Love Is in the Air: Valentine’s Day Marketing Ideas & Campaigns

Valentine’s Day is a day of love and celebration. Throughout the season, people become more open to spreading love and showing appreciation through giving gifts and cards; sharing quotes, videos, photos; etc. If you engage with your audience by showing that you care and love them, you can turn Valentine’s Day season into an opportunity to boost your brand’s visibility, create a positive image, and increase revenue.

With Valentine’s Day around the corner, developing marketing campaigns is a great way to get into the mood of the season. From sharing social media posts to offering limited editions, there are various ways to use the engagement and sales opportunities that the season offers. 

Let’s look at some Valentine’s Day marketing ideas to keep in mind when targeting to make your brand stand out on this special day of love:

1- Email Marketing

Valentine’s Day season is one of the best times to attract your audience through interesting email subject lines and capture their hearts with special collections, offers, and messages shaped by love.

Here’s a brilliant Valentine’s Day email example by Hulu:

Hulu aims to contribute to its audience enjoy Valentine’s Day spirit and offers them different options to watch and share with their dear ones because “love comes in all genres” meaning that there is always something for anyone on Hulu. Plus, to ensure that the open rates are high and the email content is on the audience’s service, Hulu sends this email with an intriguing subject line: “Spend Valentine’s Day with Our Favorite Couples.”

2- Limited Editions

If you offer Valentine’s Day-themed products or services for a limited time, they will attract more attention than putting them on the market at an ordinary time. The peak season of love can be a great opportunity; if you don’t want to miss out on it, here’s an example to get inspired:

In 2014, Vans introduced its “love me, love me not” shoes just before Valentine’s Day season. Marketing them can be profitable anytime, but during the season of love, it stands out among the non-themed options, and its chance of leading to revenue growth increases.

3- Gift Guides

Many people get stressed as they can’t decide what to buy for their beloved ones. Choosing the best gift can be difficult but gift guides can be helpful in not buying something too fancy or low-end. At that point, your brand can be their savior angel by providing them with tons of options. You can categorize Valentine’s Day gift suggestions, ranging from budget-friendly DIY Valentine’s Day gifts to luxurious ones, according to the types of relationships and communication.

To see an example, you can check Vogue’s Valentine’s Day gifts for her list. With such helpful content, Vogue achieves to sell its own product: its content. Besides, Vogue increases its brand awareness and audience loyalty as it sees them through the tiring process of gift selection.

4- Change the Focus

Although it is thought to be limited to romantic love, Valentine’s Day is not a special day for couples. Giving Valentine’s Day cards and gifts to friends is common in some countries including the US and it becomes more popular year by year. Another trending Valentine’s Day concept is focusing on self-love and making purchases just for yourself. So, you can go with one of these options or try to promote all of them for a more extensive marketing campaign. 

If you decide to concentrate only on friendships in your Valentine’s Day marketing campaigns, you can shift your focus to another special day of love: Galentine’s Day. Parks and Recreation’s famous character Leslie Knope invented this day to be celebrated a day before Valentine’s Day. It praises the love for friends and friendships.

5- Social Media

Using Valentine’s Day hashtags can be the first step to take in creating an effective Valentine’s Day social media marketing campaign. For example, Etsy offers the #etsymatch hashtag to help Etsy shop owners to boost their sales during Valentine’s Day season. It also provides them with social media post examples including this hashtag, so they can decide which social media platforms to focus on and what kind of products to highlight in their Valentine’s Day posts.

If you are having trouble unleashing your creativity to develop a Valentine’s Day marketing campaign for your eCommerce business but aiming to succeed like Etsy, check out the best agencies providing eCommerce marketing services!

Similar to the use of hashtags, advertising with catchy slogans is another logical option to highlight your brand and the care it gives to this special day. Let’s look at some Valentine’s Day slogan examples:

“Get him a gift that gets him” – Man Crates

“Fall in love with your skin!” – L’Oréal Paris

“You never know where true love is located” – Turkish Airlines

Valentine’s Day Marketing Campaigns That Will Steal Your Heart

Valentine’s Day has always been an important day in the marketing calendar. So you can find numerous examples of marketing campaigns but which one will be your source of inspiration?

Here’s our selection of 3 marketing campaigns for you:

1- Cadbury 5 Star – Valentine’s Day Alibi

Cadbury 5 Star India released a Valentine’s Day commercial promoting the idea that Cadbury is always there for you. Even if you don’t have someone special to celebrate this Valentine’s Day, you have Cadbury 5 Star and the island it offers you: my cousin’s wedding. Therefore, you can spend time in solitude without seeing couples everywhere or being pushed by family or friends to find someone special. 

2- Lush – Better Together 

If there’s anything worse than a heteronormative Valentine’s Day marketing campaign, it is a heterosexist one. Fortunately, the second one started to become illegal, but normativity continues to smash human rights and marketing campaigns contribute to it from time to time. 

So, it’s up to you to use the power of marketing to create an inclusive campaign as Lush Cosmetics did in 2017 to rewrite the norms and attract the queer community, or to follow an outdated and discriminative path.

3-  Jared – Dare to Be Devoted

Jared’s Valentine’s Day commercials put an emphasis on being bold and daring to do whatever you want to do. There are different versions of “Dare to Be Devoted” commercials of Jared. Here’s the one featuring people who refrain from proposing but decide to do:

And here’s another one telling the stories of the ones who want to make bold statements and ignore social norms such as ageism, bias against long-distance relationships, etc.:

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Using Valentine’s Day marketing campaigns to show your customers that you care can be a wonderful way to reach out to and connect with them. From limited editions and gift guides to hashtag and email campaigns, there are many options available to increase your brand awareness and boost your sales this Valentine’s Day season.

So, what are you waiting for? Start to promote your brand and stand out with a pinch of creativity and love. If you are looking for professional help, reach out to top digital marketing agencies and get ready for this Valentine’s Day more than ever!