Valentine's Day Email Marketing Ideas [2023]

It seems there are several weeks for Valentine's Day; however, the New Year’s holiday season passes rapidly and upcoming 2023 holiday marketing opportunities appear at our door. Therefore Valentine's Day is a great opportunity to create a catchy email marketing campaign in the first quarter of the new year; 2023. Whether it's through discounts, special offers,  gift guides or just a friendly message, creating a good Valentine's Day email marketing campaign can be a great way to create a sincere brand identity around the concept of love. Keeping in mind that anyone who opposes or agrees with St. Valentine’s Day is going to shop online or in retail markets even for small gifts or just for flowers for themselves! Additionally, researches indicate that Americans are used to spending over 21$  Billion on Valentine’s Day since 2020. So, why don’t you also get a slice from the cake? This article mainly focuses on practical and efficient Valentine’s Day email marketing ideas and tips both with general marketing clues to implement them. 

Let’s begin! 

How to Create Valentine's Day Email Marketing Campaigns?

Valentine's Day email campaigns can be as creative as you'd like! Some classic ideas include crafting captivating subject lines featuring heart imagery, using Valentine's Day colors and dreamy fonts within the theme of email design, creating a gift guide with specific product lines, offering discounts and free shipping and creating a sense of urgency with a touch of FOMO. These all are valid advice for other holiday and online shopping campaigns as well; you may just change the little details. On the other hand 14 February, St. Valentine’s day may need unique ideas and a different perspective to catch the customers. Because do not forget you’re promoting the LOVE itself, sincerity of it and for the possible romantic (or unromantic 🙂 affairs after all. So, let’s dive a little deeper with  new perspectives and cute valentines day ideas. 

Everyone Buys (or Gets) Valentine's Day Gift In One Way or Another. But How?

Whether they are in favor of Valentine's Day or not, (or accept it as a bit of a capitalist marketing tactic for money spending) today people are searching for good or attractive Valentine's gifts even if they don't have a partner at all. Because the approaches towards February 14th have been changed through the years. Just think out of the box. 

For instance, children may buy gifts or flowers for their mothers, real gentleman fathers may choose small gifts for their daughters, and even thoughtful grooms may buy gift cards for the widowed mother-in-laws! While preparing a Valentine's Day marketing campaign, probably the priority will be couples; however, keeping in mind that the scope of February 14th has expanded and turned into a day to express love itself rather than just for passionate lovers. In this context, keeping the scale wider for the target audience, as well as for the ones having an affair, relationship  (or the ones who will start a new relationship) or the ones trying to break the ice with their partner. Imagine a grandmother getting a huge bundle of flowers from her grandchildren on February 14th; wouldn't it be so cute? 😊

Therefore, for your Valentines Day’s campaign strategy and for the email marketing one you may share previous customer stories or testimonials about how your products or services have helped to strengthen their relationships in order to reach a wider target audience. This could be particularly effective if you sell products that are less related to actual romance, such sweet floral arrangements, sweaters, small kitchen equipment etc.

Arrange Your Services or Products In Line With Pair Sales

Whatever your service or product line is you can come up with a creative valentine Day’s gift idea out of it; you do not need to sell expensive jewelry or parfums. Align your services or product line for running a special sale on Valentine's Day.  

Also, some limited product ranges or Valentine's day gift guides out of your existing product lines may attract your customers. Plus, regarding services “Buy 1, get 1 free” campaigns, 50% discounts for pairs, Valentine's Coupling Sets may be promoted as special Valentine's Day gift offers. However, keep in mind that you should target the audience well and choose to write compelling words & slogans for unfamiliar industries such as a car repair and maintenance service! If you can accomplish a good strategy, you can create an attractive Valentine Day’s campaign and turn February 14th into an advantage for your firm! This is also a great way to attract new customers and increase your profits. 

Adding CTAs like “Gifts for Her / Gifts for Him” or “Valentine’s gifts he’ll love / she’ll adore”) and creating personalized email campaigns via segmentation method can be some useful tips to implement within your Valentine’s email marketing campaign. 

If you hesitate to go on campaigns relying on your own brand solely, then you may try to collaborate with another brand symbolizing love & relationship in the mind of customers. Hence, this is a totally different strategy to work on. 

Offer Stunning Discounts and Additional Privileges

Let's admit the fact that consumers and online shoppers are used to encountering high discount offers on every special day or holiday campaign. Moreover, when the discount percentages are around 20%-25%, these are assumed to be low rates and consumers instantly go for other alternative brands and companies. As a result, being generous with these discount rates on Valentine's Day, which is one of the first big shopping and marketing periods of the year, is going to be beneficial to engage with more customers. 

Within the scope of a general marketing and sales strategy, you may apply discounts at 30-40% rates, instead of Cyber Monday’s or Black Friday’s rates such as 50-60%. If the high discount rates are challenging for your business at all, you may highlight the campaigns with additional privileges for your customers; for instance: 

• Free shipping
• Delivery within the same day  
• Extra coupons, gift codes, gift cards, discount codes (these may be activated at the chart or for the next shopping 😉
• Free gift-wrapping
• Flexible return policy 
• Special payment methods
• Several membership privileges

 However keep in mind that most of these may require interactions and deals with other firms, so stick to your weapons before February!

Expand the Scope of February 14th

In the third paragraph we mentioned that “everyone buys Valentine's Day’s gift in one way or another” because the scope of February 14th has already expanded to the LOVE itself. (Also, you may remember the slogan “Love is Love!” ) The 1990s have passed away and the scope of February 14 has expanded with a more inclusive expression of love. Therefore you may target not only romantic couples but also family love, self love, friendship love, nature love, pet love and even business love! Looking out of the box will make your brand look even more sympathetic. That's why you can avoid visuals representing only wrapped couples walking by the beach or a romantic dinner table with red roses on etc.  while you are building your whole online marketing strategy or crafting email marketing campaigns at a micro level. You can even focus on singles for promoting self love as an alternative.  

Target Last-minute Valentines’!

To be honest men always falter when Valentine's Day arrives. Either he doesn't have any idea about the wish list of his partner; if he has a clue he can't decide within the gift choices or he doesn't believe that he can find the best Valentines’ gift for her and order the last and the most expensive bunch of flowers in the morning of 14 Feb! For those leaving the gifts to the last minute, send last-minute email newsletters and of course, don't forget to update your campaigns within the scope of these sales strategies. Here is a small tip for last-minutes: Use zodiac signs for the best Valentines’ gift option with a body text at the email : “If you still don't have a gift idea for Valentine's Day, how about choosing a gift for your partner’s Zodiac sign?”

Prioritize Visuals at Emails

For February 14th  everyone seems to be bored of red & pink color pallets, endless hearts, bunch of roses, cute cupids etc., However, keep in mind that sometimes simple is the best and a set of classics may save the day! Create a unique Valentines Day email marketing design theme. Choose a Valentine's Day-themed email newsletter that highlights romantic gift ideas, date ideas regarding your products or service for couples. You could also include romantic quotes or recipes for a special home-cooked dinner. Hence, the newsletter will seem more sincere. You can benefit from the ideas of one other blog post : 

If you are searching methods to simplify your email design content, add LOVE to your email marketing format through different angles. For example, add cute and simple gifs or embed a romantic stock video into the email body. One more tip, you can use heart emojis on email subject lines. Additionally you have alternatives for the simple red heart such as . For different and attractive subject lines please check our other blog post on the subject: 150+ Valentine’s Day Email Subject Lines for Maximum Opens 

Create Specific Hashtags Combining Your Campaign & Brand with V-day

Hashtags seem t6o be related to social media generally; it’s true to some context however you can combine creative hashtags with the concept of storytelling to represent your brand like Twitter did years ago.

In addition to that, you can combine different gamification methods to the “Love hashtags” and promote them via email marketing. Providing that you run a social media campaign, include the social media pages of the brand in the email newsletter and direct the subscribers to the online game. The social media gamification may vary from tweeting a simple love poem to sharing the most lovely photo of your beloved ones, the product or the brand with hashtags included etc. 

At the end of the campaign you may give a special gift for Valentine’s Day in line with your campaign strategy. The options are endless for social media gamification creativity and do not forget to push the campaign via email marketing! 

• #valentinesday2023
• #happyvalentinesday2023
• #LoveatX! 
• #lovechangeseverything 
• #lovewins
• #loveislove

One More Option : Unconditional Love! [Bonus]

You may choose not to sell anything to your email subscribers however you can still benefit from the LOVE wind to promote your brand or business without any financial profit. Or you maybe running a non-governmental organization or non profit association. Below is a small list of idea to use within an email market campaign for the newsletter subscribers or segmented contact lists: 

• Send personalized Valentine's Day greetings to your customers and subscribers with a special V-day card.
• Share some romantic Valentine's day content. This can be anything from heartwarming stories about historical valentines to a round-up of romantic date ideas, DIY concepts such as a how-to guide on making your own chocolates or flowers.
• Show your Love for your business or work in a cute and lovely way. This may include a photo of your team or the working atmosphere likewise. 
• Offer a Valentine's Day-themed freebie, such as a digital download or printable. This could be something like a love letter template, a free e-book or podcast, a Valentine's Day card template, or a list of romantic movies to watch.

Check our the main blog post for other Email Marketing Types and Examples!

Conclusion 

Through the whole article we focused on some well known and updated Valentine’s Day campaign ideas to trigger your customers. You can use the campaign to showcase special Valentine's Day gifts, or to showcase your products in a romantic light. You can also use the emails to promote special ideas to help your customers show their loved ones how much they care. The possibilities are endless up to NGOs; you just have to get creative! With the right email campaign, you can make sure your customers feel special and appreciated.Providing that you turn your customers Valentine's Day shopping into a more convenient experience, they’ll come back to your business later on. Therefore don't underestimate the importance of creating a good Valentine's Day email marketing campaign. Whatever you choose to do, make sure your Valentine's Day email marketing campaign is exclusive and make sure to send your customers a special love on Valentine's Day! 

Try Mailsoftly free now as the email marketing software to create your impressive V-Day email campaign with the exact tools to boost your email marketing, business and sales after all!