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Top Tips for a Successful Valentines Day Online

Press Release

By: Zendor
22 November 2005

With all the talk of an online sales boom this Christmas, it is easy for retailers to get caught up in planning for the festive season only. But what about post-Christmas? Valentine’s Day offers many online retailers the opportunity to capitalize on a post-Christmas sales peak and give themselves another boost almost immediately. With £1.5 billion spent online during February 2005 (IMRG), how can retailers ensure they don’t miss out on those Valentine’s Day sales? Zoe Knightley, Marketing Account Manager for Zendor, offers some advice for getting your product, promotional and communication strategy right for Valentine’s Day.

• Ensure all marketing campaigns are planned well in advance

You should already have plans for the Christmas peak, so when you’re in the thick of it, keep one eye on the road ahead. This will avoid any last-minute panic in late January.

• Decide on a suitable offer

Which of your products are most suitable for Valentine’s Day? Do any exclusive products need to be sourced? This is a critical step in ensuring that you provide your customers with what they are looking for.

• Check stock levels and availability

In order to avoid customer disappointment, it is essential to contact customers only with offers that you have enough stock to honour. Consider buying in additional units, ring-fencing products or sourcing some stock just for Valentine’s Day promotions.

• Decide on a suitable promotional strategy

Whether you opt to offer a discount or free chocolates with certain purchases, providing something extra to the customer will drive more sales and increase customer retention.

• Plan your communication strategy

Ultimately you need to ensure the correct communication channels are selected in order to target customers effectively. Essential areas that need to be addressed include, which customers should to be contacted, whether the campaign should be online, offline or both.

• Brief your creative team in plenty of time

This is such a competitive time of the year, and getting it right is vital. If the creative execution of your offer is weak it will devalue the whole campaign.

• Ensure that your homepage promotes ‘Valentine’s Day’

Cross-promotions across all customer touch-points will help to achieve a truly integrated campaign.

• Ensure all your marketing campaigns are set up correctly

In order to measure and report on the success of your campaign keep control groups to track any incremental uplift in sales. An effective way to do this is by building tests into your campaigns - for example, did the free chocolates work better than the discount? How did the male customers respond compared to the females? etc.

• Take the opportunity to recruit new customers

Build in recruitment plans to your communication strategy. Strong offers and well targeted promotions are ideal to use in any customer acquisition plans at this time of year.

• Analyse your sales data to look for sales patterns

Use your data to provide you with valuable customer insight. For example, did your campaigns produce a response from an unexpected customer segment? Did you notice any unexpected purchasing patterns?

Retailers and their customers now have a much better understanding of what a powerful medium the Internet is when it comes to shopping for key occasions such as Valentine’s Day. Offering a broad range of services such as gift-wrapping, personalised messages and time-guaranteed delivery will allow customers to shop quickly and easily, enhancing the retailer’s relationship with its customers in the run up to Valentine’s Day and beyond. In order to meet the strict Valentine’s deadlines it is essential for retailers to work backwards to ensure delivery before the big day. By following through a focused strategy for Valentine’s Day, retailers offer themselves the best chance of cashing-in on a sales peak so soon after Christmas.

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