Though we're just wrapping up the first month of the year, it's never too early to start planning your next marketing moves, and Valentine's Day is coming up soon! 

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In our recent blog post about Q1 marketing tips, we mentioned this holiday as a great time to create a special campaign or offer that attracts new and existing clients. For outdoor brands, this is also a great time to remind customers, who may be more active in the summertime, that you still exist!

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According to WalletHub, last year's holiday generated over $24 billion in the United States alone, with 41% of gift sales taking place online. This means there's plenty of opportunity for your brand to shine, so keep reading for our Valentine's Day marketing tips!

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Run a special offer or promotion

We'll start with one of the more obvious ways to make your brand stand out during Valentine's Day. Running an offer or promotion specific to the first few weeks of February can be a great way to increase sales and attention during Q1. There are plenty of themes you can apply to your campaign related to romance, love, and companionship, and this can be done in many different ways.

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Great rewards and offers for customers include discounts, bundled items, gift-wrapping services, free shipping, exchanges, or even an exclusive gift with certain purchases. 

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Also, more than 40% of Americans say they'd love an experience (rather than an item) as a gift. So this can be an especially great opportunity for outdoor brands to provide services outside of material goods, such as hosting an outdoor event, activity, online workshop, or expo.

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Provide valuable online resources

With so much online content available, your brand should add value to your community. During Valentine's Day, consider writing holiday-specific content for blogs, organic social media, and even long-form videos. Whether you focus on how your brand is showing love or even offering industry-specific advice (like this blog), there are plenty of ways to be authentic and demonstrate your core values.

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Another great resource and a way to target last-minute shoppers is through gift guides. Emphasize the potential for giving certain products to loved ones or even the gift of self-love (everyone needs to treat themselves)! You can also make shopping categories easy to browse by filters that would be useful for customers, like gender, partner's interests, etc.

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Redefine the meaning of Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is certainly about romance, but there are other ways to showcase and interpret the holiday. The rising popularity of Galentine's Day, which takes place on February 13th and celebrates female friendships, is just one example. Market to themes outside of relationships like companionship, love (of course), or even being single and appreciating yourself!

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As one outdoor brand demonstrates, redefining Valentine's Day also offers a great way to showcase user-generated content. In February 2017, REI invited customers to share images and a love letter to the outdoors with the brand's signature hashtag, #OptOutside. Later, on REI's company site, a blog post highlighted submissions, tagging users' beautiful images of nature and captions of personal significance.

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Play around with your creativity 

There are also ways to market toward Valentine's Day without additional products, discounts, or completely new campaigns. Think outside the box about ways that your brand can adapt existing materials for the holiday. It could be as simple as additional graphics related to hearts and love or even integrating colors like pinks, purples, whites, reds, and other hues associated with the day of love.

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Email marketing

Another way to connect with customers through channels that likely already exist is through email marketing. Your strategy could include flows and campaigns specific to Valentine's Day, but as we said earlier, you can also adapt existing graphics, colors, and styles to match certain themes. Email marketing is a great way to integrate and demonstrate the other tips we mentioned, like online resources or promotions that you may decide to explore. 

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In your newsletter, you can take any approach or voice that you feel matches your brand, whether you opt for a copy that emphasizes exclusivity and urgency or a simpler, more friendly tone. Valentine's Day is also an excellent time to express your love and appreciation for the customers who keep your business going, and a genuine email is a great way to let them know. 

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Personalization also plays a huge role in effective email marketing, so make sure that the emails you send are relevant, informative, and valuable to the people reading them.

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Also, check out our newsletter 😏 you'll know just how much information you can share with readers in your emails!

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Wrapping Up

Valentine's Day is a time for sharing love and kindness and expressing appreciation for those around you. Hopefully, our tips will provide you with some inspiration. Take the holiday to reflect on how your brand can create value for customers and how they can be rewarded or inspired to gift-give. If you're reading this, we're sending love from our Algofy team! ❤️

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