Happy Sunday, Everyone!
With January (thankfully) in the rear-view mirror, I’ve found myself thinking about Valentine’s Day – not because I particularly care for it as a holiday (it’s kind of lame), but because it marks the first major “marketing moment” of 2025 – New Year’s feels like it shares custody with 2024, and the other federal holidays (President’s Day, MLK Day, Inauguration Day) aren’t real moments (unless you’re selling furniture or mattresses).
Valentine’s Day - like it, love it or despite it - is different. It has some gravitas. It makes people deviate from their ordinary behavior and do silly things (like buy dozens of wildly overpriced roses or send little notes with candy in them to people they’d otherwise ignore). And whenever Holidays (real or Hallmark) have that kind of influence, I can’t help but wonder: how can we make this work for us?
Let’s start with the basics: Valentine's Day marketing has evolved (or, should have evolved) far beyond the predictable parade of hearts, chocolates, cards and flowers that stereotypically dominate February campaigns. While many brands still default to those romantic tropes, the clever, forward-thinking brands recognize the true opportunity, hidden in the white space between post-holiday fatigue and Valentine's anticipation.
Finally - while this issue is ostensibly about Valentine’s Day, this playbook can be applied to any other holiday/moment. And before you B2Bers read this headline and think, “that’s not for me” – think again! Just because you’re not selling stuff to consumers doesn’t mean you’re not marketing to people.
Let’s get to it.
For any marketing moment - and particularly for Valentine’s Day - the lead-up to the event is as important (if not more important) than the event itself. This is a Pareto principle in action: 80% of the impact comes from the preparation, and 20% from what you do on the day itself.
Your preparation should focus on four core tasks:
Task #1: Audience Segmentation
Traditionally, Valentine’s Day campaigns are a bit “on the nose” – the focus is on the young & recent couples, with some tacit attention (usually from the diamond/jewelry industry) given to the “established” couples.
If you want this to be successful, you’ll need to think bigger: segment out the long-term couples and the Galentine’s Day crowd. While privacy changes have made this more complicated to do this today than it has been in years past, it’s still possible with audience layering:
Long-Term Couples on Meta Ads:
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Demographics:
- Age: Target older age ranges (e.g., 25-54+).
- Relationship Status: While you can target "In a relationship", this is not specific to long-term; but you can combine it with other exclusions (i.e. exclude long-distance relationship and/or “new relationship”) to increase the probability that you’re reaching this group.
- Life Events: Target "Married" and exclude “newly engaged” and “recently married” audiences; combined with the age, you’ll end up with an audience that tends to over-index “long-term.”
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Interests:
- Home & Family: Target interests related to homeownership, parenting, family activities, etc.
- Financial Services: Target interests in mortgages, finances, family planning, investments, etc.
- Relationship-Focused: Target interests like "date night ideas," or "relationship advice."
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Behaviors:
- Purchase History: Target users who have previously purchased items associated with long-term relationships (e.g., home goods, family vacations, life insurance plans, minivans, etc.).
Long-Term Couples on Google Ads:
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Keywords:
- Relationship-Focused: Target keywords like "anniversary gifts," "romantic getaways for couples," "couples activities," etc.
- Long-Tail Keywords: Use long-tail keywords that reflect specific needs of long-term couples (e.g., "unique anniversary gifts for him," "romantic weekend getaways near me for couples").
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Audience Targeting:
- Demographics: Similar to Meta Ads, target older age ranges and interests related to home & family, financial services, etc. You can include/exclude “parental status” based on your angle (or, you might want to run one angle to long-term couples with kids, and another to long-term couples without kids).
- Affinity Audiences: Target audiences based on their long-term interests, such as "Home & Garden Enthusiasts" or "Foodies."
- In-Market Audiences: Target users actively researching or planning purchases related to homeownership, family vacations, or other long-term couple interests.
- Custom Audiences: build audiences related to more general, family/established-relationship type queries (i.e. parenting, family, investments, home, date night ideas, etc.), then add those audiences as either “targeting” or “observation” in Google Ads.
It’s important to note that none of these targeting methods, on their own, will get you the desired audience; but if you combine several of them (“AND” or “NARROW” modifiers), you can effectively triangulate the audience you seek to reach. The examples above are just one audience, but you could see how permutations of this allow you to reach senior couples (adjust age), singles (exclude all the relationships) and even pet owners (single + pet interest).
You’re probably wondering why we’re starting with segmentation (of all things) – especially for a “one-size-fits-most” Holiday like Valentine’s Day. The answer is simple: because when everyone else is running those generic campaigns, you can stand out by being far more intentional and specific.
Task #2: Messaging & Offer Development
Wonderful segmentation does precisely zero unless you pair it with an offer that resonates with the specific segment to whom you’re serving it. Sticking with our theme of “Valentine’s Day” - here’s how you might go about messaging to each of your audience segments:
Young/New Couples Audience:
- Messaging: Focus on creating "firsts" and lasting memories. Use phrases like "Your First Valentine's," “A Valentine’s She’ll (or he’ll) Never Forget” or (if you want to be a bit bolder: “A Valentine’s [whatever] that will be the envy of her group chat” – this segment is likely willing to do more (and spend more) because it’s new/exciting. Capitalize on that with your messaging and the offers/products you showcase.
- Offers: While every brand is different, the irony for “young/new” couples is that a discount is often not be the right way to go (remember, there’s a dynamic of trying to impress/make a statement early in a relationship - so take advantage of it); instead, promote personalized gifts, experiences (especially ones that can be shared), limited-edition or individually-numbered items, unique pieces, exclusive drops, etc.
Long-Term Couples Audience:
- Messaging: The long-term relationship audience is, in some ways, the polar opposite of the young/new couples – they’re established. It isn’t their first (or second, or third) Valentine’s Day together. The flames of passion have subsided and there are embers of substance – but with that comes comfort, familiarity and routines. Odds are, at least one (if not both) of the relationship participants “miss” some of the passion from way back when – and you can tap into that with your messaging and creative. Emphasize reigniting passion, celebrating milestones, and seeing “that look” again. If you’re segmenting out parents vs. non-parents, play into each group’s unique challenges (for those who aren’t parents, play into celebrating one another + your relationship; for those who are parents, lean into “making memories together” and “celebrate your love story").
Note: in both cases, you’ll notice the “miss” is designed to be minimal – even if your targeting is imperfect, someone in a different audience is unlikely to be offended or put your brand on blast.
- Offers: Unlike the younger audience, the more established couples are likely to seek out experience-based gifts (including staycations), subscription boxes tailored for couples, or high-quality, long-lasting items.
Senior Couples:
- Messaging: One of the most forgotten groups during Valentine’s Day is (surprisingly) the most financially stable: senior couples. Where messaging to younger/new couples tends to focus on firsts and passions, and messaging to established/longer-term couples tends to focus on keeping that “spark” while building a life together – with senior couples, you need to think a bit differently. To be very blunt, they’ve already built a life together. They’ve been together through the ups and downs, the twists and turns – so your messaging should pivot to focus on celebrating a lifetime of love, making new memories, golden memories for golden years, etc.
- Offers: One of the biggest frustrations with seniors (especially during consumer-driven holidays) is that they already have too much stuff – so either (a) attack that objection head-on by offering something truly unique or rare or (b) focus on the intangibles - trips, experiences, activities, etc.
Singles (Galentine's Day & Self-Love):
- Messaging: While Valentine’s Day is traditionally about couples, it need not be – you can easily expand your campaign to reach singles by celebrating friendships, self-care and/or self-love. The reality is that most Valentine’s Day campaigns explicitly omit these groups – so you can often gain goodwill (and good customers!) with a little thought and planning.
- Offers: Promote group activities, spa treatments, self-care products, bundles, friend-centric experiences, fitness/health packages, etc. For restaurants or experiential advertisers, you could go even bolder here – promote a “singles night” on Valentine’s Day, or an experience that’s only available to those not in a relationship.
Task #3: The Content
Clever ads that lead to generic experiences tend to fall flat (or, flatter than we’d like). The solution is to invest in legitimately good, hyper-released content to support your campaign. In an ideal world, that means tailored landing pages for each segment (so you’re aligning audience - creative - offer - lander as tightly as possible), along with custom post-conversion flows and the like.
And, like your creative, your content should be diverse and tailored to each audience segment:
Articles:
- "The Ultimate Guide to Valentine's Day Gifting: Matching Gifts to Personality Types" – Provide a comprehensive guide to choosing the perfect gift based on different personality traits, subtly weaving in your products as recommendations.
- "Data-Driven Date Night: 5 Steps to Plan the Perfect Evening" – Offer practical tips on planning a memorable date night, incorporating your products or services as part of the experience.
- "Self-Love Rituals: How to Celebrate Valentine's Day Solo" – Provide a guide to self-care and pampering, featuring your experiences/products as tools for relaxation and indulgence.
- “25 Ideas For An Unforgettable 1st Valentine’s Day” - Let’s all be honest: most guys are very, very bad at Valentine’s Day. We know we’re supposed to get flowers, chocolates and make a nice reservation, but going beyond that tends to be out-of-scope. Create a resource that actually helps men (and women) plan unforgettable Valentine’s Days. Given specific examples along with how to execute them.
Quizzes & Interactive Content:
- "What's Your Love Language? Quiz” – Quizzes (for whatever reason) are one of the highest-converting tactics across the board. They just work - so don’t fight it. Build an interactive quiz that helps users identify their love language and suggests corresponding gifts, linking to your product pages or experiences.
- "Valentine's Day Personality Match: Find Your Perfect Gift Match" – Develop a quiz that matches user’s significant others with ideal gifts based on their personality traits, again linking to your products.
Infographics & Visual Content:
- "The Evolution of Valentine's Day: From Ancient Rome to Modern Romance" – One: we all think about the Roman Empire and Two: this is just really cool for anyone who loves history (not to mention, it likely will do numbers on X).
- “Love Around The World” - Depending on your audience, there’s a fantastic opportunity to be had by showcasing how other (read: non-US) cultures celebrate love and companionship. Bonus points if you can tie some of the tactics/traditions here to your products/services/offers/experiences.
Video/UGC Content:
- Pair your existing video/experiential content (i.e. Quizzes, Articles, Guides) with authentic video content from couples/individuals who look like each of your audience segments (nothing kills young love conversion rates quite like seeing established couples talking about how much they enjoyed the experience you’re selling).
The two things to remember from the above suggestions are this: (1) ensure that you have a variety of content types (long-form, short-form, text-based, image-focused, video) and (2) create each piece of content explicitly and specifically for one of your audience segments. Where most brands go wrong is in trying to create a single piece of content for their entire audience - which just ends up being overly generic and utterly useless.
If you want to be successful with niche campaigns, the alpha (read: the profit) is in the details. Invest the time to create something truly remarkable, relevant and tailored to each audience segment, and you’ll be rewarded with higher conversion rates and revenue.
The final thing to note: build audiences for each of these pages/pieces of content – if someone goes to the “25 Ideas For An Unforgettable 1st Valentine’s Day” article, that’s a dead giveaway that they’re in the “young/early couple” group. Add them to the appropriate Google/Meta/Programmatic audience. The same is true for “Data-Driven Date Night” (established couples), etc. Use your content as a way to populate your audiences across social + search – then leverage those page audiences to find more placements/interests/angles (if you get enough traffic, this is a fantastic use case for SparkToro).
Task #4: Cross-Channel Deployment
The final component of this (and any) moment-driven campaign is to actually deploy it in a way that’s going to be noticed. The fact is that you’ll be competing with hundreds (if not thousands) of other brands, all of whom want the attention (and the wallet share) of your audience – so you need to play both smarter and stronger.
For most brands, that means running your campaign across Meta, Google (including YouTube), programmatic - but if you want to be daring, you could also layer in:
- Direct Mail - particularly interesting for older couples. You might try (for example) sending a tailored invitation for a night of old-school dinner and dancing, or to one of your trips/experiences.
- Experiential Components - one of my favorite Emily In Paris episodes is the one where Emily (and Mindy) come up with the idea of putting a bed on Rue de l’Abreuvoir, so people can sleep underneath the stars. While I’m not suggesting doing that (but I’m not…not suggesting it), the overarching concept of creating something experiential to pair with your digital campaign is often worthwhile (if for no other reason than it increases the probability of your campaign going viral/gaining a significant amount of earned attention).
- Traditional TV - For the right audience (established couples, maybe singles), some remnant TV inventory could be a fantastic opportunity in the weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day. I’m not saying spend the entire budget on TV, but rather that thinking a little broader (and a little outside the box) might pay dividends.
- Partnerships - I love collaborations/partnerships - especially if they are with another brand that can help you activate an audience segment.
- Podcasts - we all know I love a good podcast, and many of them can take last-minute sponsorships.
At the end of the day, launching a campaign exclusively online is easy; supporting that online campaign with other marketing (TV, radio, podcast, direct mail, experiences, etc.) is far more difficult – and that difficulty is what creates opportunity.
Don’t Forget The Email, SMS & Customer Data
As your campaign runs (and sells), don’t neglect your lifecycle marketing – take the same care in constructing your email flows and SMS responses that you did with your segmentation and creative. Bonus points if you tag each subscriber and append their relevant details (what they purchased, any quiz responses, which article(s) they viewed, etc.), so you can leverage that data in a campaign next year (or later this year).
I’m a huge believer in making the most of every marketing moment – if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing brilliantly well. Every successful brand we’ve grown has been able to either manufacture or tap into multiple non-traditional moments each year. Valentine’s Day is just one such opportunity among dozens (if not hundreds).
Love may be in the air, but sales are in the details. I hope this gave you a few ideas that drive a bit more revenue (or a few more leads!) this Valentine’s Day!
Until next week,
Sam
PS. Go Birds.
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