Valentine’s Day gifts differ from Christmas or birthday gifts by nature. If you sell products around that theme, Valentine’s Day is the perfect time to promote them as ideal gift options. If you don’t, Easter is around the corner. This list stands valid for then too. So start planning now.
1. Make Delivery Information Very Visible.
Regardless of the time of the year, delivery is always a soft spot for online shoppers. However, it becomes an even more sensitive concern during the gift shopping season. When someone’s about to buy a gift for the special person in their life (to be given at a specific date), one of the key things they will check is delivery information.
To convert Valentine’s Day shoppers into customers, make your delivery information clear and visible across all your communication channels like your website, social media pages and newsletters. What’s more, remember to write off date customers can place orders for Valentine’s Day or how many slots available for delivery and pickup services.
Free shipping always plays a influential role in a customer's decision making so explore the possibility of offering that. You can find some help in our 5 Things To Consider When Planning Your eCommerce Delivery Strategy article.
2. Use Fear of Missing Out To Drive Urgency
One key to selling more is to drive urgency without making people feel guilty. When people feel they are running out of time they tend to take action faster because they are afraid of missing out on an offer.
Use a countdown timer and dedicated copy to drive urgency.
2 days only
1 day to go
offer expires tonight
ends soon
one day only
last chance
This is still effective even though gift shopping for Valentine’s Day is already bound by time.
Some people are okay with making people feel guilty though. May God forgive you.
3. Use Scarcity to Drive Urgency.
Human beings tend to value things that appear to be scarce or limited way more than something that seems readily and always available. We naturally gravitate towards something we feel that not alot of people have access to.
Scarcity is the situation/reality where, when a product or service is limited in availability (or at least perceived as being limited), it becomes more attractive.
In summary THE LESS AVAILABLE A PRODUCT IS, THE MORE INTEREST IT GENERATES.
Set a limited number to whatever product(s) or service you are offering this valentine and make it very clear and visible that the numbers are reducing quickly.
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The actionable, practical and efficient approach to building your business into #aBrandThatSells
4. User Generated Content
Letting your customers be your brand ambassadors is very powerful. In general, people connect more with brands that show people similar to them or better than them. Another Valentine’s Day marketing idea you should consider to build a stronger brand for your business is using User-Generated Content (UGC).
One great example of UGC was the “Share the Coke” campaign in 2014. Coca Cola encouraged their customers to share pictures of themselves enjoying the drink on social media. Getting customers to join actively in building up your content will not only arouse their love and trust towards your brand (because they feel themselves a part of it) but also spread your brand to a much wider pool of potential customers.
Yes, CocaCola is a really big brand and that can be a tall order for your humble brand. Remember one thing though, STARTING SMALL DOESN'T HARM ANYONE
5. Offer Reasonable Discounts.
Because everyone essentially loves the idea that they are getting good value for their money, discounts are essentially always a good idea to generate more interest in your brand. Whether you choose to run a 5, 10, 15, or 20% discount sale it is important to ensure you don't sell the discounted products at a huge loss and avoid incurring debt. Having a discount pricing strategy can guide you on what to do at different points or a simple set of rules to guide how you offer discounts.
The catch here is to ensure that you are going to at least break even on the things sold on sale. It is also important to avoid a blanket sale push on all your products/services but instead apply it to a few. So, if you have 10 products, a discount can apply to 2. If you have 100, then maybe 10. Lets just peg it at between 10 to 20% of all the products or services available.
The Concept Of A Loss Leader
A loss leader is a product or service priced below the market value with the hope that it will bring in customers who will then spend more on other product or service offerings you have available. We like to call this “taking a hit”. It can sometimes work and then equally sometimes go wrong if you end up selling too many of that product. To mitigate that, set limits like we described above.
It is also smart for business owners to discount products and services that have the smallest margin(s) to limit the “taking a hit” experience
The key task now is finding the right loss leader product/service that a consumer wants because that is what makes the offer attractive.
6. Advertise Advertise Advertise.
No marketing campaign will be hugely successful without ads. The only way such happens is if you are a person of HUGE influence. Outside this, it is important to explore advertising opportunities that can come from COLLABORATIONS and PAID ADS (with influencers and with social media platforms like google and facebook)
Promotions, Collaborations and Influences help to boost traffic to your brand. It is possible that most of your customers won’t be ready to buy from you the first time that they see your content because people tend to go through a buying process before committing to a purchase. Using promotions can help you reach them repeatedly and improve your chances of converting them to customers.
In summary THE MORE PEOPLE YOU REACH, THE BETTER YOUR CHANCES OF GETTING RESULTS
Free Video: 3 Marketing Strategies That Will Help You Make More Money This Valentine (With Practical Examples)
The actionable, practical and efficient approach to building your business into #aBrandThatSells
