Valentine’s Day is the day set to celebrate love and couples. For cynical marketers, it’s the perfect day to push roses and chocolate. But while these products are deeply connected with the day they are not the only products that can benefit from a targeted campaign in late January, or early February.
First of all, it’s important to recognize that Valentine’s Day is not the only holiday in the period, and even if much newer Galentine’s Day is building a stable following and is a perfect opportunity to improve the sales of self-care and women-targeted products.
Furthermore, understanding the feel of both holidays and crafting any campaign to match it. Luckily the feeling of both campaigns is very similar: they are aimed at showing love and appreciation to the people we have around may they be a romantic partner or a group of friends.
What is Galentines Day?
Born out of NBC’s sitcom Parks and Recreation, Galentine’s Day takes place on the 13th of February and is all about ladies celebrating ladies.
Galentine’s Day was first introduced in S2 Episode 16, aired on the 11th of February 2010. From there the concept picked up steam and never stopped. Even after the series ended, many of the female cast members came together to celebrate it yearly. And they are not the only ones: Michelle Obama and Lizzo among many other celebrities celebrate the holiday.
Galentines is all about women’s friendship and empowerment and can be the perfect time to make a thoughtful gift to the women in your life.
Why should your brand have Valentine’s or Galentine’s Day marketing?
Q1 is a notoriously slow period for consumer sales, coming up right after the holidays, it has to face a smaller purchase power from many customers. Valentine’s and Galentine’s Day has the potential to mitigate this dry period by highlighting how is possible to celebrate your loved ones without breaking the bank (Sorry De Beers this article isn’t for you). In many cases, as you can see in our examples 2 and 4, a campaign before Valentine’s and Galentine’s Day can highlight different aspects of your offering and show unexpected uses.
Why influencer marketing is the optimal choice for Valentine’s/Galentine’s Day?
Influencer marketing is especially effective for these holidays since both dates are about connections, warmth, and the affirmation we give and receive. Influencers are seen as a close confidant, and their suggestions are taken to heart by many, especially when it comes to micro-influencers.
By employing influencer marketing during the Valentine’s/Galentine’s Day period, your campaign will have an authentic and personal feel that other channels are not able to reach.
To help you create the perfect campaign around Valentine’s Day we have rounded up 4 of the best examples of influencer marketing campaigns for you to take inspiration from.
Skims Valentine’s Day marketing
Kim Kardashian’s shapewear brand Skims celebrates Valentine’s Day with a special store featuring a collection for the day dedicated to love. With a range of products from lingerie to comfy loungewear for him and her, Skims wants to appeal to a broad and differentiated audience.
To do so, they enrolled many micro-influencers on TikTok, each with a different style, body, and age. Each influencer presents a single piece of clothing that fits their unique persona. The campaign is wide enough to reach both partnered people, with more risque designs, and single women, with more comfortable fits.
Dove Galentine’s Day Marketing
Dove has a long tradition of running Valentine’s Day or better Galentine’s Day marketing campaigns. As a leading personal care brand, Dove is in the perfect position to constitute a thoughtful gift to remind the people next to you to take a moment to relax and focus on themselves.
Dove shows their commitment to making everyone feel special by providing the influencers in its campaigns with cute boxes containing all that is needed to have a self-care experience.
This campaign has been so successful in highlighting Dove’s potential as a gift or treat around Valentine’s Day that it has been repeated over multiple years.
Touchnote Valentine’s Day Marketing
TouchNote is a British online platform that allows you to design and print personalized gift cards. Valentine’s Day is a perfect moment for their offering, and they maximize their impact. They partner with influencers and show how their cards can be used in many different ways: from playful to loving and all the shades in between. By employing a wide array of different influencers, it’s possible for them to reach different niches and have a very varied message while being consistent about their core offering.
Rite Aid Galentine’s Day Marketing
Rite Aid is a drugstore chain that along with pharmaceuticals offers also personal care products, sweets, and stationery. Due to their varied offerings, they are perfectly positioned to be the one-stop shop to make a thoughtful gift for your Valentine or Galentine.
In their influencer marketing campaign, they partnered with small local influencers and had them head to a nearby Rite Aid, then compose a gift bag for their significant other or their gals.
In one instance, they even pushed a step further and contacted a recent single influencer to show how Valentine’s Day would have been a great opportunity for self-care even if not part of a couple.
What does a Valentine/Galentine’s Day marketing campaign need?
No matter if you are targeting couples or groups of friends, the password is always authenticity. Both celebrations are aimed at showing how much we care about the people around us and how special they feel to us, and nobody feels special with a generic gift.
A campaign targeting this particular period should aim to highlight customization and personalization options if those are available. Otherwise, you may use the Skims route and focus on the unicity and fit of your product.
For best results, micro-influencers are going to be once again a winning choice: they allow marketers to reach audiences based on much more strict criteria than larger content creators. Furthermore, they are seen as more authentic and trustworthy therefore more likely to have an impact on purchase decisions, especially during holidays that call for a personalized touch.
