Valentine’s Day can be a huge eCommerce sales opportunity for brands, so which strategies and tactics can help your company make the most of it?
Show Valentine’s Day some love
So, you may personally be a little cynical about Valentine’s Day and what it stands for, but missing out on the sales and eCommerce opportunities associated with it could be a real heartbreaker for your brand.
Having reached an astounding $20.7 billion[1] in the US in 2019, the National Retail Federation predicts that Valentine’s Day spending in 2020 will smash that record by exceeding $27 billion.[2]
Digital romance
The NRF says that 32 percent of consumers did their shopping online last year, generating a reported $5.4 billion in eCommerce sales.[3]
And, as our articles focusing on Black Friday and Cyber Monday eCommerce success strategies have shown, shoppers are increasingly willing to shop via their mobile devices while on the move.
Woo shoppers with great mobile experiences
We’ve said it many times before, and we’ll keep saying it: brands must take a mobile-first approach to their content if they are to convert potentially interested consumers into sales.
Competition for your customers is becoming so fierce and from so many different directions.
Brands really can’t afford to make the mistake of thinking that consumers will put up with mobile shopping experiences that don’t provide ease-of-use, convenience and excitement.
Don’t get too comfortable
Flowers (particularly red roses), jewellery, fragrances, chocolate, cards, sparkling wine and lingerie are, as you’d expect, some of the most popular Valentine’s Day gifts.
But it’s a dangerous ploy to rest back on your laurels and assume that consumers will shop with you simply because you sell these items online – even if your product is the best one out there.
You need to work hard to attract your customers, and retain them. And we don’t mean simply through spending money on traditional SEO.
Tell them why you’re the one for them
Brands looking to take advantage of the Valentine’s Day opportunity need to make themselves discoverable and visible within shopping platforms like Amazon. An interesting Valentine’s Day anomaly – and eCommerce opportunity – is single people buying presents for themselves. After all, Singles Day – by far the biggest shopping day in the entire world’s annual calendar – originated in China as an alternative to Valentine’s Day for people that wanted to treat themselves to a present. And, in this age of wellness and self-care, you can understand why ‘self-gifting’ is becoming big business and is an opportunity eRetailers should be taking advantage of. [4] If you’re confident that your alternative gift can be a potential winner with a Valentine’s Day eCommerce audience, make sure that potential customers know that your product is relevant to Valentine’s Day.
To do this, it’s important to understand how to optimise your brand conversion rate within a platform like Amazon by developing fantastic Product eContent.
Your Product eContent should not only highlight that your product could be a great Valentine’s Day gift, but also create an attractive and rewarding shopping experience that tempts customers into making a purchase.
Again, great Product eContent is essential to your success here.
Think about exact product titles (you could add the word ‘Valentine’s’ to your product title during the shopping spree that takes place in February), Mobile Hero Images, ratings & reviews, and enticing details about your product.
You can learn more in the ‘A five-step approach to creating stellar Product eContent’ article that our CEO & Founder Luigi Matrone originally wrote for the Forbes Agency Council.
Give them what they want
If shoppers don’t know that your product could make a great Valentine’s day gift, then they won’t buy it. So make it clear and attractive to them.
Write your product descriptions using words that make it very obvious that your product relates to Valentine’s Day.
Get into the mindset of making your product highly discoverable on a platform like Amazon – by using its internal Retail Search functionality and Product eContent that increases visibility – in much the same way you would when looking to attract potential customers through Google.
Everyone loves a (Mobile) Hero (Image)
Another effective way of helping shoppers associate your product with Valentine’s is by designing Valentine’s-themed Mobile Hero Images that show that your product is the perfect gift for the occasion.
Mobile Hero Images are ideal for making product varieties and quantities very clear.
From a shopper’s practical or economical perspective, this is likely to be extremely useful and an important factor in their buying decisions. For instance, a 30ml bottle of perfume is likely to be considerably more expensive than a 15ml one.
Valentine’s Day Gift Shop
We talked about the great opportunities available through Amazon’s Christmas Gift Shop and stocking filler idea features, and – as you’d expect – Amazon also offers brands the opportunity to promote products through its Valentine’s Day Gift Shop.
OK, so it’s a great place to showcase products – like lingerie and jewellery – that consumers would be likely to associate with Valentine’s Day, but also for alternative gifts like cosmetics, practical shoes, slippers, books and other items that partners might enjoy or find useful.
Remember – not everybody is into traditional Valentine’s gifts, and so there is an opportunity to promote gift ideas that some people might be more comfortable with giving or receiving.
The importance of Retail Digital Media
Retail Digital Media (RDM) is digital advertising, such as banners, that supports and promotes a brand’s commercial activities in order to drive sales within a specific eRetailer’s platform – such Walmart or Target, for instance.
RDM plays a similar role online as Point of Sale (POS) material does in bricks & mortar stores. It grabs online shoppers at the optimal moment of receptivity, guiding them to your brand’s detailed product page within the eRetailer platform, where they can ultimately purchase your product.
So, if an eRetailer (like Target, as an example) offers RDM options during the Valentine’s Day shopping bonanza, then you’d be wise to take advantage of them.
Our article entitled Smart creative to win at eRetailers during Key Consumption Periods highlights some great examples – picked out by our experts – of how effective a sales tool RDM can be, and how you might incorporate RDM in your strategies and campaigns.
In conclusion
With Valentine’s Day spending on an upward curve and more and more people doing their shopping online or via mobile devices, it’s clear that this is an eCommerce shopping extravaganza that brands can’t afford to be cynical about or miss out on.
To take advantage of the Valentine’s Day eCommerce opportunities and reap the rewards, brands will have to be sure that they have their Product eContent, Retail Search and Retail Digital Media (RDM) strategies and creative processes in place in plenty of time.
If you’ve missed out this year, there’s always next year, and the year after – please do contact us so that we can help you take advantage of Valentine’s Day and other potentially lucrative eCommerce opportunities.
This article was written and created by the eBusiness Institute Team.
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eBusiness Institute focuses on the integration between marketing and sales to drive business results online and offline.
Our team has considerable experience and expertise in successfully developing strategies and creative assets for brands that understand the importance of Product eContent, Retail Search and Retail Digital Media (RDM) to eCommerce sales success.
Please contact us if you would like to learn more about how the eBusiness Institute could help your organisation gain a competitive edge through these activities.
Sources
[1] https://www.channelsight.com/valentines-day-2020/
[2] https://www.thebalance.com/happy-valentine-s-day-retailers-feeling-the-love-3306043
[3] https://www.webinterpret.com/uk/blog/online-sales-around-valentines-day/
[4] https://www.cosmopolitan.com/style-beauty/beauty/g4577/valentines-day-gifts-to-give-yourself/
[5] https://www.thebalance.com/happy-valentine-s-day-retailers-feeling-the-love-3306043
