Love strikes when you least expect it. Well, not really – it’s 14^th February every year… but it does seem to sneak up on us! You’ve only just taken down the Christmas tree and started on that exercise regime to lose those Christmas pounds and BAM!… Its Valentine’s already! Even more exciting – this year is Leap Year so on the 29th of this month you have another reason for love-themed campaigns!

So here’s an interesting Valentine’s fact for you – retail spending for the holiday will increase nearly 13 percent this year, and the average person will spend $116.21 on traditional Valentine’s Day merchandise this year – that is an increase of 12.8% over 2011’s total. This makes this Valentine’s Day the fourth most popular shopping holiday of the year, just behind Christmas, Back-to-School and Mother’s Day. So Valentine’s Day really is an opportunity you don’t want to miss – unlike your gym appointments.

So how can you share the love and reap the rewards this Valentine’s Day? The good news is, no matter what industry you’re in, or kind of business you have, you can capitalise on it. Here are a few quick tips and tactics to get you and your readers feeling the love:

Go with the theme but be a bit different
Everyone will be sending Valentines emails and marketing materials out with hearts and teddies and cupids, so how about being a bit different? Stand out by doing something unique. Do something interactive, fun, or unexpected that helps you stand out from the crowd.

Give good gift ideas
How about building on the suggestion above and combine fun and interactive by having a gift-generator that helps someone find a great gift? Or send your email out with a selection of beautiful, unique, or even quirky gift ideas?

Share the love
Now that you have created that awesome gift-generator, get your recipients to share the love. Extend the reach of your message by allowing recipients to share the email content on your social networks. Jericho’s email marketing platform SmartMail PRO has share to social functionality built right in, which allows you to share your email to all the main social networks. And since you have spent the time putting together all those unique gift ideas, you want people talking about them, yes?

Have a stand out subject line
Here are some examples of some of the best stand out subject lines from previous Valentine’s Day marketing. I like the one that says ‘Cupid made us do it’! Like we mentioned before, the aim is to stand out amongst all the other Valentine’s Day marketing, so make it something that is really funny and clever, while representing your brand. Or a big sale ought to work.

Valentine’s Day means action
Have a call to action button that encourages the recipients to buy. It’s no use having all these amazing goodies if no-one buys any of them. Make it clear and simple – ensure recipients can see it, click it and buy it, quickly and easily. As those Valentine’s facts we mentioned earlier said, this is the fourth most popular shopping holiday of the year. And you’re here to capitalise on it.

TIP:
There is a great tip from Retail Email Blog about not shortening Valentine’s Day to V-Day in your subject line. They say, “V-Day” has a number of meanings and associations, generally violent. Email marketers are always looking to trim characters from their subject lines, but this may not be the best way to shorten “Valentine’s Day.”

So the key things to keep in mind are: be creative, stand out, both with your subject line and content, make it easy for them to buy and everyone will be happy.

Update: We Love Hunter Boots Valentine’s Day Campaign – do you?  Click here to view