Valentine’s Day is next week, and if you don’t think that it means much for your business, you’re wrong! You don’t need to sell flowers or candy for this holiday to affect your consumers’ buying patterns.
As a holiday, Valentine’s Day has always been highly commercialized, but it’s commercialization has expanded to even greater heights over the last decade. This has continued to influence purchases across all industries in surprising ways, which is why your business needs to understand what to expect.
As a holiday, Valentine’s Day has always been highly commercialized, but it’s commercialization has expanded to even greater heights over the last decade. This has continued to influence purchases across all industries in surprising ways, which is why your business needs to understand what to expect.
Here are the top 3 reasons why you should care about Valentine’s Day:
The Spirit of Gift-Giving
Valentine’s Day is all about giving gifts to show how much you care and spread your love. This gifting spirit carries over from traditional products like roses and chocolates to all consumer goods. Around this time of the year you’ll find consumers making purchases of all sorts and chocking them up to “Valentine’s Day gifts” for their loved ones. Sometimes the gifts that people didn’t receive for earlier in the season are then exchanged for Valentine’s Day, making the holiday a belated extension of Christmas.
Love is Everywhere
With hearts everywhere, people are constantly being reminded not only of the people that they love, but also of the things that they love. You’ll see Valentine’s Day marketing campaigns geared toward showing love to your pets, car, kitchen, wardrobe, and so on. Pushing the message of love encourages people to spend more money in the areas of their lives where they already devote most of their disposable income.
Self-Indulgence is Acceptable
In recent years, the “self-valentine” has become more commonplace. The idea of indulging yourself to show self-love has taken root and consumer behavior reflects this shift. People are more likely than ever before to buy themselves gifts like spa services, home décor, kitchen gadgets, and more. Leading up to Valentine’s Day, consumers are more likely to view purchases for themselves as acceptable self-indulgences instead of hedonistic actions.
An Increase in Emotional Buying
Instead of taking the time to thoroughly research products, consumers are more likely to buy items impulsively around Valentine’s Day. This results in a substantial change in the purchase funnel – causing value propositions to resonate differently with consumers and shortening purchase cycles. This emotional buying is especially beneficial for retailers that sell leisure products and higher ticket items.
Kate Pierce is the owner of LionShark Digital Marketing LLC, a West Michigan internet marketing company. Her areas of expertise include Paid Search, Search Engine Optimization, Business Blogging and Web Copywriting. She lives in the Grand Rapids area with her husband and son and enjoys cooking, watching sports, and spending time together as a family. Like a true digital marketing expert (i.e. geek), she loves talking about current marketing trends… so don’t say you weren’t warned!
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