Just as the holiday hangover has begun to wear off, yet another popular gift-giving occasion approaches: Valentines Day.
There’s no rest for the weary (retailer).
No matter your industry, Valentines is always a great opportunity to see a spike in sales, both in-store and online. As you’re planning your promotions, here are three strategies you should consider to create a lift in your sales.
Use shipping “deadlines” to create a little urgency
With any gift-giving holiday, people know they have to purchase their gifts early enough to have them in-hand for the big day. This is especially true for Valentines, as nobody wants to show up empty handed and have to scramble for some $80 roses in the eleventh hour.
This sense of urgency is really effective for getting customers to act now, rather than later. Even if they weren’t planning to make a purchase, knowing that a deadline is approaching forces them to rush through the buying process, often leading to impulse buys.
In your promotions, whether over social media or your email marketing (preferably both), make your shipping deadline clear. For example:
To receive your items in time for Valentines Day, get your orders in by midnight, February 9!
An alternative to this if you’re not selling online would be to encourage that they come by the store by {{ a certain date }} before your inventory runs out.
Offer personalized gift packaging as a small upsell
The convenience of being able to buy and package up a gift all in one fell swoop can be very enticing for customers, especially those procrastinators.
If you’re pressed for time or budget, at least offer to gift wrap their order and include a personalized note along with it.
Look for 3rd party apps that will allow you to offer this feature on your online store, and then stock up on some gift wrapping materials to have in your fulfillment center. That way, regardless of if they buy online or in the store, you are able to offer that service.
You can include this as a small up-charge, but it’s certainly not necessary. Providing your customers with a great experience and extra incentive to shop with you can definitely be worth the extra effort and cost.
Use that list of customers who shopped with you for Christmas
Across the board, one of the highest-converting customer segments for you are going to be the people that already bought something from you and had a great experience doing it.
With the holidays still in the rearview mirror, reach out to those people and A) thank them for shopping with you during the holidays and B) see if they would like to do their Valentines shopping with you as well.
If you can manage it, rewarding past customers with a small discount when buying from you again can go a long way in closing that repeat business and building customer loyalty.
Email is the easiest and cheapest way to do this, so look through your database from the holiday months and put together a contact list to send that campaign to.
Valentines is quickly approaching, so your time to incorporate these strategies is running out, but just remember that something is better than nothing. Even if you can only make one of these happen, it should prove to be worth your time. Best of luck!
