Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and it’s become one of the major spending holidays for consumers, and one of the major events on the retail shopping calendar. Consumers shelled out nearly $19 billion last year for Valentine’s gifts and celebrations, so if you want to win the love of the most valuable shoppers this year, you need plan out your promotions well in advance.
As previous years, most shopping is expected to happen in the two weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day. The shopping search dramatically rises from February 7 to 12 and the peak is usually two days before Valentine’s Day.
Who Spends the Most on Valentine’s Day
Not surprisingly, unmarried couples spend the most on each other ($107 vs. $96 for married couples). Men spend twice as much as women and the largest segment of buyers are between 25 and 34. Another popular trend is giving gifts to important people in our lives – 59% of consumers give gifts to family members, 21.7% give to friends and 12.1% give to colleagues. Another segment comprises pet lovers who spent $681 million on their pets last year.
If you are like many small business owners who plan for strong sales leading up to February 14 then you can try some of the following Facebook promotional ideas:
Give discounts to your customers:
Discounts are something everybody uses, and you have probably noticed there are a lot of different ways to give that discount. For example, you can give your customers free shipping, free products if they buy certain amount of items, a fixed price off, a percentage off, or a discount on top of another discount.
Do you know that some of these discounts work better than others? People are more likely to get 50% more of the same product for the same price than save 33% on the price, even though that comes down to the exact same discount. Based on the same phycology, people prefer to get a 25% discount on top of a 20% discount, instead of a single 40% discount which again is the same.
Wording has a lot of impact on the people’s perception of your discounts. For instance, “Get $ off” give a sense of achieving a gain, while “Save $” is viewed as just reducing the loss paid out of pocket. You should test which kind of wording works best for you. We’d rather gain than lose, even when it’s not in our best interest economically.
Here are some high conversion Valentine’s templates, created by DigitalOcto, for you to use:
Use beautiful images to celebrate
Photos are still king on Facebook. As you know people love sharing beautiful images, so why not use them for branding purposes. Here are some awesome suggestions for you to use (sign up for free on DigitalOcto:
Should you use a Hashtag on #ValentinesDay to reach larger audiences?
A 2016 report from BuzzSumo, which analyzed more than a billion Facebook posts from over 30 million brand Pages, came to the conclusion that posts without hashtags generated more reach than those with tags added. Socialbakers research fully supports that data, and further discovered that the use of more hashtags leads to significantly less engagement on Facebook.
As you can see, the research say no, don’t use hashtags on Facebook. But then, Facebook is built to accommodate their use. If people were looking for relevant info, there’s a good chance they are clicking on hashtags and seeing what’s available. That’s why using popular tags like #ValentinesDay will surely not hurt your business. But don’t overuse it.
Involve your fans in conversation by asking them a question to comment and share
Many stats show that short text posts of less than 50 characters get the most interaction. It is clear Facebook is not a place for reading but finding and engaging. Asking questions will make your posts even more interactive. In February, you can put your fans’ imagination to test by asking them questions like:
What’s your idea of a perfect romantic evening?
What would be your ideal Valentine’s Day gift?
Where would you like to spend Valentine’s Day?
Do you remember the day you first met?
What was your first holiday together like?
What’s the most original compliment you’ve ever been paid?
What’s the secret to keeping the love alive?
Promote your products with a Giveaway.
Have you ever considered the idea of awarding your followers by running a Facebook Timeline Sweepstakes/Giveaway, where anyone who likes or comments on your post enter to win a Valentine’s Day gift? Giveaways are a unique marketing technique that creates excitement, promote sharing and encourage others to follow your Facebook page for future promotions, while evoking the ago-old Law of Reciprocity;
“Do something nice for someone and they will feel compelled to do something in return.”
When you are reaching the right person with a small item that they can really use, they will forever have a positive brand impression. The sweepstakes/giveaways will also
People will talk more about freebies. Giveaways are the perfect way to generate “word of mouth” marketing and build reputation. Many big companies like Procter & Gamble are figuring that one of the easiest and best ways to get people talking about their products is to simply give them away. A research found that people who got a product for free talked about it 20% more. Getting a freebie related to the product prompted them to talk about it 15% more, while coupons and rebates didn’t make a difference.
People will buy more when there’s a mystery involved. A new study found that offering a free gift-with-purchase without specifying what the item is prompts people to buy. You can use this as an incentive for your giveaway.
See below beautiful creatives for a giveaway or contest:
