Valentine’s Day is an excellent opportunity to connect with and express your love for your customers. Here are our four Valentine’s Day marketing ideas that are unique, creative, and filled with love for all.
Hearts, chocolates, and jewelry could still be the most popular Valentine’s Day gifts, but millennials and Gen-Z’s idea of Valentine’s day has evolved. Customers now consider Valentine’s Day an opportunity to express and share their love with their romantic partners as well as family and friends.
Valentine’s Day Marketing Stats
Here are a few Valentine’s Day marketing stats and facts to help you understand how customers now prefer to celebrate this special day:
- 86% of younger millennials (23-29) are more likely to spend money on Valentine’s Day – Bankrate.comOpens a new window
- An average man plans to spend $339 on their partner as compared to $64 expenditure by women – Bankrate.comOpens a new window
- 73% of respondents consider Valentine’s Day an excellent opportunity to show friends and family that they love and care for them – YpulseOpens a new window
- Apart from buying gifts for spouses or partners, 13% planned to buy gifts for friends, 21% for their moms, 15% for their dads, and 38% for their kids – YpulseOpens a new window
- For singles or those who do not plan to celebrate Valentine’s Day, self-care, me-time and going out with friends is on the cards – National Retail FederationOpens a new window
- 31% of Valentine’s purchases are from discount stores and 28% from online stores – Muchneeded.comOpens a new window
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As Valentine’s Day perceptions and celebrations evolve, businesses must be ready to wrap just about any of their products and services in red – everything counts as long as it is fun, creative and can make this day memorable.
On that note, here are our four best Valentine’s Day marketing ideas for February 2020.
4 Best Valentine’s Day Marketing Ideas for February 2020
A successful Valentine’s Day marketing campaign is the right mix of mush, fun, and uniqueness. Here are four Valentine’s Day marketing ideas that bowled us over.
1. Inspire with User-Generated Content
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User-generated content is a great way to form emotional bonds with your customers. Digital channels have motivated users to share their private and emotional moments on social media. Valentine’s Day marketing campaigns that inspire users to share their most romantic moments of the day can help them express their love and show their creative side too.
Example: TravelexOpens a new window created an online contest and encouraged customers to share their most romantic travel photos with the hashtag #TravelexKiss. This Valentine’s Day marketing campaign leveraged Twitter, Facebook, and the Travelex website to drive interaction and offered round-trip couple’s tickets to the city of love, Paris.
Example of Travelex UK’s #TravelexKissOpens a new window Valentine’s Day Marketing Campaign
Pro Tip: User-generated content is a win-win for customers and brands. While brands can interact with the customers and promote their products, UGC makes the moments memorable and fun for the customers. Remember to use the right hashtags for your campaigns.
Learn More:Â Â How Brands Can Leverage User-generated Content to Connect with CustomersOpens a new window
2. Promote Self-Love
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For this year’s Valentine’s Day marketing campaign, include customers who do not have any specials plan for the day or are happily single. Turn this day into an opportunity where people regardless of their relationship status can indulge and are driven by positivity and self-love and care.
Example: PotbellyOpens a new window celebrated single-hood and offered a free cookie (and a limited edition of red velvet cookie) to people who dined in without a significant other.
Example of Potbelly’s Opens a new window Valentine’s Day Marketing Campaign
Pro Tip: Run special promotions and discount offers on your products to promote self-love. For example, a discount on a spa or a free meal or asking to share their funniest Valentine’s Day memory will engage your audiences. Remember not to be apologetic about the relationship status.
3. Get Creative to Tackle Emotions
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14 February is a time when some people are heartbroken and lonely. But it could be the right time for you as a brand to form an emotional connect with these users by helping them deal and move on in a creative and memorable way.
Example: Hooters’ Shred Your ExOpens a new window Valentine’s Day marketing campaign asked customers a series of questions and recommended how they can shred and forget them and win free boneless wings!
Example of Hooters’ Shred Your ExOpens a new window Valentine’s Day Marketing Campaign
Pro Tip: Show your fun side and get creative to understand and tackle customer emotions. From asking them about their worst break up stories to their most awkward dates, you can break the ice with your customers and form special bonds with them this Valentine’s Day.
 Learn More: Emotion is Essential to Good CX – How You Can ensure It’s PositiveOpens a new window
4. Tell Them How to Win Them
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Valentine’s Day is incomplete without a fairy tale ending. You can promote your products and services in a way that helps your customers express their love for a special someone or to win someone back.
Example: GrammarlyOpens a new window in its Valentine’s Day marketing campaign shared some tips with users on how to write the perfect love letter. With their blog post, Grammarly guided users about why love letters are important, how to express your feelings for your loved one, what to include, and how to conclude. Not only did they succeed in making the day meaningful, but they also demonstrated how Grammarly can help write the best love letter.
Pro Tip: While crafting your Valentine’s Day marketing campaign try resolving common problems, making their day easier, and adding value to users’ lives with your products (or services). You could share last-minute gift guides, help them book a dinner date, plan a trip, pickup lines for the day, etc.
 Learn More: Woo Subscribers With Email Marketing This Valentine’s DayOpens a new window
Things to Try This Valentine’s Day
Apart from the above, here are a few other Valentine’s Day marketing ideas that you could try this year:
- Having contests for vintage love stories to include seniors in the celebrations
- Getting couples for a cook-off contest
- Organizing family events like a family day out or a staycation
- Valentine’s Day makeovers – helping users get ready for dates
- Helping people escape an overdose of romantic comedies by promoting binge-watch comedies, action, and thrillers on your streaming channel
- Organizing pet adoption parties
- Supporting a charity and urging users to do so
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There is no dearth of Valentine’s Day marketing ideas. The key this year is to be inclusive and make the day happy, fun, extraordinary, and full of love and celebration for everyone.
Do you have more Valentine’s Day marketing tips for us? Share with us on Twitter,Opens a new window LinkedIn, oOpens a new window n FacebookOpens a new window ; we’re always listening!