Valentine’s Day is celebrated every year on the 14th of February and this year is no exception. For e-commerce businesses, it’s a great opportunity to run a special campaign. Valentine is coming and you have the last few days to make sure your campaign is designed for success. We have put together a list of our recommendations and tips to give you some ideas about what is working well base on our experience.

Valentine’s Day 2021 spending is expected to hit 22 billion U.S. dollars only in the US itself. However, that’s a decrease compared to 2020 where customers spent around 27.4 billion U.S. dollars. More than half of Americans said they will celebrate Valentine this year.

The most popular Valentine’s gifts are jewelry, candies, and flowers. And dinner in a nice restaurant, however, that’s probably not a case this year due to pandemic. But don’t worry if you are not in a relevant industry you can still get creative.

1. Offer Free Gift(s) With Purchase

On Valentine, customers are buying gifts for others (and themselves) so the most popular strategy is to offer your customers gifts as well. There are basically two strategies when it comes to gifting.

• Offer a free gift with every purchase in order to push customers to finish the order and  increase the conversion rate
• Offer a free gift after a certain spend (i.e. “spend $X and get a free gift”) in order to increase the average order value

On the Shopify platform, you can use an automatic discount to give away a free gift with purchase or you can use some third-party app like Gift Box shown on the screenshot above.

2. Offer Extra Valentine Discount

Another popular tactic is offering extra discounts to motivate your customers in buying (in your store). You can either offer a special discount on a specific product(s) or collection(s). Or you can offer a storewide discount for all purchases. The storewide discounts typically range from 10 to 20% off.

It’s also a good practice to limit the discount eligibility with a specific timeframe so customers understand they need to act now. If you are giving away a discount code, the good practice is to name it related to the Valentine. So codes like “LOVE10” or “VALENTINE20” will work well.

3. Run Valentine Giveaway Contest

Valentine is also an excellent opportunity for giveaways. By creating a giveaway contest on your social media you can generate the extra buzz needed for your general Valentine campaign. Customers are basically in the “mood” and more open to entering giveaways than during the regular, non-Valentine, periods.

A giveaway makes sense especially if you can offer prizes related to Valentine itself. So something sweet, flowers, cosmetics, etc.

4. Don’t Forget About Singles

Not everyone has a partner for whom they would want some Valentine’s gift. That’s why you shouldn’t forget about customers who are being single – so-called singles. There’s even an official day when this shopping event occurs. It’s November 11th. Originally celebrated in China but spread around the World quickly and eventually became the largest shopping event (yes, larger than a Black Friday).

However, this doesn’t mean you should change your Valentine’s campaign to a Single’s campaign. Just keep in mind not every customer is in a relationship and try to adapt your offering to fit most of the people. Customers will be also buying gifts for themselves.

5. Create Special Valentine Collections

To make it easier for your customers create special “gift” collections. Like “Valentine’s gifts for her” or “Valentine’s gifts for him”. You can also be creative and come up with different target groups like boyfriend, husband, wife, girlfriend, etc.

Below is a great example from the Prezzybox store featuring the special Valentine’s Day categories.

You actually don’t need to list any new products, just use your existing product catalog and think about how to combine it into different categories. The whole idea is to make the purchase decision process simple.

6. Help Others in Need

If you want to help others Valentine is also a great opportunity. For example, you can offer charity services as Valentines. Many customers and their loved ones will be pleased by helping with some meaningful project. instead of getting a box of chocolate.

Another tactic related to charity is donating some portion of the revenue generated during Valentine’s campaign for charity. For example, you can donate $1 for every purchase made in your store.

7. Promote Your Campaign on All Channels

This is more of a general recommendation applicable to any campaign. Make sure to use all your existing channels to promote the (upcoming) campaign. This includes social media sites (Facebook, Instagram) but don’t forget about e-mailing your past customers. To boost the impact even more you can also promote the related posts.

A good practice is to promote the campaign as part of the giveaway contests which people need to share/comment on in order to apply. That way the campaign will get a lot of attention without a need for paying extra money.

Conclusion and Final Recommendations

In terms of timing, it’s a good idea to start the Valentine campaign a week or two before the actual Valentine’s Day. You want to make solid use of it and give your customers time to act. Make sure to time-limit the campaign by the end of February the 14th. No one is buying gifts for Valentine the day after anyway.

There is no universal recipe for a successful Valentine campaign but we really hope these tips helped you to create yours. Certainly, you don’t need to pick just one, it’s better to pick a few and combine them. Let us know how your campaign will go. Happy Valentine everyone!