Valentine’s Day Marketing Guide

We know saying things like, “roses are red, violets are blue, it’s the season of Valentine’s ecommerce selling for you,” is so done, but we’re going to roll with it in the spirit of the love-focused holiday. Whether your ecommerce store caters to adorable pups or Instagrammers who love fashion, there’s a market for nearly everyone on Valentine’s Day. Gather inspiration from our Valentine’s Day Ecommerce Marketing Guide to fall in love with your online store all over again.

Go Beyond Romance

Have you ever heard of Galentine’s Day? Not everyone celebrates a traditional Valentine’s day. Some choose instead to honor their pets, besties, & friends who are their chosen family. Give your customers the Valentines’ Day they’ve always wanted with products that honor the loved ones in their lives. From cute pet shirts to Valentine’s Day fortune cookies, offer a selection of love-focused gifts that expand beyond romance.

Create a Gift Guide

There’s something about Valentine’s Day that strikes fear in the heart of budding couples, clueless gift-givers, & anyone who wants a gift that symbolizes their cupid-inspired feelings. Take the anxiety out of online Valentine’s shopping with a gift guide. Try creating a blog post with a round-up of ideas or a video gift guide to walk through different product options & who they would be perfect for. 

Welcome User Generated Content

User-Generated Content (UGC) helps build social proof, credibility & gets your customers involved in the spirit of Valentine’s Day. Encourage customers to post & caption their favorite couples selfies to social media while tagging your online store. You can also turn it into a contest where the image with the most votes wins a free product from your online store. 

Shower Your Customers with Adoration

Make your customers feel loved by showering them with the adoration they deserve. Remember to make your communication extra special with Valentines-themed emails, landing pages, & social media posts to get them into the spirit. Send out email updates with VIP sneak peek access, limited-time coupon codes, & a behind-the-scenes look at what you’re doing in your ecommerce store.

Run Social Media Ads

Where are your customers most active on social media? Breakthrough the online noise & get in front of your customers with Facebook or Instagram ads. Tiktok promotions are also a great place to get your products seen. Keep your promotions visual, colorful, & quirky to grab their attention & make it easy to hit “Buy.” Remember, you can also create video ads for an enticing way to connect with your customers. Research shows that a staggering 96% of consumers increased their online video consumption & nine out of ten viewers said that they wanted to see more videos from brands & businesses.

Encourage Self-Gifting

The treat yourself culture is alive & well, so why not embrace it with a self-gifting initiative? Surveys show that 77% of people bought themselves winter holiday gifts, which means they’re primed for a bit of indulgence come February 14th. Showcase some of your products as the perfect gift to give yourself. Items that promote pampering, entertainment, & keepsakes like jewelry are the ideal treat yourself items. 

Introduce Break-Up Gifts

Not everyone has a special someone on Valentine’s Day or a good friend to celebrate with. Some people recently got out of a relationship & aren’t ready to acknowledge the big V-Day just yet. Honor where your customers are at in their love journey by selling break-up & singleton gifts. Think about how your gifts help empower others, lift their spirits, or cheer the fact they’re free to pursue a healthier relationship. The idea is to make your customers feel seen & celebrated.

Start Counting Down

Get your customers excited about your ecommerce Valentine’s Day promotions by counting down. You can use a countdown app like Countdown Timer Ultimate on your Shopify store, but remember to stir the buzz. Talk up your latest products, sales, & any mystery items you plan to release on social media. You can also release a “12 Days of Valentine’s Day” promotion with different coupons, bundled products, & flash sales.

Think Out of the Box

Valentine’s Day is more than just a season for chocolates & teddy bears. Personalize the user experience by catering to your audience’s specific interests & delivering on products they love. The challenge is figuring out how to create personalized, customized items your audience loves. Consider partnering with CustomCat to empower your business with white-label products that ship right to your customer’s door. 

You can learn more about CustomCat’s services here:

Print-On-Demand Promo Products

How to Get Started Selling Online with CustomCat

Look Back & Reflect

Before you launch any promotion, take the time to look back on last year’s ecommerce sales activity & reflect. Open up your analytics & look through your sales records to see which products sold best & which promotions were a hit. It’s also important to take note if some products sold worse than others but brought in more revenue due to a higher price point. 

You’ll save yourself time & resources from trying to reinvent the wheel & focus your efforts on what’s already proven effective with your audience. Once you have a solid baseline for how you’ll promote your online store for Valentine’s Day, you can add in new promotion strategies & fresh ideas to try & beat your record from last year.

Hire an Ecommerce Virtual Assistant

If you’ve already got this marketing & sales thing nailed down for Valentine’s Day, you probably have more business than you know what to do with. Get on top of your influx of orders this year by hiring a Virtual Assistant. You can hire one seasonally, or keep them on through the year to handle everything from tracking inventory to writing product descriptions & customer service. Get started by looking on Fancy Hands or Upwork to make your next hire.

 

What are your best tips for a fun Valentine’s Day promotion? Leave a comment below!