Valentine’s Day comes every year, and a smart marketer, or an online marketing agency, seizes every opportunity to diversify communication and increase efficiency. 14th February can once again be a good opportunity to increase your sales and boost your brand awareness. As an online marketing agency we have collected 6 tips on how to start your Valentine’s Day online marketing campaigns this year.
Do you need this?
Whatever your online marketing agency says, first consider whether your service is relevant! Use simple common sense: can you connect your product or service to Valentine’s Day? At this time, couples celebrate each other and desperately search for gifts, but not at any cost. A nice little thing can be useful. However no one buys a car, a house, diet pills, or an X-ray examination for this occasion.
If your business fits the following categories, you are definitely relevant:
- Flower shop
- Sweets
- Wellness services
- Travel
- Books
- Personalized, printed items
- Photo development
- Massage
- Restaurant
- Not too high-value, pairable experiences, or customizable gift items
Be cautious when promoting gym memberships or weight loss-related products. Those can send a negative message if not handled carefully (like “I don’t like you this way, darling”). Also, promoting completely unrelated services can come off as forced and awkward. Just think about it, who buys a tire change or a prostate exam for Valentine’s Day? You don’t have to jump on the marketing bandwagon at all costs; sometimes less is more.
However, you can be funny! I’ve seen brilliantly creative divorce lawyer ads during this time, but of course, this might not sit well with everyone. And here we move on to point number two…
Online marketing Valentine’s Day?Prepare for the worst in online marketing!
Valentine’s Day is an extremely divisive holiday. Among those who have a partner and among those who don’t. Here in Central Europe, we can talk about at least 5 distinct camps:
- Those who have a partner and like to celebrate Valentine’s Day. They deal with it, spend time, energy, and money on it.
- Those who have a partner but don’t care about the holiday. They don’t want to buy, but you don’t annoy them to death with your ads either.
- Those who have a partner but hate Valentine’s Day. They usuall comment under all your ads that this is an evil American holiday that is about shopping. They think those who give gifts don’t really love their partner because you should love them every day, not just on this day.
- Those who don’t have a partner, so they don’t care much about this day.
- Those who don’t have a partner, so this day affects them extremely sensitively. They are either very sad or very angry. Therefore, they also like to comment negatively. And of course, there are crossovers and mixtures of these.
All I want to say is that you need to think about which target group you are relevant to and who you want to reach with your online marketing. Because you won’t be able to satisfy everyone. Focus on those for whom you really add value and be alert to negative feedback as well. We wrote more about how to moderate here.
Not everyone loves it.3. Give an idea – prepare your online marketing agency in time
Most people are completely clueless at this time. Just like when buying Christmas gifts. So the number of searches for “Valentine’s Day gift ideas for men” and “Valentine’s Day gift ideas for women” on Google soars. Put together a blog post about what products you recommend for different types of people in your webshop,
or if you’re really serious, create a separate landing page for this. Users are always grateful if you make their lives easier and take the pressure of creativity off their shoulders. And if the gift hits the mark, both members of the couple will think of you with love for at least a year, because as the saying goes: it’s better to give than to receive a gift!
The point is to strive to add value: speed for the rushed, full service for the overloaded, creative romance for the leisurely, cheap products for the thrifty, luxury for your premium customers.
Prepare in time, celebrate calmly.4. Advertise to those in a relationship – or even singles
On Facebook, an online marketing agency worth their salt can target those who are married, in a relationship, maybe even in an open relationship, as well as newly engaged users. Take advantage of this feature and don’t advertise Valentine’s Day offers to those who definitely won’t be buying from you on this day. If you operate a dating site, this is also a great opportunity for you to draw people’s attention to how nice it would be to spend Valentine’s Day with their loved one – in this case, target singles.
Remember, try to phrase it in a way that doesn’t offend either camp. Because then you’ll have to moderate, and a user-brand trust that is hurt at a time like this can work against you for many months (“I’m sure not buying from these anymore”). More with brains than with force.
Valentine’s Day is a much smaller holiday than Christmas, so there’s no need to ask your marketing agency to start your social media communication with Facebook ads or Google ads weeks or months in advance. Usually, it’s more than enough to start a week earlier, as this is mainly about impulse buying of lower-value products (except for a few exceptions, of course).
5. Value over price action
I never recommend endless discounting because in the long run, it brings in low-quality customers, pushes you into a downward price spiral, and reduces your profit, which you could later use for improving your services or marketing.
Be more creative than that! Here are some ideas you can consider:
- Create a Valentine’s Day package from your product (packaging multiple products together)
- Offer free shipping
- Create gift wrapping
- Give a second product as a gift
- Dress your product in a romantic theme
- Check out our list of 33 online marketing Christmas tips that you can adapt for Valentine’s Day
In your newsletters, blog posts, and social media posts, avoid clichéd phrases. Give space to your creativity, take your own photos in your store, with your products, with your colleagues. Users enjoy behind-the-scenes insights and good ideas, which they repay with purchases!
Here, a gift for you!Prepare for the future
Create a remarketing list for those who clicked on your Valentine’s Day products or services this year, and create a separate list for your Valentine’s Day buyers. Analyze your current campaign thoroughly with your online marketing agency, draw conclusions (which product sold the best, which target audience you advertised to, which image or text worked best, etc.). Write down the lessons for yourself, so next year you just need to perfect the system, you don’t have to reinvent everything.
Since many people propose on the 14th February, if you have wedding-related products, it’s time to show them to your Valentine’s Day buyers!
Plan the next year!If you liked the post, please share it with your friends, and we’d love to hear your thoughts, so please write to us! And if you’d like a professional online marketing agency to work on your marketing tasks, contact us.
