Although love for moms cannot be confined to just one day, Mother’s Day provides us a great opportunity to show how much we love them. It also offers fabulous opportunities to both brick-and-mortar and e-commerce businesses.
Sales figures during this occasion are consistently galloping higher. In fact, 2017 witnessed a record-breaking business of $23.6 billion for gifts to moms. The marketing teams of businesses are therefore responding well through their tools like coupons, bargains, deals, discounts, and campaigns for effective engagement and conversions.
In this article, besides discussing some historical and other interesting facts about Mother’s Day, we will discuss some of the top Mother’s Day marketing strategies.
Interesting Facts About Mother’s day
Let’s check out some historical and other facts about Mother’s Day:
- The first person to propose the idea of Mother’s day was the writer Julia Ward Howe. She proposed it in 1870 after the civil war to recognize peace and protest the war.
- Later, an American activist Anna Jarvis (recognized as the founder of Mother’s Day) started a campaign for a day to be dedicated for moms, ensuring to fulfill her own mother’s wish to have such a day.
- Anna Jarvis was not a mom, as she did not marry.
- Later she wanted to abolish it for its enhanced commercialization.
- The first Mother’s Day was celebrated in 1908 in the American state of West Virginia and Philadelphia.
- Anna Jarvis kept on lobbying with American congressmen. President Woodrow Wilson signed a law on May 19, 1914, designating the 2nd Sunday of May as Mother’s day.
- In the USA, Canada, Australia, and many other countries, it’s celebrated on the second Sunday of May but dates vary for many countries. Spain and France celebrate Mother’s day on the 1st and last Sunday of May, respectively.
- Pink and red carnation are for mothers that are still alive while white carnations are for those who have passed away.
- 86% of Americans celebrated this day in 2018, with $186 as the average expense per person.
- Total retail sales in the US for Mother’s Day 2018 was $23.1 billion.
- In the US, in 2018, a nationwide total of $4.6 billion was spent on jewelry on Mother’s Day.
- Mother’s Day is the busiest day for restaurants in the USA. In 2018, 87 million adults dined out to celebrate.
- There were around 122 million phone calls to moms on Mother’s Day in the US alone.
- According to PEW Research, the number of phone calls on Mother’s Day is the highest compared to any day of the year.
- Around 1/4 of all flowers purchased in a year are bought on Mother’s Day.
Marketing Tips
Advance reminders
With today’s hectic schedules, it’s quite difficult to remember an upcoming event.
You, being the marketer, can immensely benefit by reminding customers and visitors quite in advance to Mother’s Day. Do it at least a month before the event.
The intelligent strategy will be to use pop-up messages when an existing customer confirms the order. Additionally, email messages may be triggered to customers who have made purchases on last year’s Mother’s Day.
Create a Gift Guide
A gift guide created on the basis of personality profiles of moms would help a lot among indecisive customers to select gifts easily. Always try to include both affordable and pricey items in your gift guide in order to enhance the range for selection.
Gain the advantage of social media’s sharing capabilities and share your gift guide on social media platforms. That way, it can be shared widely through hashtags.
You need to select the personality profiles carefully, keeping in mind the different attributes of today’s moms. Good examples include adventurous moms, stylish moms, foodie moms, traveling moms, fashion-loving mothers, modern mom, and nature-loving moms.
Try to make profiles as generalized as possible to increase your targeted audience. Do not forget to include one category of “for all moms” to keep all customers interested in your products.
Let’s figure out what to include in a gift guide for a modern mom:
- A personalized legacy necklace with mom’s initials
- Hand painted mug for coffee
- A stylish tote bag
- Quilted silk slippers
- Beautiful blush strap watch
- Spa collection box, including hand cream, body butter, lip balm, sugar scrub, etc.
- Linen-bedding
- Smart blender
- Stylish and sturdy sandals
- Best fresh flower bouquets
Social media campaign
No business can afford to ignore social media for marketing because of its mammoth reach and extraordinary sharing capabilities. This great marketing platform provides ample opportunities to publishers and brand managers to win over consumers.
Here is how you can use it effectively:
- Use emotive text and photos, keeping in mind that in social media marketing “content is the king”. Try to add a personal touch.
- Use feel-good stories and content that pull the reader’s heartstrings.
- Engage celebrities and influences for Mother’s Day posts. Remember that these posts have proved to be the most engaging on Instagram. Showing how influencers and celebrities celebrate Mother’s Day is a very effective tactic.
- Use visuals as much as possible, regardless of the platforms, because pictures speak louder than words.
- Run cross channel contests offering prizes. For instance, you can launch a “great tweet for Mom” on Twitter and “the most touching video” contest on Facebook. Start this contest campaign one week or ten days prior to Mother’s Day. All you have to do is to be creative enough to engage the audience/visitors. This will generate a huge number of shares and traffic to all your social media sites.
Target bargain hunters through discounts, coupons, and deals
Coupons, discounts, coupon codes, bargains, deals, and special offers all play a crucial role in today’s marketing scenario. Use these marketing tools effectively to boost sale and enhance customer base.
Create special offers. This way, you’ll be able to increase the number of potential buyers for your other products that are not on discount.
Some ways to offer discounts are:
- Buy-one-get-one – This great marketing technique is effective in retail businesses. 93% of shoppers admit that they have availed BOGO promotion at least once. Also, 67% of them say they like BOGO the most among all promotions.
- Dollar-amount based discounts – One can obtain a discount after spending a certain amount.
- Promo coupons – When redeemed, a certain discount is given to coupon holder. 78% of window shoppers show a willingness to buy something from a store if it offers them a promo coupon.
- Free or upgraded shipping – Very attractive, especially for international customers. Besides, 9 out of 10 customers admit that they consider free shipping to be the topmost incentive for online shopping.
- Outright percentage-based discounts on selected products.
See Also: 10 Most Popular Coupon Websites You Should Know For Shopping on a Budget
Web push notifications
Messages about products or promotions are very effective in attracting first-time customers. The click rate (CTRs) of web notifications is 4 to 8 times higher than CTRs of emails.
Here are two very important points you need to consider:
- Draft your message carefully because there’s a 120-word limit
- More messages sent in a day result in less engagement. So, be careful with the frequency of your messages.
Bundling
An emotional holiday like Mother’s Day is the best opportunity to bundle your different products in one package. Your high-priced items can be bundled with moderately-priced products to encourage more buyers.
For example, you can create packages meant for “mom and sons” and “mom and daughters”. Alternatively, you can also bundle different categories of products. For example, you can combine beauty and health products.
Wrap Up
Mother’s Day is just around the corner. As a business owner, you should now gear up all your marketing efforts. These efforts should focus on generating sales through new customers and retention of existing ones.
Being the third biggest official holiday and a great shopping event, using the right Mother’s Day marketing tactics can boost your sale and take it to the next level.