The holiday season is over, but Valentine's Day, a day filled with love, awaits us as the next special day on the calendar. Valentine’s Day can be a challenging time for businesses. Your customers are bombarded with advertisements, promotions and, discount offers so you have to do something different to stand out. It is essential to approach your target audience with a creative marketing strategy and to manage the traffic that will occur in your online store in the best way possible during this period.
According to the National Retail Federation, total Valentine's Day spending in 2021 was $21.8 billion in the US. The same report indicates that, given the current status of the world, 73% of customers celebrating Valentine's Day believe it is important to do so.
Every year consumers behave differently and needs/trends are changing accordingly. Last year, in our insights for the 2021 Valentine’s Day Campaign period, we mentioned order delivery speed, gamification, innovative sales strategies, technological implementations, and chatbots. With these in hand, we listed a few new ‘e-commerce-brands-must-do’ items for you.
Through reviewing these insights to gain a better understanding of this year's buyer behaviors, you can plan ahead for the possible challenges involved by exploring further into crucial subjects.
Operational Arrangements
Here is the Valentine's Day charm; consumers will expect their orders to be delivered and received on February 14, exactly as planned. To ensure the satisfaction of customers, brands should prepare themselves with enough storage space, product stock, and distribution network to handle this event. Most people will place Valentine's Day orders at least a week or two ahead of time. But what about last-minute persons? The earlier you can confirm that your production, inventory, and distribution schedules will comply with all kinds of needs, the better.
While ensuring on-time Valentine’s Day delivery, another aspect that must be paid attention to during the process is the packaging, as almost all orders on this special day will require special packaging. Through remarkable and successful packaging, brand loyalty can be strengthened and your brand can enrich the customer experience by making customers feel special. Therefore, do not fall behind in packaging options suitable for the Valentine's Day theme.
Showcase is Important
Speaking of Valentine's Day theme, what will be your brand’s assets look like during that loveful times? Classic elements with red hearts and flowers or little cupids flying around? Whatever design/theme you chose, if you do not differentiate, you will not be memorable. It is important to follow a strategy that is as creative and differentiated as possible so that your valuable position in customer perception can be protected.
During the campaign period, highlighting the featured products on your website that stand out in comparison to other items in your product portfolio—and can serve as gift-giving alternatives—is also an important point to keep in mind. A well-designed structure may make the customer more likely to purchase an item not presently in mind. Not to mention winning the hearts of hopeless romantics who are undecided about their Valentine’s Day gift idea.
In addition, while speaking about structure and design, we think that there is no harm in reminding again that a mobile-friendly structure is a must.
Valentine’s Day is a time of love and romance. It's also the perfect time to boost the profitability of your e-commerce store by offering special discounts. For Valentine's Day, giving out discounts, giveaways, and promotional packages as a special treat for customers not only increases transaction value, but also engagement and profitability.
Customization for Truly Personalized Experiences
In our previous article titled Featured E-commerce Trends to Follow in 2022, we noted that one prominent trend for this year is again “personalization”. On a day like Valentine's Day, however, customers expect a higher level of personalization. On such an important day—for both consumers and businesses—brands need to differentiate themselves from competitors and also strive to meet consumer expectations through a personalized touch.
In order to differentiate themselves from their competitors and rise above the noise, brands will need to keep up with these high standards by utilizing creative practices, technology, and the power of data.
Omnichannel Fulfillment
A Valentine’s Day e-commerce campaign, like all others, needs to have an omnichannel strategy that allows consumers to interact with your brand experience and products in the way they want.
Whether it is smartphones, e-commerce websites, or physical stores, it is critical for brands to create a holistic approach between all touchpoints and to determine an effective strategy on how they will interact with their consumers on such a competing day. A good omnichannel strategy can help you accomplish a few key goals like establishing a seamless customer experience across channels, enabling customers to interact with your brand in the ways they want, and measuring how your customers engage with your brand to inform future marketing efforts.
Besides, if you want to achieve, even more, you can enrich your omnichannel strategy with smart tools and strengthen your hand even more. Implementing smart tools like a recommendation tool, smart search mechanism or a gift idea creator will enable you to capture the consumer interest and reach the conversions rates you are looking for.
Valentine's Day Treat for Everyone
The meaning of Valentine's Day has changed drastically over the years. Although it retains the quality of a day to celebrate love, it is no longer just for lovers. People buy gifts for their family members, co-workers, pets, and even themselves for Valentine's Day. For this reason, although your product group is not in the first category that comes to mind when it comes to Valentine's Day, do not hesitate to highlight your products that can be a great gift.
While Approaching to Valentine's Day
If applied correctly, and combined with strategic planning, these tips can help boost your sales in this traditionally profitable period for many e-commerce businesses. To win Valentine's Day, not only should online stores strategize what is the best way to get their customers' attention, but also how to move those emotions into actions. The key here is to maximize how to best show the love that you have for your customers in this season.
As we come to the end of the first month of 2022, it is time to speed up the preparations for February 14th. This loving day will undoubtedly be exciting and challenging for e-store owners. To overcome these challenges, our digital growth management solution Inveon GrowthLab is here with its expert team and extensive know-how to allow you to spend this day with the best possible outcome.
Inveon GrowthLab has the experience to create successful approaches that boost growth and brand differentiation. Benefit from the experience of our GrowthLab experts to stay in solid relationships with your customers and differentiate in the market. Get in touch with us now.
