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Valentine’s Day is officially less than a month away and as you’ve probably seen, every major retailer is fully stocked and loaded for the holiday. More than that, every email, social, and ad campaign is heavily themed for Valentine’s Day and dripping in red and pink.

They’re taking advantage of the thrill of having a new holiday to celebrate (after those Christmas blues and New Years goals fade) and making sure they maximize sales - and guess what? So should you.

Even if you haven’t planned a single second of your business strategy for the big day, you still have time and this guide will help you make sure you absolutely crush those Valentine’s Day numbers.

The Most Important Thing to Maximize Sales

If you only take one thing away from this entire blog post, it has to be this - theme everything. People need to feel all the Valentine’s Day feels whenever they interact with your brand for the next month. This is done by theming everything your brand touches - and if you’re wondering what this means, don’t worry I’ll walk you through it in a second. First, let’s start at the beginning so we don’t miss a step in building out your Valentine’s Day marketing strategy.

1. Figure out who you’re selling to

First, I want you to sit down and define exactly who your audience is, where they’re at in life right now and how they want to feel as Valentine’s Day nears. This is going to help us figure out your exact marketing strategy for the holiday.

I’ll list the top three profiles below to get you started -

The Romantic:
Who they are: Women in their 20s and 30s
Where they’re at: In a new(ish) relationship
How they want to feel: All the romantic feels

The Single Lady:
Who they are: All the single ladies
Where they’re at: Focused on self care and all the girl time
How they want to feel: Like they’re living their best life

The Mama:
Who they are: Mamas in their 20s and 30s
Where they’re at: Focused on caring for her family & raising her littles
How they want to feel: Like the best mom ever

There’s multiple other profiles, so if your target audience/ideal customer doesn’t fit into one of these, that’s okay. Take the time to write a custom profile for your company now.

2. Brainstorm how to sell to them

Now that we know exactly who we’re selling to, it’s time to figure out the best way to sell to them.

Look at the profile you created and think through ways your brand can help them feel what they want to feel. This can come across as content ideas, in-store events, email campaigns, photoshoot ideas, product bundles, gift guides - write down anything that comes to mind.

Let’s walk through those examples again, this time listing out potential marketing ideas -

The Romantic
How they want to feel: All the romantic feels
How we can help them feel that:

  • Create a series highlighting several ways to spend Valentine’s Day with your significant other around the city. Pairing which outfit or jewelry or bag or [insert your product here] you would take to each location. Plan out the full date so they don’t have to do the thinking. Point this out and encourage them to save the post. Tag the businesses and locations you visit enticing them to share your content as well.
  • Share an idea for giving multiple gifts to your significant other throughout the day teasing what the final date night will look like that night. You can do spinoffs of this with several different outcomes, always ensuring your product is one of the teasers or part of the end result.
  • Collaborate with a florist, boudoir photographer, jewelry maker, poem writer, or other local vendor where the girls can partake in a workshop/shopping event to create a piece for their date night. If you sell lingerie or jewelry the photographer idea works perfectly, if you sell clothes bring in a jewelry maker with pieces that will match your Valentine’s Day collection, and if you sell coffee join up with a florist so they bring coffee & flowers to their s/o.

The Single Lady
How they want to feel: Like they’re living their best life
How we can help them feel that: 

  • An in-store Galentine’s day event with champagne, hors d’oeuvres, swag bags, giveaways, a new collection, a photographer, collaborations (think permanent jewelry, friendship bracelets, floral bouquets), a dj, custom tote bags - so many ideas you can do here!
  • An opportunity to be a part of a Galentine’s Day photoshoot for your store. They’ll get champagne, all of the photos from the shoot, and feel like a model for the day. You’ll not only get content of “real people” (remember to shoot video and behind the scenes for social too!) which is 100% on trend right now, but you’ll also get people sharing about the opportunity with their friends expanding brand awareness
  • A self-empowerment campaign aimed at women boldly buying their own Valentine’s Day presents #frommetome. Use spins offs of this reel by Mykenna, offer gift wrapping so women can actually unwrap something that day, and share ideas for how to spend that night alone that feel luxe and empowering.

The Mama
How they want to feel: Like the best mom ever
How we can help them feel that:

  • Share Valentine’s Day basket ideas, tablescapes, and breakfast recipes - all things they can set up for their littles to wake up to that morning. Put together pre-set baskets or kits to take the work off of her plate, while still making her feel awesome. Share simple ideas too, for the mom who doesn’t have a lot of money or time (kids remember the simple things!). 
  • Host a kid-friendly event for the holiday, sharing ideas for mommy & me outfits, hiring a photographer, having a flower bouquet or craft station for the kids, set out snacks and treats, include a wall of hearts where they can write little love notes. You can even have out cute Valentine’s Day mailboxes with gifts inside and let the kids pick a “mystery mailbox”. All of course while incorporating your store and product(s).
  • Share ideas for Valentine’s Day cards or treats to take to school for the kids, gift ideas for teachers, or things they can do on the weekend to show their littles how much they love them if they don’t have time during the week.

The key here is to make sure you inspire. You need to give them all the feels, make them want to be a part of your brand and events, to feel like their Valentine’s Day just wouldn’t be complete without it, and that they absolutely need YOUR product to make Valentine’s Day be the best it’s ever been.

3. Roll out the Magic

Now that you know who you’re selling to and how to make them feel beyond amazing about Valentine’s Day, it’s time to actually roll things out and start implementing.

  1. Plan Your Valentine's Day Photoshoot(s)
    No matter what marketing ideas you came with up with, you absolutely NEED Valentine’s Day photos. This doesn’t mean photoshopping your existing photos on a red and pink background, but actually planning and scheduling a new themed photoshoot. This is the biggest visual component for your marketing and you won’t be able to maximize Valentine’s Day sales without.

    Keep who you’re selling to front of mind when planning your shoot, thinking through where they see themselves on Valentine’s Day. Incorporate babies & kids if you’re selling to mamas or get romantic, up close detail shots if you’re selling to those in a relationship. And don’t forget to plan out your video content for the shoot as well! This is an opportunity to shoot video for your homepage and lots of footage for reels to use in the coming month.

  2. Prep Your Site for Valentine’s Day
    Create a duplicate of your current Shopify theme and start decking it for the big day! Treat it just like you would an actual storefront where you would typically create a big Valentine’s Day window display, have tables or mannequins featuring Valentine’s Day product, have love songs playing, cute trinkets at checkout, and maybe even a Valentine’s Day cookie or two to snack on while shopping.

    Here’s a checklist of all the things you could (and should!) do to deck out your site for Valentine’s Day -
         + Update your logo with a cute nod to Valentine’s Day (bonus points if you make it a gif)
         + Update your main banner video or photo with content from your new shoot
         + Create a Best Sellers category and add it to your navigation and homepage
         + Create Gift Guides and add them to your navigation and homepage
         + Add your Valentine’s Day Collection (if you have one) to your navigation and homepage
         + Update the remaining images on your homepage with photos from your Valentine’s Day shoot
         + Update the colors of your announcement bar, buttons, headings, etc. with your branded Valentine’s Day color scheme (think a hint of pink with your existing brand colors, as an example)
         + Add a gift wrap option to your cart
         + Add a gift message option to your cart
         + Add expedited shipping options
         + Redesign your pop-up with your branded Valentine’s Day color scheme
         + Add a note on how long orders take to process and ship to your FAQs and product pages

  3. Prep Your Social Channels
    Change your social logo to a Valentine’s Day themed version of your logo. You can even update your story highlights to Valentine’s Day colors or graphics as well. The idea being the same as your website and treating it as your store, a place people walk into where they also need to feel all the Valentine’s Day feels you’re putting out everywhere else.

Think of any other places you need to virtually decorate for the holidays - email templates, ads, your actual storefront - and add those to the list as well. As always, everything your brand touches should evoke the exact same feeling no matter where a potential customer discovers you.

Engage and Enjoy

The biggest thing to remember is that your “audience” is really composed of so many amazing humans who genuinely look up to and love your brand. This is the season to give a little love back - respond to those DM’s and emails, offer discounts and giveaways, send heartfelt messages, get to know them, actually become friends with them. The more people love you the more they’re going to share and there’s no better or higher converting form of marketing than word of mouth.

And then get out there and actually enjoy Valentine’s Day! People can tell when it’s genuine and when it feels like robotic AI marketing. Your energy is truly contagious so show up on social media, show up in your store, and enjoy the season.