The average person will spend $192 on Valentine’s Day this year, which is about $17 higher than last year, according to the National Retail Federation. If you run an online store or take online orders as a restaurant, you can leverage this holiday to increase sales.
No matter what you sell, there’s a way to celebrate the day, and give your business a boost.
Here are three ways to celebrate Valentine’s Day with your online store:
1. Host a Valentine's Day contest
A social media contest is a great way to drive engagement and website traffic, and they’re fairly easy to set up and manage. You’ll need a prize, which ideally includes some of your own products. It could be a box of chocolates, matching t-shirts, a behind-the-scenes tour, a getaway, a date night box, or dinner reservations.
No matter what you choose, make sure the contest relates to your brand. An Indian restaurant, for instance, gave away a romantic dinner for two.
Restaurants that use Orderspoon to manage online orders, could encourage participants to place an order within a certain time period to be entered into a free drawing. Or, Orderspoon users could give contest winners a special code for a free meal.
No matter what your brand, you can generate a contest or a giveaway for Valentine’s Day. Need some more inspiration? Check out this list of contest ideas.
2. Group Valentine's Day merchandise and promote it
Do you have Valentine’s Day products for sale? Online stores that sell holiday staples like chocolate, flowers, and cards, have a readymade list of items, but they aren’t the only brands that can leverage sales during this time.
When you think of Valentine’s Day, do you think of steak? Not really, right? But that didn’t stop Omaha Steaks from putting together a Date Night Box for Valentine’s Day, complete with two filet minions and all the trimmings.
Follow this train of thought and position your products as Valentine’s Day gifts. You can offer date night alternatives, suggest at-home recipes, and encourage gifts for people other than significant others, like kids or pets.
Once you’ve figured out your holiday hook, promote it. Omaha Steak put this banner on their homepage carousel.
3. Host a last-minute sale
There are always last-minute shoppers. So, this year, plan a sale that helps procrastinators. Big retailers cater to last-minute shoppers all the time. Apple, for example, sent this email to its customers, which is full of gift inspiration.
You can do something similar. Identify a handful of products that make a great gift and highlight them in an email. To add an extra incentive, you can reduce prices, offer free shipping, or give customers a promo code.
Remember, you can also segment your email list, and cater the offers to each group. For example, you might give the promo code to your most loyal customers, as opposed to everyone on your list.
You can add a sense of urgency to the email too. The sale might only run for a limited time or the sale price might only apply to the first 20 people.
There are plenty of ways to celebrate Valentine’s Day with your customers. No matter what campaign you choose, be sure to promote it and check your metrics to make adjustments as needed.