A guide to the perfect Valentine’s email marketing campaign

The Valentine’s season is here again, but this year, things are a little different. As a result of the pandemic and the need to stay safe, most sales and purchases will be made online. As a business vendor who has plans to take advantage of this season to drive sales, one useful and advisable path of doing this is through email marketing.

Here, we’ve put together a guide that’ll help you strategize your email marketing this Valentine’s season.

Gain more Valentine’s Day specific subscribers

The valentine’s season is a good time not just to gain subscribers, but to gain subscribers you can easily convert into customers. Use the following, easy to implement strategies to gain more email subscribers during Valentine’s season:

Offer gift vouchers for subscribing to your marketing emails

Give your visitors more reasons to subscribe to your emails by offering them gift vouchers when they subscribe. Gift vouchers are one of the fastest means of getting subscribers on your list because it boosts your customers' spending capacity since they believe that a part of their purchases has been catered to.

Offer a quiz to help them decide on a gift

Everyone loves a good quiz. Many of your customers will stop to take your simple quiz to select a gift for a loved one, especially if they’re feeling a bit indecisive. You can capitalize on this opportunity to create quizzes that ask quizzers at the end to subscribe to get the results in their emails. Immediately this happens, you should take them to a relevant product offering that corresponds with their quiz result. You can achieve this goal by implementing a custom-built product recommendation quiz for your platform.

Create gift guides for your user demographic

It’s one thing to have valuable gifts for your customers, but it’s another to navigate them in a way that prospective clients are properly guided to choose what works for them. Gift guides help give your audience a quick and seamless experience picking out their choice gifts. You need to create gift guides according to the user demographic of your audience. You can use PosterMyWall gift guide templates to easily customize and create your own gift guides.

Segment your email list

One way of getting the best out of an email campaign is giving people what they want, showing your audience what they’d love to see. Your audience list consists of different people, different belief systems, and preferences. Therefore, it’s important to segment your Valentine’s Day campaign to make sure you’re showing them what applies to them.

When your audience opted in for your email list, there were some data you derived from them. You can use this data to segment your email lists. You can segment your email based on the following;

Sex/gender

Sex is the most popular segmentation applicable here. You can send out gift guides based on your audience’s different sexes or an individual’s gender identity (transgender, non-binary, or gender-nonconforming).

Preference and engagement

Your subscribers react to your emails differently. While some are mostly engaged, some aren’t interested in any way. For those who are rarely engaged, you can bring them back in with discount sales. Your email algorithm also allows you to know what subscribers react to, what kind of emails they enjoy and engage, and so on. You can use this data to segment your customers and drive results.

Age

Age is another appropriate segment you can work with. People of different ages celebrate Valentine’s Day differently, so you can utilize a mailing list by age to target your email marketing at specific categories of people.

Use a catchy subject line and interactive content

It’s easy to assume that it’s Valentine’s season, and everyone will understand the need to get gifts for themselves or those their loved ones. You should always have in mind that as your subscribers are receiving emails from you, they may also be receiving emails from many other brands. But what’s going to make a difference in engagement and eventual conversion is how your emails resonate and compel your audience.

The first thing anyone sees when they get your email is the subject line. No matter how much your subscribers like your company, the subject line is the determining factor for email opening or not. That’s why you need to have catchy subject lines. Use short, catchy, and exciting subject lines to get the engagement you need. Subject line generator tools like ActiveCampaign and WebX can be used to create a catchy subject line for your email.

An example of a perfect email subject line for Valentine’s email marketing campaign is ‘Valentine gifts for under $150? Look no further…’ used by Saks Fifth Avenue.

Then, make sure that your catchy subject line leads your audience into something worth their time. The first rule here is that your content shouldn’t be too long. It should also be interactive and something your audience can relate to. Emails should leave a mark on your subscribers and eventually push them to make a substantial move. EcommerceTrainingAcademy also has a few Valentine-related subject lines you can use as inspiration.

Send the emails at the right time

Yes, Valentine’s Day mails should be sent in Valentine’s season, but do you have a strategy that you can work with? It’s essential to draw out a plan that can help you reach the goals you’re trying to achieve with your campaigns.

First, there’s a need to remind them about the upcoming season of the year. Stress the need for your subscribers to show their loved ones how much they mean to them through gifts. This is typically done from the last week in January into the first few days in February.

You can then launch the campaign towards the end of the first week in February, i.e., between 5th and 7th February. Launch your campaign with incentives such as discounts, bonuses, coupons, and the likes. The incentives will compel the majority of your target audience to patronize you.

A few days to Valentine, you would have been able to pick out those who have opened, clicked, and engaged with your previous emails. This will be the right time to send those encouraging emails, making the last push for your offers.

On Valentine’s Day, you don’t expect to make any purchases, but it can be an opportunity to show them that you have them in mind. Send them personalized Valentine’s messages or suggestions of what they could do if they don’t have plans.

M and Company Salon, and many other brands follow this strategy to send personalized emails and it really works out for them. Couple that with a catchy subject line like the following and you got yourself a deal:

“Whether you’re going out to dinner, grabbing drinks with the girls, or having a relaxed night in – let us give you a little extra love and attention.”

Conclusion

These strategies are vital in pushing your email marketing campaign during this Valentine’s season. Take advantage of these strategies and create an outstanding Valentine’s Day offering for your customers and ultimately, convert them into sales.