Edible Arrangements LLC and Ulta Beauty have a decidedly female focus for their Valentine’s Day marketing.
Both online retailers feature promotions centered on “Galentine’s Day,” or celebrating Valentine’s Day with gal pals.
“The main messaging we’re trying to portray is that while Valentine’s Day is traditionally about love with your significant other, there’s a big part of the population that will not be celebrating in the traditional way,” says Kaitlin Reiss, vice president of marketing and e-commerce at fruit bouquet retailer Edible Arrangements. “This means they’re looking at Feb. 14 as a day to celebrate themselves, a chance to tell their mom how much they love her, a night out with their best friends or maybe just a night in with your dog.”
Consequently, Valentine’s Day marketing messages should go beyond couples in love, Reiss says. Edible Arrangements, No. 108 in the Internet Retailer 2016 Top 500 Guide, will use Twitter to talk about celebrating best friend love and will publish an article about how to celebrate Galentine’s Day on its blog page, Reiss says. The retailer also plans to monitor its Facebook and Twitter feeds throughout Feb. 14.
“We know social media will be buzzing this Valentine’s Day,” Reiss says. “We have a 24-hour plan to make sure we’re addressing all comments related to Valentine’s Day and Edible Arrangements, as well as ensuring we’re part of the overall Valentine’s Day conversation through organic posts and paid social segmentation, targeting the right fans with the right messaging.”
Similarly, cosmetics retailer Ulta (No. 153) has dedicated its content marketing page, Ulta Beauty Mix, to Galentine’s Day and features “playful products” such as hair, makeup and fragrance gifts, an Ulta spokeswoman says. The retailer also will feature Galentine’s Day content on its e-commerce home page, its app and its social media outlets, she says.
Hitwise data finds that there are a high number searches related to single people on Valentine’s Day, such as the terms “Benefits of being single on Valentine’s Day,” “Quotes for Singles,” “Valentine’s Memes for Singles” and “Singles Events.” Hitwise, a division of Connexity Inc., a provider of e-commerce marketing automation technology, bases its data on U.S. adults who searched for Valentine’s Day-related terms during the four-week period ending Feb. 4.
Edible Arrangements has several other Valentine’s Day marketing initiatives to get consumers thinking about the holiday and shopping. The retailer is working with country music singer Brett Young to advertise its products on his website and create targeted social media ads to country music fans, Reiss says. Edible Arrangements also is giving away two movie tickets for online purchases more than $75.
On Wednesday, Edible Arrangements hosted a live question-and-answer session with chocolatier Jacques Torres, in which he takes over Edible Arrangements’ Twitter account for two hours to answer chocolate questions. Torres also created a box of signature chocolates that Edible Arrangements is selling.
Ulta also is publishing social media posts with Valentine’s Day gifts suggestions for men and women throughout February, and it will send promotional emails featuring Valentine’s Day images and products, the spokeswoman says. Each month Ulta has a “Fragrance Crush” in which the retailer features the scent on a dedicated landing page on its site and describes the scent.
Edible Arrangements expects Valentine’s Day to be its busiest online sales day in the retailer’s history, Reiss says. The anticipated sales bump will come, in part, from its consumer app that launched in the fourth quarter of 2016, Reiss says. With increased traffic to its site as Valentine’s Day gets closer, the retailer expects more consumers to download the app as well.
“The Edible App is helping to increase sales because we’re seeing conversion rates two to three times [higher than] our mobile site,” Reiss says.
Hitwise data finds that Edible Arrangements ranks among the top retailers with the most paid traffic from Valentine’s Day-related searches, measured over the four weeks ended Feb. 4. Search terms include “Valentine Candy” and “DIY Valentines decorations,” for example. Edible Arrangements received 1.28% of all paid clicks from Valentine-specific searches. Custom gift e-retailer PersonalizationMall.com received the most holiday-themed search clicks, at 14.38%. Here is a breakdown of the other top retailers with the most paid traffic from Valentine’s Day-related search terms:
- Giftadvisor.com, 9.19%
- ManCrates.com, 6.92%
- AdoreMe.com, 3.70%
- UncommonGoods.com (No. 668 in the Top 1000), 3.65%
- My M&Ms, 3.41%
- PersonalCreations.com (part of No. 116 FTD), 3.32%
- Etsy Inc. (No. 23), 3.04%
- The Bradford Exchange Online, 2.19%
- Oriental Trading Co. (No. 95), 1.79%
- Amazon.com Inc. (No. 1), 1.57%
- 1-800-Flowers.com Inc. (No. 57), 1.39%
- Target Corp. (No. 22), 1.32%