For some February is the perfect time to get in the mood for love. For businesses, February 14th, Valentine’s Day, means a great time to cash in. Many lovebirds will be looking for the best dining offers or gifts. So the F&B, retail, and beauty industry can take advantage of the hype to launch promotional campaigns targeting customers looking for the best way to celebrate this special day.
A quick tip: Think about expanding your targeting beyond just couples. You could even tailor your promotional messaging to focus on friendships and relationships with loved ones.
Another sales angle is promoting self-love, as customers may be interested in purchasing gifts for themselves. This works especially for beauty services. Encourage your employees to market other services as add-on benefits when they work with individual customers, for instance, adding a foot massage to a regular manicure. Sometimes customers just need a little bit of a push to indulge!
We have released this article ahead of the holiday because you can never plan too early for a successful promotion for Valentine’s Day that lasts the entire month. Consider launching discounts on themed products throughout the week to draw in customers looking for post-Valentine’s Day discounts.
Now, allow us to play Cupid and match you with four Valentine’s Day business ideas that work!
- Offer themed or bundled package sets
For businesses, expand your inventory to include promotional bundles or limited edition gifts. As shoppers are looking for Valentine’s Day gift ideas, expanding your product listings to include these packaged sets and exclusive limited edition items will help them to shop better. In addition, while people celebrate the festival with their friends and family, Valentine’s Day is still a romantic holiday. So adding specially curated items that are for couples to your inventory will cater to those looking for couple gifts.
If your brand cannot add such items, you can always bundle items together or offer a 2-for-1 deal. That means your customer can buy two items or services for one price. Almost every type of business can easily offer the “2-for-1” deal, whether selling goods or services. Restaurants, spas and even retail businesses can run “2-for-1” deals for couples. For instance, restaurants can offer a 2-for-1 meal set, and spas can offer 2-for-1 massage deals. In addition, those selling products can offer 2-for-1 discounts for two items from complementary categories.
2-for-1 deals are great because they give visitors additional incentives to purchase from your business. Even if they are not looking for a couples’ gift set, they may wait for such bundled deals because it means a better offer for the things they want. For customers using our Qashier smart point of sale (POS) solutions, our combos feature allows you to bundle your products and sell them together easily, even at a promotional price if you prefer.
- Customisable menu, services or products
Customers would like to add personalised touches to their gifts, particularly on Valentine’s Day. To turn their purchases into unique items for their loved ones, you can offer them the option to customise their gifts with names or messages.
For F&B businesses, give customers an opportunity to book customisable dining experiences, such as letting them choose the type of wine or adding flowers to the setup. You can even offer a Valentine’s Day menu!
If you provide beauty services, allow customers to add on any services they want to enjoy with their other half. Consider promoting a Valentine’s Day package to your list of services!
While smaller businesses may not be able to add specially designed products to their inventory, you can always add extra perks to incentivise shoppers. For instance, you can provide gift-wrapping services if you are a retail business, or you could even offer free delivery services for your themed products.
- Valentine’s Day giveaway
Festivals like Valentine’s Day are always a good time to host giveaways. This promotion idea will create a lot of excitement, and you can even host a contest over several days in the lead-up to February 14. Hashtagging your contest on Instagram is an incredibly effective way to promote yourself since they increase exposure to your brand by tapping on your existing followers.
You can also encourage participants to submit content featuring your brand, which you can later feature on your page. Prizes can be specific to your business. For instance, restaurants or beauty parlours can offer free experiences. In addition, retail shops can offer Valentine’s Day gift sets or gift cards.
The beauty of a giveaway is that you can expand your customer database. Collecting customers’ data helps you to personalise messages to them and is one way of strengthening brand loyalty. For example, you’ll want to be able to email your customers nearing their birthdays to offer them discounts or keep track of their purchases so you can target promotional messages.
It can be challenging, however, to collect such information. For example, you can ask a new customer, or follower, to fill up a quick form or register their email to be eligible for a giveaway. All this information can help inform the strategy for future promotions.
Qashier Customer Relationship Management tools provide an easy way for customers to key in their details, to build a database that allows you to keep track of any membership packages, store credit and purchases they made in your shop.
- Workshops and events
While Valentine’s Day promotions focusing on discounted products are some of the most effective for driving sales, you can also host activities to provide value through experiences and tutorials. Are you selling make-up? Host a Valentine’s Day makeover session. Run a cafe? Consider holding a coffee-making tutorial. The key idea is to use your existing inventory so customers know how to use these products.
If you run a retail shop launching a new Valentine’s Day collection, give customers a behind-the-scenes look. Show sneak peeks of the decision-making process or even post a video about an anticipated product’s arrival at your shop to build anticipation. Design events that are helpful to your target audience, and consider what might interest them. You might even want to send surveys to your email database before the event to see what interests your customers.
This content can increase consumers’ investment in your brand and provide an additional way to connect with them. Make full use of social media. Host these activities on Instagram Live so you can get real-time comments or post a countdown story to the event.
Run Valentine’s promotions for better sales with Qashier
Amidst Valentine’s hype don’t lose track of the ones that matter to your business – your employees. Track commissions for your employees with QashierHQ’s Employment Management features so that you can pay your top salespeople easily.
Lastly, don’t forget to set up your website and decorate the shop to reflect the celebration. This may mean creating festive landing pages and home banners.
A smart POS partner like Qashier will empower your business to carry out all these promotional ideas smoothly. We are your ideal match if you want to tap into Valentine’s Day and other festivals to grow your revenue.
Qashier’s smart POS presents an integrated solution to meet all kinds of business needs with multiple digital solutions, including QR code payments, employee management, customer relationship management (loyalty programs), inventory management, data analytics, and cashless payments, in one solution.
Qashier promises a seamless setup without any need for technical expertise. It boasts a user-friendly interface that is simple for anyone to learn and use. In addition, you’ll find 7 days-a-week responsive technical support from the local team if you require assistance.
Qashier is also affordable, with prices starting from as low as SGD1.80/day (in Singapore with a PSG grant), and this includes hardware, software, setup, training and local support.
Try the Qashier app for free on your own Android device! Alternatively, you can speak to us to see how Qashier can meet your business needs. Schedule a meeting with us here, call us at (+65) 3165 0155, WhatsApp (+65) 8887 7687, or email [email protected].