Now that the Holidays are over, we’re hurtling toward Valentine’s Day. Can you believe it?!
Our data from the last couple seasons shows that just designing for V-Day alone is not as effective as combining that effort with using this holiday as an opportunity to connect with your audience. Not everyone is into V-Day, we get it, but it will definitely be on everyone’s mind. That means it’s an opportunity to increase engagement with your fans, which will then help increase your sales.
So here we go: 5 ways to use this V-Day to connect with your audience.
1. Plan a Giveaway.
It’s not as daunting as it sounds, and the increase in engagement is well-worth the effort. Follow these steps:
1. Find Your Target Audience.
Yes, you probably know your target audience, but if you don’t, check out our blog here on how to lock that down.
2. Establish Your Giveaway Goal.
This is your roadmap. Once you know this, you can back engineer your milestones to measure the success of your campaign. For example, you may be shooting for more customers, or you may be more focused on driving sales to boost revenue, or maybe you’re honing in on more website traffic, expanding your followers, or all of the above!
Knowing where you’re going is key to where to begin. The idea is to not let your giveaway become a time-consuming endeavor with no clear outcome.
3. Choose an Exciting Giveaway Prize.
Now to the fun part. The prize should be enticing and have value and relevance. People can’t resist freebies, but they smell gimmicks. Make it worth their time. Offer your most recent product, or a cool bundle, or a past-item that you’ve refreshed in some way. If fans don’t win, they might just go buy it anyway, which is the real prize.
4. Set the Giveaway Rules.
It’s a must to establish the entry requirements and rules for your giveaway contest. Be specific: eligibility, process, how winners are selected, how they will be notified, etc.
Some rules can even be advantageous for your brand. For example, maybe eligibility requirements involve tasks such as following your socials, liking and sharing a certain post, or reviewing one of your products.
Another key point is the timeline: When it starts and ends. Give your fans enough time to enter and strategically plan your announcement to continue the excitement.
5. Choose a Platform to Design Your Giveaway.
When it comes to choosing where to conduct your giveaway, not all platforms are created equal, and the rules can vary from lenient to strict. Do your research.
Obviously you’ll want to use the platform where you have the most engaged followers, but be sure to check out the promotion guidelines before you start. Or you can check out services that specialize in running giveaways like involve.me, an interactive content platform that facilitates the creation of giveaway campaigns. We don’t have a dog in the fight so pick whichever is best for you and your needs.
6. Promote, Promote, Promote.
Once your giveaway is ready, it’s time to spread the word and drum up participant interest. Here are some quick tips to reach the largest audience:
- Leverage Platforms. Whether it’s an Instagram post, a story, or a TikTok hashtag challenge, giveaways often increase overall engagement, especially in the comments.
- Website Popups. This tactic is great for gathering email addresses and also targets visitors already interested in your offerings.
- Influencer Collaboration. Increase your reach by collaborating with influencers relevant to your brand or have a similar target audience. Incentivize them to share your giveaway.
- Encourage Sharing. The best promoters of your products are your fans and followers. Incentivize or motivate them to share your giveaway on their personal channels. Maybe offer additional entries for every share.
7. Track Results.
One way to measure success is to do surveys when you’re done. This provides valuable insights so you know what was effective and what was not.
Finally, track your sales and revenue both during and after the giveaway so you know if the giveaway achieved what you wanted. A successful giveaway should garner more sales in general, both directly and indirectly.
2. Conduct a Poll.
We don’t have a crystal ball – we don’t always know what our fans want or what will entice them to purchase products. So stop guessing and start asking! Conduct a poll on your socials about which designs and products your fans would like to see for Valentine’s Day.
Use that as inspiration to launch something new, even if it’s just as simple as changing your colors on existing merch (like taking a popular tee and making it pink). Here are some quick tips on how to conduct an effective poll:
- Determine your goal. What is it you want to know? If you already know you don’t want to create a whole new design, don’t ask about that! Instead, ask what past designs are a favorite and maybe add a new color or put it on a new product. Be very clear what you’re asking and know ahead of time what you are willing to do (and not do).
- Choose a survey tool. Sure, you can just ask fans to comment. But do you really want to read through dozens and dozens of them and try to make sense of the answers? Get official! There are multiple tools to choose from. We have no affiliation with any of them, but some examples are FigPii, Survey Monkey, Google Forms, Typeform, etc. It really comes down to what your preferences and needs are.
- Create your questions. You want to ask the right ones. As we said, if you’re looking for which past products to refresh and promote, don’t ask what new design they’d like to see you do.
- Launch your poll. One of the most effective ways to do this is by emailing a link to your survey to your past purchasers and then sharing it on your socials. Post about it regularly until you get enough responses and be sure to communicate an end-date when the poll is over.
3. Share a Meaningful Story.
Sometimes it’s the simple things that are most effective. Human beings are born wanting to hear stories and also wanting to tell stories.
A meaningful story draws someone in and gets them emotionally attached to the outcome of your story. Even more, some people will actually purchase things they don’t need or want if they are emotionally attached to the brand.
Since this is about Valentine’s Day, share the love! Who is special to you? What helped inspire your success and your designs? The more people know about you and your life and the people that are important to you, the more they’ll engage with your brand.
4. Share a Shout Out to Your Loyal Fans.
Human beings don’t just love a great story, they love to be credited. There’s a reason you see fifty thousand names at the end of a movie. Giving props and a loving shout out to loyal fans on social media has exponential rewards.
Look at this Valentine’s Day as an opportunity to share your love for your fans who have purchased your merch and supported you. This will build even more fan loyalty. The more loyal fans you have, the more likely they’ll be to share your story, products, and brand with their network.
5. Refresh Your Store.
Add a little holiday branding to your store, even if you don’t offer Valentine’s themed products. Stores with custom branding see 35% increase in conversion rates! To quickly add a theme you can customize your:
Hero & footer banners.
This is the easiest way to stand out. You don’t need an all-new design, just throw on some hearts, flowers or other nods to the holiday. Are you an anti-Valentine-ite? Have fun with it and add some counter-messaging. Either way, it’ll feel fresh for the holiday.
Logo.
If you want to really commit to a Valentine’s theme, change-up your logo. Make some merch with it, promote it for the holiday as an exclusive, and then watch FOMO drive sales.
Store colors.
Don’t want to change out your logo? No worries, you can change the background color & text color. Add some pinks and reds for the holiday.
Sure, Valentine’s Day is only one day in February. But walk into any store and you’ll be bombarded with hearts and candy. Why not hop on that train and use this shared experience as a way to connect with your audience?
Share your feelings on the holiday. Ask what products your fans would like to see. Thank your fans for being loyal and share how much it means to you. Build that goodwill, so you can keep your fans engaged throughout the year. Happy selling!
