Over the years, Valentine’s Day has established itself as a key sales event in France. It represents a unique opportunity for brands to boost their sales, in the same way as other marketing highlights such as Christmas and Easter.
Whatever their sector of activity, companies can use Valentine’s Day to promote their products, communicate strong values and enliven their community by celebrating love.
With the number of promotional offers and marketing campaigns multiplying in the run-up to 14 February, brands are having to innovate in their communications to capture consumer’s attention and stand out from the competition. Marketing games offer an original and fun way to animate and engage your audience, generate new leads and increase sales.
In this article, we present some ideas for Valentine’s Day campaigns, depending on the marketing objectives you wish to achieve.
Why brands are tapping into Valentine’s Day
On the podium of the most lucrative commercial highlights in France is Valentine’s Day (behind Christmas and Halloween). The festival of love is is increasingly celebrated by the French, who use the occasion to give gifts to their partners (or to treat themselves if they’re single).
Valentine’s Day marketing therefore represents a major commercial challenge for companies. This is true not only in the sectors traditionally associated with this festival, such as florists. Florists make up to 10% of their annual turnover on 14 February alone. But flowers, chocolates and jewellery are not the only verticals capitalising on Valentine’s Day.
The restaurant, tourism and beauty sectors are not to be outdone on Valentine’s Day. Restaurants often sell out at this time of year, and many brands are offering their guides to unusual Valentine’s Day gifts in February.
On average, French consumers spend €185 million on Valentine’s Day, this figure has been rising steadily in recent years. Whatever their field, brands have a lot to gain by positioning themselves at this key sales time.
The marketing challenges of Valentine’s Day
Like all commercial holidays, Valentine’s Day is not just about converting as many customers as possible and making sales.. Ce temps fort marketing peut en effet permettre aux marques d’atteindre de nombreux autres objectifs stratégiques.
For each of them, we present here ideas for Valentine’s Day competitions to share with your audience.
1. Gain visibility with co-branded play
Brands can capitalise on consumer attention around Valentine’s Day to boost their brand awareness and reach a wider audience. The competition mechanism is already an excellent way of captivating an audience, especially when it is shared on social networks and offers very attractive prizes (in connection with the shopping festival).
But brands can boost the reach of their campaign by teaming up with another company. The cobranding game is particularly interesting for retailers who do not operate in a sector traditionally associated with Valentine’s Day. By working with a jewellery or chocolate brand, for example, they can create a special Valentine’s Day offer and target couples more effectively than if they were running their marketing campaign alone.
2. Generate new leads for Valentine’s Day
Valentine’s Day is also an opportunity to generate new leads by appealing to an extremely wide audience. Indeed, competitions around this commercial time of year target not only couples, but also singles. Dating apps, for example, experience a significant peak in activity at this time of year. And self-care brands can easily mobilise this audience around the Galentine Day concept is an invitation to treat yourself.
By recognising and celebrating love in all its forms, brands can offer universal campaigns and modernise their image. To offer a selection of products tailored to each profile, they can share, for example a Psychoquiz. This is a subtle way of determining the profile of each potential lead and then activating them with personalised offers.
3. Promote your products in connection with Valentine’s Day
The Valentine’s Day competition can also be a relevant format for highlighting products. A puzzle or memory game, for example, can be distributed on social networks or via a dedicated landing page to promote special Valentine’s Day offers and highlight the unique features of your products/services.
This is the strategy used by Leclerc, for example, to promote its range of florists. Participants were invited to put together a bouquet of roses using an interactive puzzle. Once they had completed the puzzle, they had access to attractive rewards (vouchers, discounts, etc.).
4. Entertaining your audience during Valentine’s Day
Organising a special Valentine’s Day competition can also be a fun and original way of stimulating your community on social networks. Photo or video competitions can give brands the opportunity to challenge their customers’ creativity by inviting them to share their most romantic snapshots or their most memorable declarations of love. This user-generated content (known as UGC) can then be reused by the company to reinforce its brand equity and convey a more authentic image.
5. Boost sales with promotional codes
The brand can even create a second stage to its games by automatically qualifying winners for a prize draw to win even more attractive prizes (a meal for two, a romantic break, etc.).
These ideas for Valentine’s Day competitions will help you boost your communications around this crucial commercial event for your business. Offer your audience a fun, interactive experience by creating a unique event that will resonate with lovers and singles alike.
