Marketing for Valentine’s Day can be tricky, because it’s subject to a lot of competition. But dealing with the holiday doesn’t need to be difficult! You can find a great marketing idea and just implement it today, even with little time to spare. By utilizing some of these posts and finding Valentine’s Day-themed marketing ideas on websites like these, you’re well on your way to creating a successful campaign for Valentine’s Day for your company or brand. It takes work and effort, but you’re going to be happy with the results. If you get better results in a short time, you can have service from Mixx.It will grow your Instagram followers and develop your business.
12 Valentine’s Day Marketing Ideas
Create Valentine’s Day blog content.
Showcase happy customers or couples.
Host a Galentine’s Day event.
Promote products for self-care or self-love.
Host an in-store giveaway.
Host an online contest.
Offer coupon codes in exchange for emails.
Do something that breaks the mold.
Revamp your social media.
Decorate your business.
Host an event for single people.
Create Valentine’s Day-specific products.
As a small business owner, holidays pose a great opportunity to bring new customers to your business. While Valentine’s Day isn’t as big as the end-of-year holidays, there’s still potential to capitalize on. Some people love Valentine’s Day, while others just wait for it to be over to score some heavily discounted candy in its aftermath. But for small business owners, there’s a way to make Valentine’s Day a holiday worth celebrating for all of your customers with some Valentine’s Day marketing ideas.
After all, it’s a day about celebrating love, and why not show your customers a little love with some special marketing tactics just for them during the holiday. Who says you need to be coupled up to enjoy some of the hype around cupid’s favorite holiday?
We’ll cover 12 Valentine’s Day marketing ideas for your small business to try out this year.
12 Valentine’s Day Ideas for Business
There’s no one perfect technique to go with from this list of Valentine’s Day marketing ideas, but consider this list a jumping-off point to develop the perfect marketing tactic to speak to your customers—and provide them with something they’ll truly love.
- Create Valentine’s Day Blog Content
Writing some Valentine’s Day blog content is one of the easier (and cheapest) Valentine’s Day marketing ideas on our list. The huge perk about this is that you can share it on your social media channels in the weeks leading up to the holiday and you can refresh it each year fairly easily if you don’t want to create an entirely new piece of content.
You can use blog content to highlight the products or services you offer or to spotlight a customer or customers. You can also use it to promote any sales or specials you’re running for the holiday so that you’re sure nobody’s missed out on the news. Remember to use SEO best practices to make sure your content is found in search.
- Showcase Happy Customers or Couples
Another option you have for sharable content is to get your happy customers involved. This is what Jeff Moriarty of Moriarty’s Gem Art has been doing for a few years and now customers look forward to it, he says.
“Our family owns a small jewelry business and throughout the year we take pictures of some of our couple customers, who let us use their picture and purchase on social media. We normally end up with a few dozen pictures each year. We then use all those images in a Valentine’s Day marketing plan that covers email campaigns, social media, SMS, and desktop push notifications. It not only gets more customers into the store (and buying online), but we get so much feedback from subscribers on how they loved receiving them,” he says.
While this is a natural fit for a jewelry business, all different types of businesses can showcase their customers for a Valentine’s marketing push. And you don’t only need to highlight couples, you can also show how your other customers love your business.
- Host a Galentine’s Day Event
“While everyone will be focusing on February 14th… [promote] Galentine’s Day instead,” recommends Thibaud Clement, CEO and co-founder of Loomly.
Galentine’s Day, otherwise known as the day before Valentine’s Day, is a holiday specifically for ladies celebrating their friends, made popular by the TV show “Parks and Recreation.” While technically a made-up holiday, it’s been steadily accumulating a following and can be a great marketing opportunity for your business.
Many people will have plans for the actual day or night of Valentine’s Day, so hosting an event the night before could be a way to make sure your customers can actually take part in the event. Consider throwing an event to celebrate friendship—and love for your business, of course. Provide snacks, have some giveaways or other promos, and decorate accordingly, then watch the customers come in.
- Promote Products for Self-Care or Self-Love
Remember, Valentine’s Day is about more than romantic love, it’s about all the love people have for their partners, friends, family, and even themselves.
“When brainstorming for Valentine’s Day marketing, expand how you think about the holiday. It isn’t just about romance. It’s about love. People want to express their love to friends, family, or even themselves. Think about how your products and services support self-care. Consider how your customers can show their love for people beyond significant others,” says Juliana Weiss-Roessier, co-founder of WR Digital Marketing.
Think about how your products or services fall into this category. And keep in mind, the best marketing ideas stay true to your brand, so think about how you can authentically bring your brand into the self-care conversation.
- Host an In-Store Giveaway
You can get a jumpstart on the Valentine’s Day celebrations by hosting a giveaway in store come February. You can either offer up your business’s goods or services or you can work with other local businesses to provide more prizes and expand your market reach. This is a marketing tip used by Rogers and Hollands, a jewelry company.[1]
Celeste Huffman, a marketing specialist for Rogers and Holland, told Fundera that the company chooses “10 winners at random from all of our locations to receive a gift card from a restaurant and a Rogers and Hollands gift card.”
“This gets more of our community to come into our store locations to sign up. And many of those people that come to sign up end up looking around our stores and purchasing something for Valentine’s Day,” says Huffman.
Offering a giveaway can successfully get people into your business or to your business website. Plus, it shows your customers you care and value their business.
- Host an Online Contest
If you don’t have a physical storefront, you don’t have to miss the fun or a giveaway—you can host an online contest instead.
“Ask your audience to tell you about the worst gift they have ever received for Valentine’s Day and offer the winner a nice prize as a way for your brand to make it up to them,” Clement recommends. Online contests can help you get more followers, which can lead to more customers.
You can ask followers to like your post and either share it or tag a friend to be entered into the contest or giveaway. That way, more people see your posts and more people start following your account.
- Offer Coupon Codes in Exchange for Emails
A great way to get customers to come back to your business is to email them and give them an offer code for a purchase around Valentine’s Day. If you’re trying to get new customers to sign up for an email marketing list, you can put a pop-up on your website offering a coupon code in exchange for an email address.
You can later use these email addresses to expand your everyday marketing efforts and promote your business, new products, and more.
- Do Something That Breaks the Mold
There are traditional marketing tactics and then there are those that really make brands stand out. Macy Matarazzo, founder of Denver-based matchmaking company Big Happy Love, is using one of those out-of-the-box ideas for Valentine’s Day this year.
Matarazzo is offering 20 single women the chance to name a cockroach after an ex-partner or an experience that they want to let go of. Those cockroaches will then be fed to meerkats to be turned into something positive says Matarazzo.
“I am excited to gift cockroaches to single women in my community for the second year in a row,” says Matarazzo. “Just as freeing yourself from the pain of a breakup will allow new love to come, I am creating space for your imagination to assist you in feeling a powerful shift.”
Not only will people be sure to remember this Valentine’s Day marketing idea, but it also works to promote Matarazzo’s brand.
- Revamp Your Social Media
Use your business’s social media accounts to your advantage this Valentine’s Day. You can revamp your account photos with filters or graphics of hearts, create polls involving new merchandise, use holiday vocab that has to do with love, or make your posts near Valentine’s Day center around the holiday. You can show off your business decor, Valentine’s Day deals, and more to get the hype up around the day and your business. Be sure to use Valentine’s Day-related hashtags to get your posts in front of more people’s eyes.
- Decorate Your Business
If you have a physical business location, one of the easiest marketing tactics available to you is decorating your business for the holiday and getting in the Valentine’s Day spirit. You can pick up candy hearts, balloons, streamers, heart cutouts for your windows, and more. Adding a festive touch can help bring potential customers into your store to check out the space. Depending on your inventory, you may also be able to create a Valentine’s themed display showcasing some of your love-related (or simply red and pink) items.
- Host an Event for Single People
“If your business revolves around or owns an offline location, such as a store, a restaurant or a gym, organize an event for singles to mingle on Valentine’s Day and offer them a coupon to buy a gift for themselves, from you, on you,” Clement recommends. Just because Valentine’s Day is usually about couples doesn’t mean you have to only offer events for people who are paired up.
Hosting an event that’s for single people specifically or for friends to celebrate one another can be a unique way to bring people into your business.
- Create Valentine’s Day Specific Products
If it makes sense, consider selling some Valentine’s Day-specific products around the holiday. Think of it as a limited-edition release. While the core product may be the same, you may change up the packaging or the color to make it more festive. Or, you could include a special extra, like candy or a card with purchase. Offering your customers something they can’t get any other day is more likely to incentivize them to buy.
The Bottom Line
If you’re a small business owner, there are plenty of Valentine’s Day marketing ideas that you can implement to boost your sales and reach your customers. Whether you have a business that’s only online or you have a physical location, you have plenty of options.
Whatever marketing ideas you choose to use, show your customers you love them this holiday!
