You don’t have to be Hallmark to take advantage of the huge opportunity that lies in wait for eCommerce sites in the run up to Valentine’s Day.
It’s time to put in place a marketing strategy to fully ensure that your site benefits from the potential in this commercial time of year affords. With a rush of online traffic flowing steadily towards romantic gifts and cards, you need to attract your share of the numbers.
No matter what type of retailer you are, Valentine’s Day can offer you a chance to get your revenue up to a healthy level.
Here are some techniques to deploy which will help you increase sales over the Valentines period.
* Create a special Valentine’s Day product or service. This doesn’t require introducing an entirely new product to your range, but rather selecting something in your current stock and adapting it to fit the Valentines market. For example, if you sell the likes of jewellery, underwear or holidays, directly relate them to the occasion and then promote them on your site as being an ideal gift for Valentine’s Day. Feature the product on your homepage to give it a strong presence – and also promote it via e-mail and on your social media sites. Social media will allow your followers to share the product and there is potential for word of it to spread widely. Consider also producing a group of items, consisting of a few of your existing products bulked together into a Valentine’s Day package, offered for one time only at a discounted price.
* You could create your own video, showcasing your Valentine’s Day products, and upload it to YouTube. In effect, you would be making your own commercials to showcase your company and its products. It doesn’t have to be hugely expensive or made with cutting edge technology. A high-quality short video can be made relatively cheaply. This is super-effective if done correctly and can lead to a huge stream of traffic in a very short time Make sure your server can handle it.
* Use email, cross channel marketing and special promotions this Valentine’s Day. Send out a strong mailer with a Valentine’s Day twist to your current mailing list. This is an obvious first step – but as well as this look at showing relevant products to relevant visitors through cross-channel marketing. Allowing banners and products to be customised and displayed to pre-defined individual groups of users has been proven to be a really effectively way to up-sell and cross-sell on eCommerce platforms. Through certain expert solution providers, you can analyse what certain customers are doing whilst on your site and place products in their view which you know will be of interest to them based on their previous browsing behaviours.
* As an alternative to promoting a specific product or range of products, adapted to be a Valentine’s Day gift, you could use a current promotion and simply change the coupon code to something relating to the holiday. For example, let’s say you have a coupon code that is available every day and it gives customers a 15 per cent discount on all orders. You could keep that promotion running and change the code to something Valentine’s Day related like “LOVEHEART”. This can encourage more customers to get into the spirit of the holiday and make a purchase.
* If you really don’t feel you have any products that are at all appropriate for Valentine’s Day gifts, you can still take advantage of the occasion. For example, you could post a survey asking a question such as “Tell us your ideal romantic date”. The idea here is to simply get people interacting with your site.
These are just some of the ways in which you can use Valentine’s Day to drive traffic and increase your sales. It is well worth your time to devise a marketing plan so you can really capitalise on the event.
