If you’ve lived through the 80’s you’ll remember how Valentine’s Day started in India. It was Archie’s who spotted an opportunity to sell their cards. And within a short span of time, it became a buzzword among the young and not so young people. This inspite of, or may be because of the protests and harassments by religious fanatics.

The bottomline is, that if you have a product or service that caters to the younger demographic, you can’t ignore the marketing opportunity of Valentine’s Day.

Here are 7 ideas to get your heart beating faster.

1. Send some love on mail.

   A love themed email is the perfect way to talk to your captive audience. Make sure your subject line is enticing enough. And if you have a special offer, all the better. Take a look at this email campaign by Uber.
   

2. Run a campaign for User Generated Content

   Ask your audience to send in their love stories or terrible date stories. Write a few on your own to get them started. And give some incentive as free gifts or lucky prizes. Spend some thought on how exactly will you decide the winner. Or it can be as simple as what The Body Shop did – simply asked their instagram followers to send them pictures of blowing a kiss to a friend.

   

3. Partner with another small business

   You can create a USP for yourself and draw customers to your brand by partnering with complementary brands. If you’re a salon, you could partner with a spa. If you’re a florist, you could partner with baker. If you’re a garments shop, partner with an accessories brand. You get the gist, don’t you? This will offer convenience to people while at the same time making your offering holistic and distinct.

4. Love themed polls

   Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram support polls. These are a fun way to boost engagement with your audience. You can use visuals to the maximum effect. And the best part is the simplicity – your audience doesn’t need to do much other than to select one of two options.

   You can make it more relevant by integrating your product in the poll. For example, ask them whether they would prefer a wine or a chocolate on V Day.

5. Add romantic flair to your Social Media Profile pictures and Cover Photos

   Get your audience into the spirit of things by adding unique masks, animation, profile frames and stickers on your social media profile pictures. You can also take it a step further and offer unique stickers to your audience and encourage them to share them with you, like what Tiffany did here.
   

6. Run 2 for 1 deals

   Since VDay is primarily about couples, how about running a smart Buy One, Get One campaign to push sales into new territories? This need not be limited to just products. Just make sure that it does not feel like a generic BOGO offer.

7. Pin your heart on a social cause

   If you want to take the concept of love beyond romantic love, how about supporting a local charity or NGO? Select one that can add some value back to your brand. And then create awareness about your support. For example – Asian Adventures, a wildlife tourism company supports Wildlife Trust of India, an NGO that works for conservation.

I hope you’re not sitting out on this opportunity of spreading love and boosting sales at the same time!