February 14th is right around the corner, and it seems that every retailer is making their way to the top of Google’s results for search inquiries about “Valentine’s Day deals,” discount codes,” and anything else related. So how do you make your eCommerce Valentine’s Day promotions stand out?
We asked eCommerce store owners and experts this question and gathered all of their best strategies.
Start Planning Early
The key to standing out is early promotion. Starting your Valentine's Day promo push weeks ahead will allow your clients to see the promotion multiple times which will eventually grab their attention. We are all so inundated with advertising it still may take multiple touchpoints to get a message across, no matter how great. Starting weeks ahead also gives those that like to plan or might be out of town for the special occasion a little more time to plan.
Mikey Moran, CEO of Private Label Extensions
Create Swoon-Worthy Product Bundles
Identify your most gift-worthy, romantic, and/or heartwarming products, and highlight these across your website and your social media pages. If it makes sense, you can bundle these gift-worthy products together and sell them as a package. Combining products that work exceptionally well together is a great way of increasing conversions on Valentines' Day. You should also consider adding discounts to these products, bundled or unbundled, to make them a more attractive buy for your target customers.
Patrick Crane, CEO of Love Sew
Promote Limited-Edition Products
Promote a limited-edition product if you want your Valentine’s Day promotion to stand out. Consumers love to purchase products that won’t last long. A sense of urgency is always smart to create. In addition to your sale or discount, promote a product specifically designed for the day of love.
Another option is to display your delivery times. Customers obviously want to receive your product in time for Valentine’s Day, so make sure they know they’ll have it in their hands before the big day. When you create a limited-edition product with quick shipping attached, you have a winning promotion.
Jean Gregoire, Founder and CEO of Lovebox
Send Out Valentine's Day Cards
One thing we do a lot of years for Valentine's Day is send out Valentine's Day Cards in our packaging. Now, this is something going out to people who already order from us so it’s not necessarily getting new customers, but the cards have cute messages like “Be My Swolemate” and were a supplement company so it tends to get some mentions and reposts on social media.
We’ve also done promotions before where we hide hearts around our website and someone who finds all the hearts wins a prize. These are some of the Valentine's Day Promotions we’ve done over the years. We’ll also on occasion put together a his and hers bundle of products.
John Frigo, eCommerce Manager at BestPriceNutrition
Offer an Early Bird Deal
Offer an early bird deal
For a successful campaign, it’s important to grab the attention of your customers as early as possible. Part of our eCommerce Valentine’s Day strategy is an Early Bird offer. We post this on our socials and incentivize our followers to sign up to our email list for an exclusive discount. This way we not only stand out from the crowd, but we also capture leads and increase our database.
We unlock this deal 12-24 hours earlier for our email subscribers before advertising our promotion on our website.
Offer exclusive content
Once they are in the funnel, in the lead up to Valentine’s Day we send our database exclusive content about our products and how they can use them on the 14th of February. This keeps us top of mind and gives our target market a peek into the VDay promos – and gets them excited!
Offer a limited edition discount
We have a wide range of massagers and personal care products which make perfect gifts for oneself or a loved one on this special occasion. One way to capture our customers’ attention is through daily deals. This very limited time offer creates a sense of urgency and scarcity that helps our campaign perform well.
Ryan, Program Manager at CareMex
Use Storytelling to Convince Customers
Use storytelling to make your products tick the emotional boxes. Most people are looking for meaningful gifts on Valentine's Day, so make sure that your products fill that need in your customers. Even if you offer silly products, they can still fill a need for a meaningful gift to give. Storytelling is an easy, and highly effective, way to show convince your customers that your products will fill the meaningful need.
James Green, Owner of Build A Head
Eye-Catching Content
To ensure our Valentine's Day promotions stand out, we always create eye-catching content featuring new products. We know our customers are shopping for both rave outfits to wear to events over V-Day weekend as well as at home with their significant others so we play on both of these aesthetics.
This year, we are supporting the collection launch with influencer collaboration posts on Instagram so we are able to promote the photos/videos to both our followers and the influencer's page using the same content. This helps increase engagement and give authenticity to the brand.
Brian Lim, CEO of iHeartRaves & INTO THE AM
Upsell with Product Bundles
Buying a valentines gift for a significant other can create problems as sometimes available choices will either be beyond acceptable price ranges or as a singular item, may not be enough, which is why implementing a Valentine’s Day product bundling promotional campaign can be the answer. By utilizing this method, you can give a deterred customer affordable options, and at the same time upsell to increase your sale margins.
For instance, a jewelry business may offer bundled sale items such as earrings with a necklace, or a fine foods eCommerce store may have discounts on a combined wine and delicacy pairing. By going through your items and finding the attractive combinations that could incentivize customers, you can run an effective and profitable Valentine’s Day promotional campaign.
Yuvi Alpert, Founder of Noémie
Make Your Promotions About the Customers
- Make your promotion about the customer, not the product - hone into the reasons behind why they could be searching for your product as a gift or for themselves.
- Don't focus your promotion on one type of audience - Valentine's Day is about celebrating those you love which can come in all different forms, whether you're buying for your other half, a family member, a friend or even a pet, make sure your promotion is all-encompassing.
- Remember that Valentine's Day doesn't have to always be about buying someone else a gift, it can be the perfect time to show yourself some self-love with buying something that you normally wouldn't as a treat.
Richard Ward, Celebrity Hair Stylist and Founder of Tangle Angel
Be More Human
The more human you can be, the better your campaign will stand out this Valentine's Day. It's been a rough few years for a lot of consumers, full of isolation, breakups, and loss, so people don't want to feel like they're being sold to. If you're hoping to convert the "lonely hearts" through your campaign, try to be authentic and connect it to a shared human experience.
You can boost authenticity by showcasing customer's using your photos, and start a shared human experience with hashtags or pulling customer data and displaying it in a unique way (like Spotify!).
- Erika Kraus, Head of Brand at 8fig
Be Customer-Centered
Be customer-centered. We highlight products that are relevant to the occasion and are appealing to the majority of our market. Run more promotional campaigns such as sales and discounts. We also send professional emails to our email list. We also offer far more benefits than the usual valentine promotions by other businesses and competitors such as free shipping or door-to-door delivery.
In addition to the additional value-adding services, we offer freebies that complement the major gift. Emails, pop-ups, and landing pages are good strategies to look into to boost our eCommerce promotions. Do offer gift guides relevant to the personalities and interests of potential customers. Clients appreciate efforts and strategies such as these.
Michael Humphreys, CEO of Z Grills Australia
Stand Out From the Crowd
Custom Neon is a very visual brand. We find our products and messaging are better conveyed through brightly colored images and vibrant adverts, which is exactly how we plan to make our eCommerce Valentine's Day promotions stand out. We plan to incorporate the traditional Valentine's Day colors, pink and red, with bright pops of like colors that identify with our brand, into appealing imagery to showcase our products.
We will showcase the products that target our desired audience best and answer their questions: What should I get my loved one for Valentine's Day? What should I gift myself this Valentine's Day? And, what should I buy my best friend to spoil them this Valentine's Day?
Courtney Stables, Public Relations at CustomNeon
Promote Self-Love
One really important thing for Valentine’s Day promos is to make sure that you promote self-love as well as romantic love. Valentine’s Day can be about celebrating yourself, your family and friends, or a romantic partner (or if you’re super lucky, all of the above!) But you don’t want to silo yourself into just promoting super romantic reasons for buying products. That can be especially isolating to people this year.
Valentine’s Day is a perfect time to treat yourself to something you enjoy, so make sure you come up with a strategy that covers all your bases. Use your platform to acknowledge the diversity of love – in all its beautiful shapes, colors, genders, and forms! Be a leader in telling stories that resonate with a wide swath of consumers.
Anne-Marie Faiola, Founder and CEO of Bramble Berry Handcraft Provisions
And there you have it! From the time-honored to the brand new ideas, these strategies will keep your Valentine’s Day promotions from going stale for customers—both old and new. And with these strategies in mind, you can be sure that your eCommerce site will make a lasting impression on customers, long after the holiday has passed. If you put any of these strategies into practice, we’d love to hear how they go. Feel free to share your results in the comments below!