Are you prepared for Valentine’s Day?

Valentine’s Day is a holiday associated with gift giving, especially gifting to the ones you love. Over the years Valentine’s Day has evolved from gifting to your partner to sharing the love to all your close network, your parents, siblings, any other immediate family & best friends. Right now it is more important than ever to show your support network your appreciation and what better way than with a thoughtful gift.

A thoughtful gift can be anything from buying a gift card from their favourite restaurant, ready for when the doors of our hospitality industry are flung open again, a romantic getaway at one of our luxury resorts such as Islas Secas or Kisawa Sanctuary, or something more immediate and tangible like a luxury pyjama from PAPER London – matching sets of course

At Diffusion Digital, a lot of our clients have started considering what activities they want to carry out to align their strategies with Valentine’s Day opportunities. To support them effectively, we have pondered some ideas of how to make a brand’s gift-giving offering stand out from the rest.

In order for you to accomplish this we’d like you to ask yourself the following questions:

• What do I want to focus on and what can I offer?
• How does this add value to my consumers?
• How can I effectively reach my customers with this offering?
• Will I be able to fulfil the orders so the customer receives the parcel in time for Valentine’s Day?

In the earlier paragraph we mentioned luxury pyjamas and we’d like to use this as an example to showcase how these questions should be answered.

The brand, PAPER London, is a luxury women’s fashion retailer with its core values around sustainability, quality materials and a philanthropic approach.

What Do I want to Offer?

The brand has recently introduced a new product line to their repertoire and Valentine’s Day could be the perfect opportunity for them to continue riding the wave of their recent launch campaign. The pyjamas are competitively priced in their positioning and are definitely a luxury item. The brand may have wanted to introduce an online exclusive or special edition pattern for this campaign (this would have added extra value to the purchase) but due to logistical and political (Brexit) issues, this was not an option, but definitely something to consider for future campaigns. Everything is a learning curve.

So to answer the question in layman’s terms, the brand should offer their luxury silk pyjamas.

How does this add value to the customers?

As previously identified, the brand values their sustainable and philanthropic approach, which should be incorporated into all their messaging. As mentioned, a short lead time, an online exclusive colour or pattern could have been introduced for this campaign to add extra value. Except from adding emotional value to the purchase the brand could add some actual value to the purchase through bundling up some of their other products. Perhaps the brand could include a matching sleeping mask to the order. Another thought to upsell could be to add special packaging, this doesn’t have to differentiate too much from the original gift wrapping but a thought might be a the opportunity for a hand-written note, different coloured wrapping paper or boxes, if none of the above can be considered due to short lead times and potential logistical implications then still don’t shy away to highlight the gift wrapping messaging. This is a great way for you to add a few pounds to the bottom line.

Personalisation is another great and popular way to make a gift special, if possible this should also be considered.

How can this be Effectively Communicated?

Well to answer this question we have to ask a few more:

• What channels do I have available?
• Do I have the content for each, so imagery, text, desired call-to-action buttons?
• Do I want to allocate a bit of budget to this campaign to make sure it has the uplift I project?

 

So (hypothetically) we have our eCommerce website available, this includes a potential stand alone landing page especially for the Valentine’s Day offering –  see Valentine’s Day Blog 2020. This will allow the brand to really sell the product and all its perks.

The brand also has its Social Media channels available from which it could potentially reach thousands of loved up customers. Email marketing can also be put to use to create a desire. (Side note; We all know that Valentine’s Day is meant to be for surprises to really showcase we know the other person however sometimes people also just want to receive what they really want). Effectively what the brand is doing here is to make the target audience an advocate to their immediate network that will then consider the product and ultimately convert because the messaging is strong and convincing, they just have to have it. This can also be used to target anti-valentiners who may want to treat themselves, this should also be considered in your messaging, we don’t want to leave anyone out.

For PPC, the brand should tailor its brand copy for the duration of the campaign to inform about the offer. The brand could trial additional reach across specific target audiences that may be investigating search terms such as ‘best valentine’s day gift for my wife’ etc, now we understand that these may have a high cost-per-click cost attached but could be worth exploring as a general brand awareness exercise.

Any communications should be scheduled so that the cut of date of last orders are clearly indicated – nothing more embarrassing than standing empty handed on Valentine’s Day and telling your partner that the parcel is still in the post: no dessert for you!

So to Recap:

Is the offer you are presenting for this important holiday good enough. It doesn’t have to be all hearts and roses but may be the hearts desire of your customers. In your messaging make sure you inform about the value added, create a sense of urgency especially so your customer base is aware of any logistical cut off dates, since this is a gift buyers will also want to know any refund or exchange policies (particularly for fashion brands). Make the most of all your communication channels and create consistency throughout all messaging. If all is in its place and well organised you can make this Valentine’s Day the perfect opportunity to uplift your brand’s awareness and add a couple of sales to your February numbers.

You can also get in touch with us and let us help you make sure any future campaigns are carefully thought through and have maximum impact to help reach your business goals.