Valentine's Day is right around the corner, and we've got all the tips to make your marketing campaign for the season of love the best it can be this year! Valentine's is one of the biggest holidays for sales, with industry experts estimating that consumers spend around £787 million on Valentine's Day gifts each year. 

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The Right Approach

To create the best Valentine's Day marketing campaign, you need to ensure that it has a specific purpose and it's not lost in the sea of ads flooding our inboxes this February. 

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The most crucial part of any marketing campaign is the planning. You need to set out what you want to achieve and how you are going to do it. 

• Set a budget you are willing to spend and the return you are looking to get back. 
• Know what you want to accomplish with your campaign, and have a clear vision, whether that is sales, brand awareness, gathering contact information, etc.
• Know your audience inside and out and have a good understanding of what they would want to see.
• Make sure everyone on your team knows exactly what they're supposed to do so it's cohesive and everything runs smoothly. 

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When creating a new campaign for a holiday like Valentine's Day, look back at previous campaigns you've held and how they have performed. If you've already done something similar, consider how you can improve upon it this year. Be sure to stay true to your brand identity; you want people who come across your ad or website again this year to recognise and remember the experience they had with it last time. 

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Don't only look at your previous campaigns but also at what other competitors have done and what they aren't doing (or not doing well) so you know where you can improve your campaign. Keep track of any new brands or companies entering your space; they may have ideas or strategies to help improve yours. This will help ensure that no matter who enters the market, whether a direct competitor or not, you'll still have an advantage!

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Campaign ideas 

• Use a landing page. A landing page is a webpage designed specifically for collecting leads from potential customers and driving them toward making purchases or signing up for newsletters or emails to receive discounts or other perks in exchange for providing information about themselves (e.g. their email addresses).
• Send out coupons via email marketing campaigns to get people to buy your products or use your service  - they are likely to buy more than just what's being offered with their coupon. This can help create repeat customers too!
• Using social media to gain followers and boost brand awareness. If brand awareness is your aim this Valentine's, why not hold a social giveaway to encourage followers and likes on your social platforms? 

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Still stuck for ideas

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The Body Shop’s #SendingAKiss contest asked its Instagram followers to send photos of themselves blowing a kiss to a friend or loved one using Galentine’s Day as a fun spin on the classic Valentine's Day campaigns. The winner received newly released fruit-scented lip balms for them and their friends. We love this campaign as a great way to get followers involved in your brand and encourage tagging and sharing of social posts for great brand awareness. 

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Candler also went against tradition and played on the humour of Valentine's Day to release an exclusive range of candles. This is an excellent fit for their audience and is precisely what they would be looking for this time of year. With a busy market of lovey-dovey candles around Valentine's, Candler has made themselves stand out and attract an audience undervalued this time of year.

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For an eCommerce site such as Not On The High Street, a dedicated landing page is perfect for Valentine's Day as it gives your customers a helping hand in choosing what gifts they should buy this time of year and prevents any purchase panic and leaving the site from being overwhelmed by options. 

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Whatever you do, don't forget to be creative. Your Valentine's Day marketing campaign should be fun and attention-grabbing to your audience. Do you need help with your next campaign? Contact us at Creative Pod, and we can help!

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