending on extra merchandise. Firstly you need to consider whether your business is relevant enough for the Valentine’s Day merchandising to be worth it. If you are an optician for instance, Valentine’s probably isn’t a big day for you, meaning that you are unlikely to receive a return on your investment. If, however, you are a florist, it may be worth the extra expenditure to bring in even more business during this typically busy time.
Rob Straathof is the CEO of Liberis, which provides non-nonsense funding solutions to growing businesses.