With the all-time fav, Valentine’s day knocking on the door in Feb. Online stores are gearing up to fulfill the demands and surpass their previous year’s revenue.
From 2020 to 2021, we’ve observed a spike in online shoppers. More than 45% of consumers now buy their Valentine’s presents online, and this trend is set to keep rising.
As per NRF Research, planned Valentine’s Day spending in the United States reached around 22 billion USD in 2021. Though it was relatively lower than 2020. But considering the pandemic, it went quite well. For 14 Feb 2022, it’s expected to surpass the previous year’s revenue because revenge shopping is in momentum.
With that being said. The main issue lies in getting the sales. You might have a fabulous team and products, but without a perfect layout for marketing. It will all be for nothing.
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1. When To Start Product Planning And Marketing?
As early as possible. Why? Because it’s never too early. Many online stores book their clients a whole year prior by asking them to sign up or remind them to purchase for next Valentine’s. So, it’s all about planning. If you’ve set up your store and are looking for potential means to get Valentine’s conversions, then read on!
2. Valentine Is Not All About Flowers & Rainbows!
Though 14th Feb is a day for Cupid supremacy. But stats give out the real picture. Contact pigeon says that only 52% of the shoppers are buying gifts for their partners. So, what about the rest of the 48%?
Well, the answer lies in trends. People these days are more inclined towards gifting their loved ones. Which includes family, co-workers, besties, “just friends”, pets, and even themselves. So, you need to ensure that you don’t miss out on a decent chunk of customers.
3. What Do Buyers Want?
Before you start spending to market products. You need to know whether shoppers want to buy it or not. In the 2021 Valentine’s season, florals only contributed only 9% of the sales. Whereas a large shift was observed towards jewelry, consumables, and more personalized gifts. Customizable goods have seen a spike recently.
Shoppers’ behavior is dynamic. But you can track their behavior through API integrations. You’ll be able to analyze the trends and generate useful leads. You can take a follow-up or pitch them through email marketing.
4. Is Your Website Valentine Specific?
When shoppers come in the mood to buy products. You would want them to give relevant options right?
To ensure that, you can create a special Valentine section on your website to pool in buyers. It can cater to the needs of buyers in a specific niche. Your section can have various customizable products like Cards, Mugs, and T-shirts that will resonate with the Valentine theme. It will also help you improve the website’s conversion rate and overall ranking in random searches.
5. Is My Website Annoying?
When it comes to online shopping. There are tons of options for buyers. And they tend to have a short attention span. So you need to be their love on the first visit. How? Let’s see…
- Your website must be speedy like flash. Nearly 54% of shoppers quit the store due to loading time. If your average loading time is beyond 3 seconds. Then you need to work on Page Speed Optimization.
- Another aspect is to avoid spam. Your website will get extra load if your website gets spammed frequently. Due to this, you won’t be able to focus on legit leads. So, you can protect your website from spam with the latest tech like Google reCAPTCHA for Spam protection.
- Checkout duration must be minimum. Almost 45% of shoppers drop carts midway because the payment portion is time-consuming. So, you must integrate with robust Payment Getaways for quick and easy payments.
6. Offer Custom Gifts!
As we discussed earlier. Florals are a thing of the past. People are looking for goods that can connect them with their loved ones. With the trends moving towards personalized shopping, stores are coming up with a lot of customizable products.
In 2021’s Valentine, people spent $2.7 billion on Clothes and wearables for their loved ones. The top picks among the sold products were custom T-shirts, custom mugs, Shoes, Wristbands, and personalized gift cards. Along with it, custom mugs and jewelry were among the best sellers.
So, in order to convert customers to your website. You can get your store integrated with a custom product designer tool for better likability. With this, your shoppers can create products of their own taste on your website. It will also help you improve your Conversion Rate and bounce rate.
7. Assert Your Shipping Date!
Customers want commitment. More than 80% of shoppers are concerned about the delivery date of their purchase. In fact, ETA is of the essence during Valentine’s week. So, if you can assure them in this regard, then you’ll be improving your conversion rate.
Your store can convey the delivery date range and ETA of the order. You can integrate your store with the Order Delivery Date to support your call. With delivery date estimation, your customers can plan to send gifts to their partners on a specific date.
8. Audience Engagement Plans!
Wouldn’t it be nice if your customers would market your product?
What if you can compel them to purchase more?
Revenue: Stonks!
To achieve this, marketers can draft ideas to engage shoppers. People like offers with discounts and cashback. But we ain’t doing charity. So, in order to get a perfect balance in sales, you can run activities and ad campaigns.
For instance, you can try to give a discount through Spin To Win Game on your website that will give various vouchers that’ll tempt them to buy more. Sometimes people prefer to send gift cards instead of purchasing. So, in order to convert them, you can allow customers to buy and share gift cards.
Intriguing campaigns will attract shoppers. Because everyone likes odd & fun stuff. For instance, you can have a meme war for your customers. Like, regular posts of product-related memes will intrigue shoppers and want them to share it more.
9. Convey Your Plans!
Your campaigns won’t have any effect if the targeted public does not know it exists. So, when you’re set to attract an audience. Be sure to hit the right spots for a Better Conversion Rate.
Now, in order to market your ideas. You can tap into your regular customers. They should be the first ones to get the brochure and all the discount offers. You can mail-blast to inform them of the same. Also, the same strategy can be used for casual visitors to convert them into purchasing products.
10. Is Collaborating Worth It?
Yes & No! Directly tapping into a client base is always a good strategy. But it requires long-term execution and a lot of planning. When you collab with a brand, you can use the concept of Event Activation. And depending on the location/place your leads will spike. Though this idea can give you a lot of headaches and it’s time-consuming.
#Summing_Up
We’ve covered a significant portion of the marketing ideas that a retailer can use. Still, there are many plans that can suit a specific niche well. These will surely help you generate good revenue.
Still, your website is the face of your brand. So be sure that it’s a heavy worker.
Happy Selling!