How to Rock Valentine’s Day Marketing in 2024
When it comes to the scale of how huge a spending holiday on Valentine’s Day is, the numbers do the talking. In 2022, people spent $23.9 billion on Valentine’s Day gifts for their partners, friends, and more. This year, people plan to spend an average of $175.41 per person.
As a business, Valentine’s Day represents a key opportunity to win a piece of the holiday spending pie and make sales. All it requires is a smart, timely marketing campaign to capture the attention and imagination of millions of shoppers looking for something to buy their sweetheart (or themselves, their friends, etc.)
To help you have a massive sales day on Valentine’s Day this year, we’ve put together this guide with everything you need to know to successfully market your business on V-Day 2023.
Valentine’s Day Marketing Ideas
The following Valentine’s Day marketing ideas are a mix of classic options with a track record of success and new strategies taking advantage of today’s consumer climate.
1. Offer a Discount
There’s no better way to convince shoppers that your business is the right one to buy from than by offering a great deal. There are so many different ways that you can run a Valentine’s Day promotion; it’s just a matter of choosing the one that makes the most sense for your brand and your finances.
Some options include:
- Sending out a Valentine’s Day coupon code
- Put specific items on sale
- Put your entire store on sale
- Create a special discount, such as buy 2 get 1 free or 2 for 1
- Put together a package of items or services at a special price
- Offer free shipping
2. Make Gifting Easy
On Valentine’s Day, shoppers’ number one concern is being able to come up with a good gift idea. And the closer the holiday, the more people are willing to spend money on a quick, easy option that they can buy at the last minute that will still satisfy their Valentine.
That’s why your audience will be grateful for easy gift options that they can buy without having to stress about what the best present is. To help them out, consider putting together one or more bundles of products into a Valentine’s Day gift set that you promote by putting it in the front of your store and/or on the home page of your website.
3. Rebrand a Product
Chances are pretty high that you already have products that feature some classic Valentine’s Day motifs such as hearts and the colors pink and red. If that is the case, you can temporarily rebrand these products with special Valentine’s Day names to push them as good gift options.
For example, if you’re a beauty store, you can rename a red nail polish “Kiss Me Red” or a purple nail polish “Lovely Lilac.” If your grocery store business sells something strawberry-lime flavored, you can call it “Will You Be My Valen-lime?”. You get the idea.
4. Get Inclusive
Once upon a time, getting married was a cultural norm. Today, it’s more and more common for people to embrace being single. But you don’t have to miss out on customers just because they don’t have somebody to buy a gift for. Instead, you can try out alternative Valentine’s Day marketing angles that are more inclusive of all of the different types of relationships that exist – or the equally-valid single lifestyle.
Potential ideas for non-traditional Valentine’s Day marketing campaign angles include:
- Self-love
- Galentine’s Day
- Single’s awareness
- The growing anti-Valentine’s movement
Additionally, being inclusive of queer and polyamorous relationships is not only reflective of your business valuing diversity, but it’s also a clever marketing angle.
5. Run a Spread the Love Campaign
These days, consumers look to brands to show social responsibility, with 77% of consumers being motivated to purchase from companies committed to making the world a better place. This means that a Valentine’s Day campaign that benefits the greater good will also have the added benefit of helping make your brand more appealing to audiences who prefer to buy from value-driven companies.
To that end, we suggest running a “Spread the Love” or “Share the Love” Valentine’s Day campaign that focuses on making an effort to give back to your community. There are a few ways that you could do this. One is to donate a percentage of proceeds from your Valentine’s Day product sales to a charity. Another is to match donations that your audience makes to charity during a specific time period. Either way, getting your audience involved in helping you choose which causes to donate to is a great way to include them and hear their feedback.
6. Host an Event
To get people to come into your business before or during Valentine’s Day, it can be a great idea to host a holiday event. There are a few events you can put on depending on your branding. A classic option is to host a singles event that helps bring couples together, such as speed dating. But if you want to take a less traditional angle, you can also host a Galentine’s Day event or an anti-Valentine’s Day event.
To help the event lead to as many sales as possible, some ideas include:
- Giving attendees a special discount
- Placing Valentine’s Day products or bundles in strategic places around the business
- Selling a special Valentine’s Day food or drink
7. Show Your Love to Loyal Customers
There’s no better time than Valentine’s Day to show your audience some gratitude and love with a loyalty campaign. Ideas for loyalty promotions include:
- Offering special discounts and deals to members of your loyalty program
- Send an email to members of your loyalty program who haven’t made a purchase for a while
- Waive any fees you might have to join your loyalty program
- Offer double rewards points for products purchased during Valentine’s Week
Video Ideas for Valentine’s Day
As one of the most effective and powerful marketing strategies out there, we’re certain you’ll want to make some videos to promote your business this Valentine’s Day. Below, we share a few Valentine’s Day video ideas that are sure to win your audience’s hearts.
- Announce a Valentine’s Day promotion – If you’re running a special Valentine’s Day promotion – which we hope you are! – we recommend creating a video announcing it so your audience knows it’s happening.
- Valentine’s Day gift guide – A video gift guide is the perfect way to present your audience with all of the wonderful gift options that your business has to offer. You can even make different gift guides suited to people’s personality types or interests.
- Video valentine – Let your audience be your valentine by creating a video valentine sharing your love with them. From a classic message like “Sending you our love this Valentine’s Day” to something punnier and sillier like “You’re soda-lightful” (best if your business sells sodas), we encourage you to have fun with this one.
- Product or service showcase – If there is a product or service that you’re pushing as a Valentine’s Day gift, a video showcasing its features and benefits is a powerful marketing tool.
- Have employees share their love story – Modern audiences love authentic brand content that feels personal and relatable. To connect with your viewers, consider making a video in which members of your staff share their love story, whether it’s with their partner, their pet, their job, or something else.
Promo Tips for Valentine’s Day Marketing Success
Promo’s online video maker is the perfect partner to help you run a winning Valentine’s Day marketing campaign. To get the most out of what Promo has to offer, here are some tips to keep in mind.
- Plan your campaign in advance. The most important thing you can do to run a smooth, effective marketing campaign is to plan it in advance, so everything is ready to go when the time comes. We recommend getting started with Valentine’s Day marketing by the end of January.
- Schedule and publish your videos through Promo. Promo’s newest feature, Promo Planner, allows you to connect your social media accounts to schedule and publish videos without leaving Promo. This is a great way to save time and make your marketing process that much more efficient.
- Use templates to save time. Promo offers dozens of templates specially made for Valentine’s Day marketing. All you have to do is customize them, add your branding, and you’re good to go with quick, high-quality Valentine’s Day content. Some of our favorite templates include:
Have a Lovely Valentine’s Day
Valentine’s Day is full of more than just love – it also offers business owners like you a great opportunity to connect with your audience and boost revenue. We hope that all of these marketing ideas and tips help you plan a marketing campaign that gives your business its biggest Valentine’s Day sales yet!
