Valentine’s Day 2021: 5 Digital Strategies to Boost Ecommerce Sales
The internet is rapidly-growing marketplace for retailers, and the pace is not slowing any time soon.
Due to an ongoing pandemic, ecommerce businesses must continue to make extra efforts to capture the consumer.
The good news? If you plan data-driven strategies to attract consumers around holidays and seasonal trends, you can make the most of timely opportunities to appeal to your target audience.
Read on for five digital strategies your ecommerce business can employ to drive sales ahead of Valentine’s Day 2021.
Engage Customers With Their Own Content
User-Generated Content, or UGC, is a powerful tool for businesses — when used correctly.
According to a report from GSI Commerce on the purchase path of online buyers, nearly 50% of customers say that UGC helped them discover new products.
That’s a pretty significant figure!
While your customers shop for their loved ones this month, consider promoting an incentivized offer to encourage them to share what they’ve purchased on social media, along with a branded hashtag to increase awareness.
Someone gets a gift, your brand increases reach and engagement, while shoppers on social get gift ideas. It’s a win-win!
Sell What Sells Best
If data drives strategy, then it only makes sense to promote your best-selling items to attract new and existing consumers.
Once you’ve identified what your best-sellers are, then you can identify the best channels to command attention, generate interest and drive sales for those select items.
For instance, in addition to seasonal email campaigns and landing pages focused on top picks for Valentine’s Day, consider promoting your best-selling items on a visual social media platform like Instagram to get even better results.
Why Instagram? Statistics suggest that 2 out of 3 people use Instagram to research potential product choices. In addition, Instagram Shoppable offers ecommerce retailers a cost-effective option to increase sales with immersive marketing campaigns.
Create and Maintain Brand Equity with Video
Personalized content should be the standard — not the exception — on social media.
An easy way to humanize your brand, and engage with your audience in a meaningful way, is incorporating video in your digital strategy.
Identifying factors such as your target audience (Who are they? Where do they live?) and brand affinity (What are their interests? Shared values?), your business can take a thematic approach to generating valuable visual content that resonates with consumers this Valentine’s Day.
For instance, a restaurant can host an interactive cooking class for couples on Valentine’s Day via Instagram Live. Using video in this manner helps to establish an emotional connection with the online audience, while increasing brand equity with awareness and engagement.
Direct Your Customers
There’s no point in engaging your customers if you’re unable to guide them through an entire purchase journey.
Case in point: when customers are enticed to open a Valentine’s Day-themed email campaign delivered to their inbox, they should be able to click through to reach a landing page that’s relevant and/or tailored to the overall theme.
Directing the user to a general place on your website that’s not associated with the theme (like your homepage) instead, disrupts the consumer journey and reduces the likelihood that their session converts to a sale.
If you're running Valentine’s Day awareness campaigns via paid media, social or search this month, be sure to have a dedicated microsite or landing page on your website where you can send prospective shoppers and effectively guide them along the consumer journey.
Don’t Neglect the Singles… or the Gal[entine]s
Valentine’s Day is all about love, in general. That’s why consumer brands shouldn’t limit their marketing efforts to focusing solely on heterosexual romantic relationships.
For instance, think about how your business can highlight products that appeal to, and resonate with, the LGBTQ community. Also consider highlighting celebratory concepts such as Galentine’s Day and Single’s Awareness Day in your marketing efforts this year to scale up and reach additional consumer segments.
Tell Me: What is your ecommerce business doing to attract new and existing customers for Valentine’s Day?