We all love our mothers, and appreciate the love and care they provide us. So it comes as no surprise that Mother’s Day is the fourth most celebrated holiday among consumers.
With just a matter of weeks to go, we can expect to soon see shoppers on the hunt to find the perfect gift for their mom. If you’re an eCommerce merchant, it’s time to get your store ready for the holiday. To get your creative juices flowing, we’ve compiled some effective Mother's Day promotion ideas that will work well for any store.
Consumers are pampering their mothers more extravagantly as the years go by. In 2021, spending on Mother’s Day in the US alone was projected to reach $28.1 billion - an increase of over 5% year-on-year. According to NRF, this is driven by the fact that more shoppers splash out and gift their mothers with jewelry and electronic items. It also means an upwards trajectory in per-person spending.
Aside from jewelry and electronic goods, top choices for Mother’s Day gifts include greeting cards, flowers, special outings, and gift cards. And what is sure to be welcoming news for e-merchants, these gifts are more likely to be purchased online.
We can expect spending on Mother’s Day in 2022 to reach a new high as more lavish gifts gain popularity. However, with COVID-related restrictions disappearing, there is less of a need for consumers to buy gifts online. Hence, incentivizing the online gift shopping experience will be greatly important. An effective promotions strategy can be a handy tool in achieving this. So without further adieu, let’s get into our top online promotion ideas for Mother’s Day 2022.
A great way to assist consumers with gift shopping during holidays is by creating gift guides. It gives you a chance to showcase appropriate products and frame them in a way that resonates with different types of consumers. It goes a long way in putting your products into context for the holiday and consolidates your store so that shoppers don’t face the dreaded choice paralysis.
A gift guide can be in the form of a landing page, collections page, or blog post. If you opt for a landing page, adorn it with relevant imagery and colors. Go for a warm color palette consisting of pinks and reds to reflect love. Images of flowers and happy mothers will work well too.
For blog posts, make sure your content evokes emotions and inspires readers to take action. Remind them of how hard mothers work and their need to be treated. You should also tailor the content so that it suits your audience. If they tend to spend high in your store, a gift guide that focuses on high-end products to spoil your mother would be a good option, for example.
Speaking of which products to include in your gift guide, obvious choices would be top-selling items like gift cards, flowers, and clothing. If you don’t stock many or any of these items, consider how you can position products in your inventory in a way that shows their relevance. You could select products that work as gifts for a particular type of mother, or that cater to shoppers with different budgets.
Make sure your customers are aware of your gift guide. Promote it on your homepage, share it on social media, and send out targeted emails.
You can help consumers find gift inspiration through Pinterest boards. Pinterest Shopping can act as an additional sales channel as users can directly buy the items while they are browsing the social platform. It’s also an excellent opportunity to attract new customers. 77% of its 478 million monthly users state that they discover new brands and products whilst browsing the site.
Your Pinterest board should act as a mood board of varied gift ideas. As it is a visual platform, high-quality images are a must. Also, try to unify the images under a color scheme. This can be done by simply having the same background for each pin.
In addition to pinning your products to the board, include other related content from outside sources that connects to your brand. This is key because Pinterest is all about content curation. If you appear to be using it just to showcase your inventory, you won’t get the engagement you desire. Ideas for this include recipes, DIY projects, and memes.
A giveaway can be of huge benefit to your brand, Mother’s Day promotions, and customers. A well-thought-out giveaway has the potential to drive brand awareness, grow your customer data, and increase engagement. It can also help you cater to the budding number of Mother’s Day shoppers that are looking for more experiential gifts.
Potential prizes could be a spa day, a fancy dinner, or any kind of experience that relates to your brand and its products. Foster a community spirit by teaming up with local brands that can provide experiential prizes. Runner-up prizes are also a good idea as it can encourage even more entries. These prizes could be gift cards or a store discount.
Before launching your giveaway, build up excitement by teasing the contest on your communication channels and prompt customers to guess what it could be. When you do launch it, make sure there is adequate time for you to promote it so that you gain a sufficient amount of awareness and entrants. We recommend running it for a 2-week period. Alert customers of the giveaway through all your communication channels, namely, your website, social media, and email.
To further maximize potential participants and virality, the method of entering should be simple, engaging, and directly related to Mother’s Day. For example, you could create a social media contest where participants share their most beloved photo of their mom alongside reasons why they love it or why their mother deserves the prize. Reshare entries on your social media channels and Mother’s Day landing page, if you have one, to drum up excitement and encourage more people to enter.
A popular promotion choice for Mother’s Day is the creation of an offer. This can be as simple as a discount across the whole store or on selected items. Product bundles that create a Mother’s Day set are also a good idea. If you really want to hit the nail on the head, you can put these two together by offering a discount that is valid when a set number of items are purchased. Free gifts like a greeting card or flowers when particular items are purchased are also great.
Mother’s Day shoppers tend to be quite last minute. To combat this and incentivize consumers to shop in your online store, you could offer free next-day delivery on gift items.
Forge a sense of urgency for your offer by having it run for a limited time only - 2 to 3 weeks is a good figure. Display the offer alongside its run on your homepage, and post about it periodically on social media. If your offer is only applicable to certain products, it’s best to make a separate landing page so customers can effortlessly discover gifts.
The values businesses hold is playing an ever-important role in the decision-making of consumers. 71% of them prefer to purchase from brands that share similar values, whilst 32% will outright refuse to do business with companies that don’t. Among shoppers, these values tend to be centered around social issues and the environment. Hence, demonstrating this as part of your Mother’s Day promotion strategy is key.
You can show your customers that you are socially responsible and an advocate for societal change by finding charitable causes to donate too. As we’re concerned about Mother’s Day, organizations that support disadvantaged mothers are excellent choices.
Clare V has an ongoing partnership with the charitable organization, Every Mother Counts, donating 30% of sales. Each product comes with a description of its relation to the cause, and a description of what the organization does.
Consider donating a portion of your sales over your Mother’s Day promotion period to the chosen charity. Emphasize the importance of supporting mothers, highlight the work of the charity, and explain why your store has chosen it. This type of messaging works best on social media. Research by Sprout Social unveils that 67% of consumers believe brands should use their social channels to raise awareness around social issues.
Your customers’ inboxes will likely be filled with Mother’s Day promotions pretty soon. This means that communications you send via email could get lost in a sea of messages, rendering them ineffective. So, you should surface your store to the top of their minds by running a social media campaign. As it turns out, 52% of consumers find gift inspiration directly via social media.
Your social media campaign should highlight products in your store that make great gifts and any offers you have. The language you use in posts should reflect sentiment and love for mothers. The campaign should come with a branded hashtag so social media users can easily discover your content.
Rather than merely posting images from your product pages, further engagement with user-generated content (UGC). You have a couple of options for showing UGC on your social media channels. One way is to get it straight from your customers.
Gather some content of customers using or gifting your Mother’s Day products to be reshared on your social media feed. This will take some encouragement, so think about rewarding them with discounts on your store for doing so. You may also need to get the UGC ball rolling yourself if you don’t have any UGC at hand. Start off by posting images of your employees using and gifting the products and encourage your followers to do the same.
Alternatively, you could partner with micro-influencers to help drive your social UGC campaign. Micro-influencers are great because they have an established and deeply loyal following. Thus, if you partner with the right one, it can work wonders in boosting purchases from your store. Find micro-influencers who operate in a niche market directly related to your store, and offer them some kind of incentive like free products.
Make sure all posts that feature products are shoppable. This will greatly reduce the friction towards buying and is increasingly becoming an expected capability among shoppers.
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Personalization has grown into more than a buzzword in the eCommerce world, it’s now a must. But this isn’t solely reserved for marketing and on-site experiences. There’s a need for products themselves to carry a semblance of personalization. In fact, a third of consumers want to be able to personalize the items they purchase and will even pay a premium to do so.
Cater to these customers by letting them get their tailor-made gifts in some way. For instance, allow for name inscription on the product, the inclusion of a custom message, or an e-greeting card that they can write a message in. Personalized gifts allow shoppers to materialize their affections. With Mother’s Day being all about showing your appreciation, it makes personalized gifts a match made in heaven.
Mother’s Day is a widely celebrated holiday, which makes it a great time of year for eCommerce merchants. Focusing on your store’s promotions strategy for it is a winning formula to maximize your sales. Not only can you position your products appropriately, but you’ll also make the shopping experience an easy and enjoyable one.
What promotion ideas will you be using for Mother’s Day? Let us know on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and Youtube.
