6 Mother’s Day Marketing Ideas for eCommerce Businesses
It’s that time of the year again. Mother’s Day is upon us, and with the arrival of the occasion comes an influx of gift ideas for every mom and mother figure. Things might be a little different this time as we approach Mother’s Day during COVID-19, but the premise of the special day remains the same – 48% of people shop for Mother’s Day in the last week leading up to the holiday.
If you’re still looking for ways to incorporate Mother’s Day into your marketing strategy, we’re sharing 6 creative ideas to help you catch the attention of last-minute shoppers.
1. Use Extra Incentive to Drive Sales
Offer free shipping to certain items you’re promoting to boost Mother’s Day sales. Add a free gift to a purchase from a Mother’s Day gift guide. Use discount coupons to make your offers more affordable. Whatever you do, include an extra incentive to help highlight key products you want consumers to buy. For example, Adidas is currently offering a free bag along with a Mother’s Day purchase which consumers can take advantage of by using code “MOM.”
Pro tip: Try offer ads on Facebook. Those who save the offer will get notifications reminding them of the promotion when they switch devices (from a phone to computer, and vice versa) before the offer expires. Keep in mind that Facebook suggests promoting substantial offers such as a 20% discount (at least) or pushing items that are free (like Adidas’ free gift!)
2. Launch a Mother’s Day Giveaway
If you’re looking to attract new customers, increase brand awareness and gain more leads, consider launching a giveaway. Whether you’re asking people to tag their friends in the comments section on Instagram, sign up for a newsletter or follow your social accounts, the exposure from a giveaway goes a long way.
To celebrate Mother’s Day, jewelry brand Mejuri and skincare brand Summer Fridays teamed up to host a giveaway, offering a $250 Mejuri gift card along with the beauty brand’s entire collection. By entering your email for a chance to win, the user joins both Mejuri and Summer Friday’s newsletter lists. The overlap in email sign-ups between the two brands boosts brand awareness for both Mejuri and Summer Fridays – a win-win for everyone.
Pro Tip: Once you’ve closed your giveaway and acquired new subscribers, it’s important to make an immediate impact. Target users with a personalized welcome message series to thank them for opting in to receive your emails. In this series, run an A/B frequency test to see how many welcome messages lead to purchases or subscribers, followed by analyzing your frequency in relation to CTR and conversions. For more tips on how to optimize your email campaigns, check out our Social Media and Email Marketing blog post.
3. Create a Mother’s Day Gift Guide
For last-minute shoppers, a gift guide is a sure way to catch their eye. Just like one would ask “what do you recommend?” in a physical retail location, a curated list of products streamlines the research process for customers, making it easier for shoppers to make up their mind and ultimately “add to cart.”
Pro tip: Once users “add to cart”, set up retargeting for those who added to cart but did not make a purchase or are still deciding. As a retailer, you can retarget website visitors with Dynamic ads to remind them of the items they expressed interest in to minimize abandoned carts. With DPA, you can automatically use images from your product catalog instead of individually creating an ad for each of your products.
A Mother’s Day gift guide is a great reminder to offer convenience and value by bundling products. Beauty brand MAC Cosmetics set up a specific landing page, combining Mother’s Day lipstick bundle kits, alongside mother-daughter photos with supporting copy based on the occasion.
To complete the website experience, equip your landing page with Mother’s Day messaging on the homepage. Mac cosmetics shared copy like “This Mother’s Day – honor her, and all the people you love like a mom,” to celebrate not only your mom but every mother figure in your life, along with a “shop the gift guide” link, leading back to the landing page.
4. Ramp Up Engagement on Social Media
Social media is your friend during this time. Increase engagement on social media by using different visual assets, including static photo and video, as well as varying copy from sentimental to joyful captions to engage your audience in the week leading up to Mother’s Day.
Pro tip: Experiment with different ad formats, like Carousel or even Instant Experience (previously known as Canvas ads), to evoke engagement by visually highlighting your brand, products or services. Take a look at how AdParlor helped Carnival Cruise Line achieve an incredible lift in engagement with Instant Experience ads.
Jewelry remains one of the most popular Mother’s Day gifts with 34% of shoppers making the purchase for Mother’s Day, and Pandora is leveraging this opportunity across their social media platforms. This year, Pandora launched their #Somethingaboutyou campaign, providing a myriad of content from an emotional video to product shots, and even a feature from actress Milly Bobby Brown.
“She’s my best friend.”
— PANDORA_NA (@PANDORA_NA) May 2, 2020What do you love most about your mom? #PandoraxMillieBobbyBrown #PandoraMothersDay https://t.co/SpdEY54yye pic.twitter.com/1brNA8kA6J
With Mother’s Day just around the corner, tap into your creativity and evoke emotions in your content to capture the beauty of motherhood. Maximize your social media presence at this time to ensure a successful social media campaign.
Marketers can also utilize the hype around Mother’s Day to boost engagement by interacting with their audience on social media. For example, family-owned coffee shop @chi2house’s took to Instagram Story to poll their audience for Mother’s Day 2019.
5. Encourage User-Generated Content (UGC)
There’s nothing like re-living funny moments with mom to spread the joy of Mother’s Day. Leverage the ease of photo sharing by asking your followers to share memories under your brand’s hashtag, increasing brand awareness and promoting your Mother’s Day promotion.
The Body Shop’s 2017 #GotItFromHer campaign entails just that with an ask to share photos of the mothers that have passed on quirky and empowering traits.
Consumers look for social proof and UGC is the perfect example of that, earning your brand more consumer trust. UGC is also very cost-effective since your followers are producing content at their own time and resources instead of hiring contractors or using an in-house team. Don’t forget to share the UGC posts of your consumers in your campaigns!
Pro tip: Twitter is the go-to social platform for people to discuss and share ideas about Mother’s Day. To maximize engagement, use specific and relevant messaging by tailoring content to the audience’s tweets. Lastly, participate in the conversations on Mother’s Day by targeting specific keywords to build on the discussions and trending topics.
6. Create Interesting Mother’s Day Content
As marketers, we know how important it is to create added value for customers. One way to do so is to create helpful content around Mother’s Day that doesn’t come across as sales-focused.
No matter how awesome your deals are, it’s not reasonable to expect everyone to purchase your products. Instead, you can inspire these shoppers by providing them with educational content. Share with them easy recipes, how to create a DIY gift or how to write a poem for mom. Be creative.
For Mother’s Day, Infographics tool Venngage shared a lengthy blog post on creating and customizing Mother’s Day cards, along with design tips. This type of content showcases a real-life application of their product for Mother’s Day, but it also inspires readers to be creative in their own way.
Pro tip: People go to Pinterest to plan for future purchases with 1 in 2 people making a purchase after seeing a promoted pin. Use Pinterest to not only promote your product but also showcase the creative ways in which people can bring the items to life by offering tips, advice or instructions. In fact, 55% of Pinterest users say they use the platform to shop for products, making it an optimal site showcasing gift-appropriate items.
Navigating Mother’s Day during COVID-19
Some businesses are taking extra measures to promote health and safety standards at this time. For example, Indigo is offering contactless curbside pickup with “safe, easy and convenient” messaging on their Mother’s Day landing page, allowing for ease of access for every customer. The retailer even has a “Top Gifts for Curbside Pickup” section on their page to further promote their products.
However, it might not be so easy to maintain operations for other businesses. It’s a sad reality for many in the food industry: no more brunch or lunch get-togethers with mom. As Mother’s Day is the busiest day of the year for restaurants with about 87 million adults planning to dine out, the lack of foot traffic at this time has led some restaurants to pivot online.
You can still get a taste of casual dining restaurant Moxies for Mother’s Day by pre-ordering online. Beyond their Mother’s Day menu, Moxies is also offering a gift card incentive. When you buy a $50 Moxies e-gift card, you’ll receive a bonus of $10. To further encourage customer purchases, the restaurant is offering other discounts such as 20% off on all phoned-in pick-up orders with the option of curbside delivery as well as a 40% discount on food pick-up orders for healthcare workers or first respondents.
As a business, it’s important to stay agile and responsive to unexpected crises. By pivoting online, a restaurant like Moxies can take this opportunity to not only retain loyal customers but also reach out to new audiences who may not have thought about purchasing from Moxies otherwise.
COVID’s Impact on Mother’s Day Gifts Ideas
Three gifting categories are increasingly in demand this year: Books/CDs, electronics and housewares/gardening tools. It’s no surprise that many celebrations will be hosted virtually this year and as such, people are purchasing gifts that can make mom’s life easier at home.
Conclusion
Whether families are connecting with their moms, aunts, or any other maternal figure on Zoom or in real life, people still want to celebrate Mother’s Day to show their appreciation. By thinking outside of the box and taking your offerings online, there are many ways for your business to stay relevant during this time. Happy selling!
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