Love it or hate it, Valentine’s Day is good for business. (Gosh, I can almost see my three readers rolling their eyes as I type this.)
Consumer spending on this holiday amounts to billions of dollars in the US alone, where over half of the adults plan to celebrate in some form. And with online shopping on the rise, you can bet that all eyes are on social media this year.
If you’re running a small or medium business, this is actually a good thing. Social media (and the internet in general) can level the playing field for you. Here, a creative campaign driven by authentic user engagement can bring in more sales or heighten brand awareness just as much as a huge advertising budget can.
So, how can your business cash in on Valentine’s Day? Here are some ideas to get you started:
1. Create shareable content that’s relevant to your brand.
What if your product isn’t really related to Valentine’s Day? Or what if you’re not really in the mood to create a promo? That’s fine, your brand can still gain relevance by sharing useful content that’s in line with both your expertise and the holiday.
For instance, if you own a real estate company, you could share or come up with a useful article. Something like “A Checklist For Moving In Together” or “Date Ideas for a Romantic Night In” would be great.
Here’s another example. If your company or brand sells nutritional supplements, you could post tips on maintaining a healthy heart. You could even insert a link to a page featuring all the relevant supplements to this while you’re at it.
2. Bundle or promote your best-selling products as gifts.
On the other hand, if your business sells chocolates, flowers, jewelry, or lingerie, go big or go home. Valentine’s Day is perhaps your biggest opportunity for beefing up sales, so don’t miss it!
Some of the best promotions for this holiday include offering free shipping to the recipient, free gift-wrapping, and so on. You could also offer to personalise your items in some form, such as a free engraving service for items like rings or bracelets.
It might also help to create a page that’s specifically for your Valentine’s Day offerings. This way, you can bundle your most profitable products and make it easier for customers to find them.
Speaking of which….
3. Don’t forget to make a landing page for existing promotions.
If you do decide to run a promo of some sort, it’s best to create a landing page. You want to take your customer from your social media ads to your sales page in as few clicks as possible. Hence, a good landing page.
Mind you, your landing page doesn’t necessarily have to be a page with your products or services on it. If your goal is simply to drum up brand awareness or drive traffic, for instance, your landing page can be a blog post or your homepage.
4. Hold a contest.
This is especially great for encouraging customer engagement. Online contests such as posting photos of them with their partners (and with your product) or sharing their best/worst date stories are quite popular this time of year.
Don’t forget to give your customers an incentive for participating, though! Vouchers, discount codes, and product giveaways are all excellent options.
On that note, you can also arrange for giveaways to drive spending further. For example, you could include a free teddy bear each time a customer purchases your most expensive bouquet. Or you could throw in a small box of truffles each time someone buys a bottle of wine.
5. Come up with a clever hashtag and then pose a question.
If you can’t afford to give big discounts or giveaways yet, polls are a great alternative. They’re also an awesome way to gauge your target market’s preferences.
For instance, if you run a local tourism company, you could create a poll asking your clients to pick their favourite romantic destination. Add in a clever hashtag to make it easier to track responses and engagement.
6. Generate an interactive app or experience.
Though this can take more time and effort, it enhances your target customer’s experience. Furthermore, it can exponentially grow your social media engagement.
Need an example? Back in 2012, Heineken teamed up with Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam to create a Facebook app called “The Serenade.” It enabled users to choose from 640 different options to personalise a – you guessed it – serenade for their partners.
7. If all else fails (or if you’re pressed for time), a simple greeting will do.
Okay, let’s say you’re only reading this on the night before Valentine’s Day. Don’t worry, you can still set a romantic mood on your social media profiles without doing anything drastic.
A sweet image or video ought to suffice. Failing that, you can just create a quick V-day inspired image and wish everyone a Happy Hearts Day!
If you’ve got amazing ideas for V-day promotions but aren’t too confident about your creative writing or graphic design chops, we can help you there.
Remote Staff has got more than a decade’s worth of experience in recruiting and onboarding some of the best Filipino writers or graphic designers out there, among other talents. Best of all, we take care of everything from onboarding to payroll management for you. This way, you and your Filipino remote team can focus on one thing: growing your business online.
Click here to give us a call or here to schedule a callback.
Serena has been working remotely and writing content for the better part of the last decade. To date, she's written for Pepper.ph and Mabuhay Magazine, among others, and has churned out more than a thousand articles on everything from The Basics of Stock Market Investing to How to Make Milk Tea-Flavored Taho at home. Hermits, aspiring hermits, and non-hermits with interesting project propositions may email her at serena.estrella10@gmail.com.
