Proven Strategies for Valentine’s Day Success | Podcast

Vira: 0:41

Hello everyone, welcome back to Email Einstein, the podcast by Flowium. We are your hosts, Vira Sadlak

Andriy: 0:47

And Andriy Boychuk.

Vira: 0:49

And we’re so happy to have you guys back on our little email marketing nerd circle. How’s life, Andriy? What’s new and exciting with you?

Andriy: 0:58

Everything’s great. I just, we had a celebration of my younger daughter, 4th year, for 4th year’s birthday. And she said it’s her best birthday ever. It just, in fact, it was her 4th birthday. But we went snow tubing. She requested to go snow tubing, but she didn’t do it. Just she, she ride it once because she was scared. But day before, we were— we found very cool, not crowded water park, and we had fun there as well. So it was very—

Vira: 1:31

That’s so cool.

Andriy: 1:31

Cool weekends with family. And we were in Pennsylvania, and there’s a lot of, a lot of snow. So it was like, I don’t know how to calculate it, probably 2 foot, 2 foot snow. So we did this like a lot of like snowmen. Like we did snowmen, snow angels. I had to shovel the entire driveway, which was like endless, so we can like get back home. But it was really, really fun.

Vira: 2:02

Oh, I miss snow. I miss snow.

Andriy: 2:04

What’s going on?

Vira: 2:05

Not much, but actually we got some snow yesterday too. New background. New background. Yes. This is like, this is my house. My— well, this is my kitchen actually right now because I’m using my neighbor’s Wi-Fi to record this podcast because I still don’t have Wi-Fi. But tomorrow, tomorrow they promised that they are finally going to install Wi-Fi or internet in my place. So I’m really excited to have my own proper office finally. But yeah, life, life has been good. And yeah, go ahead.

Andriy: 2:34

I was surprised that like in UK, you need what, how many days to get the internet?

Vira: 2:40

We got this place, we got the keys from our place on the 18th, December 18th. Tomorrow is January the 10th, right? So Yeah, whatever. I’m not going to complain. This is like one of my resolutions for the year, like not complaining. So I’m not complaining. And let’s talk about something fun. For example, email marketing. Yay. I mean, I do think our topic today is super, super fun because we will be talking about all things Valentine’s Day. Andriy, are you a Valentine’s Day person at all?

Andriy: 3:11

I mean, I have to be because I have a wife, but between us, please don’t tell anybody. I’m a big procrastinator on gifts and all things holiday related. Why? Because there’s other priorities until the last minute when it’s become emergency for me. Like I need to get something for tomorrow.

Vira: 3:33

Right.

Andriy: 3:34

And to order something online, it’s too late. To sneak out, out of the house, it’s too late as well. So sometimes I need to come up with something very creative. what to give as a gift, but not like, like very like lazy gift card thing, you know, like, but something creative. But, but so far I’m coming up with very good ideas like concert tickets, like very— they just opened a very cool spa on the island here with a Manhattan panoramic view, which is like, wow. I mean, yeah. So it’s like supposed to be very, very, very cool. They have terrible website. I could not buy tickets to that spot through their website. So I had to find other website on Google to find, to buy those tickets, which is terrible experience in nowadays.

Vira: 4:27

That’s a bummer. It often happens actually with spots for some reason. Yeah, it’s just as bad. Yeah, I love those last-minute gifts because—

Andriy: 4:36

So I’m not—

Vira: 4:38

No, no, I do love this last-minute gifts because like in my family, between me and my husband, we have this like arrangement. we don’t get each other stuff and we give each other experiences. That’s why it works perfectly for us. So, this last-minute strategy works amazing. This year though, for St. Nicholas Day, I don’t know if I told you this story or not. My husband got me this ticket super last minute to this Christmas show, and it’s in St. Albert Hall or whatever, the Royal Albert Hall. So, this is one of the biggest halls, concert halls in UK, one of the biggest ones in the world. And turned out that that was a kids’ show actually. And I mean, it started at like 12: 30, so we were like literally the only people without the kids and we were like the oldest, but we had so much fun and we saw Santa at the end. So yeah, sometimes the strategy of not doing research works well for me and my family. Okay, cool. Andriy, before we go and share all of the exciting examples that we’ve prepared today, I want to play a little game with you. The game is called Yeah, let’s do this. The game is actually called True or False. So I’m gonna present like an idea to you and you’re just gonna tell me, is it true in your opinion or false? Okay.

Andriy: 5:53

I feel that you will put me on the spot, but let’s do it.

Vira: 5:56

Okay, cool. So, uh, number 1, fact number 1, despite economic uncertainty in 2024, people in US are planning to spend as they normally would on gifts and shopping for Valentine’s Day. True or false?

Andriy: 6:11

100% true.

Vira: 6:14

And you are right, actually. And I was super, super surprised that even during the recession, consumers plan to spend a lot this Valentine’s Day. To be precise, $24 billion will be spent this Valentine’s Day. Can you imagine?

Andriy: 6:32

Wow. Wow.

Vira: 6:33

Yeah. Okay, cool. Fact number 2, 30% of Americans planning to celebrate Valentine’s Day.

Andriy: 6:42

I mean, it sounds too low, so I would say false.

Vira: 6:47

And you’re right, Andriy. Actually, in reality, more than half of Americans plan to celebrate Valentine’s Day this year. So like 53% of Americans will be celebrating actively. So millions of this, like romantic dates will be set and gifts will be given. So this is like a very important time for us as marketers. Good job, Andriy. So far, you’re doing a really good job. Okay, number 3. Valentine’s Day is the most popular day in the year to get engaged.

Andriy: 7:20

I would say true.

Vira: 7:22

Yes, it’s true. Actually, I originally thought it’s going to be false.

Andriy: 7:25

Come on! Oh, sorry, easy questions.

Vira: 7:26

I didn’t want to put you on the spot, Andriy, but yeah, actually Christmas and Valentine’s Day were super close with each other in terms of engagement rates or whatever. Engagement rates. I’ve never said it in this context before. But actually, 6 million people expect to, to propose or to be proposed to this Valentine’s Day. Insane, right? 6 million people worldwide.

Andriy: 7:54

Wow. Wow. This is crazy number. But this is— that’s why it’s amazing opportunity for your brand to kind of to sell more. That’s why we’re recording this episode in advance. So you are able to inspire you with some ideas what you can create around St. Valentine’s Day. And also we have a blog post, we have a YouTube about this. So there’s— we’re creating a lot of content 100% for free and money-back guarantee. So free, you can give us back zero if you don’t like it. But those all ideas for you to kind of to get inspired. So let’s start with the first strategy or first group of email ideas.

Vira: 8:41

The first one is kind of obvious. A lot of brands are doing that. But we can’t emphasize enough how cool and powerful this strategy is. So the first strategy is Valentine’s Day gift guides. Andriy, do you personally often rely on those like gift guides when you like receive them in the email inbox?

Andriy: 9:03

I do. Even if they are like very poorly executed, for me, it’s better of a gift guide than no gift guide. Now, I would appreciate if brands do put in more thoughts in that brand guides. But you make my life much easier with those brand guides, especially if there’s something like lady-related brand where I have zero experience in. And if you tell in your gift guide, this is a thing, this is a trend, your significant half needs to try this, I would probably trust that brand and I’ll probably buy it. So 100% for gift guides. It’s a low-hanging fruit.

Vira: 9:47

I do love them too. I do love them too. And we have like a really nice example here, you guys, if you are watching us on YouTube, or if you’re listening to us, go into YouTube and watch it later. Or if you’re watching, basically there’s this brand called Built. They did a really good job with like creating a gift guide for him where they listed different options for your significant other who identifies himself as a him. And yeah, these gifts are super, super helpful. And one of my favorite actually gift guides is when they have different types of personalities or different types of people in the same gift guide. So if you are shopping for person A, this is the gift. If you are shopping for person B, this is something for you to consider. Yeah, you’ve probably seen those gift guides, right, Andriy?

Andriy: 10:41

Yes. Yes. And by the way, I did not know that they’re called built. I always call them B-Y-L-T.

Vira: 10:50

I don’t know. I always call them BILT. I wonder who’s right, who’s wrong. I kind of like how powerful it sounds.

Andriy: 10:58

I do have their products. Actually, my wife bought me a few products and then I started shopping in their store.

Vira: 11:06

Cool. So you probably know better how to pronounce them. So I’ve always been calling them BILT.

Andriy: 11:11

No, I don’t actually. I always had a struggle to pronounce them because I have no clue how to pronounce them.

Vira: 11:18

When I say BYLT, for some reason it sounds like a Subway sandwich to me. It’s just like not as luxurious, you know, because they have this like BLT, right, sandwich. So maybe there is a story here. I don’t know.

Andriy: 11:32

Let’s move on. What’s the next one, Vira?

Vira: 11:35

The next strategy, and it’s a great strategy, especially if you are in that like food or like drinks industry, the Valentine’s Day recipes or dinner ideas. And I know this type of email would be a hit with my husband because once a year he cooks this like fancy meal. He can cook sometimes, but just like once a year for Valentine’s Day, he like literally goes above and beyond and does this beautiful Valentine’s Day spread. So he would definitely appreciate one of those emails that would have like a Valentine’s Day recipe in them or some sort of like date dinner ideas. Yeah, I love those type of emails.

Andriy: 12:48

Yeah, we have amazing examples. Again, go, go to YouTube or just check it out later. But like from BetterBrand, for Cosmos, from some other brands. But we have amazing examples. But I would disagree with you. We are like only if you in the food or beverage industry to have those emails. Even if I sell, let’s say, shocks for cars, I mean, honestly, like, why don’t— why can’t you create the beautiful recipe email? Like, not related even to your products, just provide as a value to your customers. Like, hey, like, dudes, like, be nice to your ladies. Create some— like, here’s a basic recipe for you to cook. Surprise your lady. I mean, sorry for making fun of dudes, but this is like providing value. And I think this is what people— this is how you stand out. When you try to push your product, I mean, if it’s on point with the recipe, let’s say Better Brand, they sell protein bagels. So it does make sense for them to do this recipe. But if you sell some tools or equipment, just say, hey, it has nothing to do with what we sell, but we just want to— our team was thinking it might be useful for you.

Vira: 14:02

I guess it all comes down to understanding who your customer is and what they would appreciate. And for one of my clients, but they are in the food industry, so they are selling cheese and wine. I’ve added this example from like the New Year’s campaign, but we will be doing something very similar for like February campaign as well. So they do sell wine, cheese, different like gourmet snacks. So we will be doing this like email about wine and cheese and wine and food pairings. So we have this list of like popular Valentine’s Day foods like oysters or like steak or whatever. whatever. And we like recommend the best wine that goes with it, the best like chocolate that goes with that wine and stuff like that. And every time we send something like this, something like super actionable with like links to the products, with like very good recommendations that comes from like a place of knowledge, this email is every time a hit with this brand, at least.

Andriy: 15:03

Nice, nice.

Vira: 15:04

Cool. Andriy, what’s the next strategy? That is kind of cool.

Andriy: 15:10

If you have an ability to release some product around Valentine’s Day, or maybe take your existing products and put it in different packaging, or maybe create a bundle for Valentine’s Day, it’s a great strategy as well. So we have examples here sharing from Polish Pop, from Last Crumb, Viking Waffles, where they were releasing the limited edition products specifically for Valentine’s Day.

Vira: 15:38

Right. I really love this example by Lancôme. This is like a cosmetic company. Every year on Valentine’s Day, they release like a kind of like a Valentine’s Day advent calendar. So basically this is like a calendar with a countdown to Valentine’s Day when they have like 4 different small like versions of their products to try. I think it’s a beautiful gift, but also it’s like a very smart and cool idea to promote your products to your group of customers. But I mean, your Valentine’s Day gifts, they don’t have to be sophisticated or they don’t have to be high-end. One of my favorite product launches that I personally witnessed was this company that sells wrench. So believe it or not, a few years ago, this Hidden Valley brand, they launched a very special wrench for Valentine’s Day. They branded it. It looked very cute. They had big promotions with email and stuff, and it was a hit with their audience. So again, it all comes down to understanding who your customers are.

Andriy: 16:45

Yeah, and what very important thing for anything related about Valentine’s Day, make sure to include red, purple, those kind of colors. Make sure to include the elements, hearts, bow and arrows, something that related to like visually represent the holidays. Because some brands, I do love their concept, but they use zero, let’s say, red or pink color, and it’s a very big miss. And why I’m mentioning this, because this range that you are mentioning, they typically— not typically, they are green, green branding on their range bottles. But for this edition, they change only one thing, label at the front. They just put pink, red label at the front and they call it special edition. There’s nothing special inside of the red champagne.

Vira: 17:40

That’s not the only thing, Andriy. That’s not the only thing. You can also— they had this thing inside almost. They had this thing on their website where you could order yourself this like custom, like a custom bottle that would say like Happy Valentine’s Day, Andriy. Like it would literally say it on the bottle. I think it’s so cool. I would love to get this kind of thing.

Andriy: 18:03

This is, this is an extra step you are mentioning. But even if they did not do that personalization, even if I see this bottle from the, like, from far away, it’s like, like, like subconsciously, okay, so it’s probably related to Halloween. Sorry, not Halloween. Valentine’s Day.

Vira: 18:22

Tomato, tomato, right, Andriy? Tomato, tomato. Yeah. Now we know what you truly think of this beautiful holiday, Andriy. Let’s, let’s move on to other example because we got into a slippery slope, Andriy. So the next like product launch, I know we like talked a lot about it, but I think it’s like super cool and I really love what Dunkin’ Donuts did a few years ago. So not only did they launch some special kind of like product and they like heavily promoted this like products like Valentine’s Day products, but also in like certain location, the first 100 customers at each participating location, they could also get their hands on like this little like sheet with custom Valentine’s Day cards that you could use. So you can like cut them out of the box and just like give them as a gift. I think it’s like super, super cool. And they like changed their entire branding from like Crazy About You to glazy about you. I think it’s so like smart. I just like love this wordplay.

Andriy: 19:29

I love it.

Vira: 19:30

Yeah, very cute.

Andriy: 19:31

Yeah, I love it.

Vira: 19:32

Okay, cool. The next strategy, the tried and true. Andriy, do you want to, do you want to talk about it? About the next strategy?

Andriy: 19:41

The holiday discount. I mean, like, it would be nice to do some discount. I do love a lot the discounts where they’re like, hey, Buy one and get 2, you know, like as a couple because like a couple associated with Valentine’s Day. So get one, like buy one, get one for free. So I like those kind of discounts, but I do understand it’s not always possible to get such a big discount or gift with a purchase. Also great example. I believe, I mean, we recorded the entire episode, podcast episodes, and we’ll include it under this one about discount and no discount strategies. You can apply the same thing for Valentine’s Day.

Vira: 20:23

Yeah, but there are some like creative ways of doing the discount too. And actually, Andriy, I found this exact example of like buy one, get one free from the brand that sells like disposable cameras. And they kind of worded it, they, I guess they understand who their customers are really well. And the copy says, Are you one half of a creative couple? Then this dreamy deal is for you. Buy any one of the following 3 cameras and get a second surprise addition for free. So they talk really well to their core audience. They understand that they work with creative couples. That’s why this buy one, get one deal works perfectly for them.

Andriy: 21:07

This is a great example about, so the Yolo brand that we are showing right now as example, they have A paddling board in the shape of a heart, and shape of the heart is an element of Valentine’s Day, but the entire email is green and doesn’t have any Valentine’s Day colors. So I think it’s a big miss here personally for me, but at least they have that heart. Quick story about YOLO Homes. So my sister, she has a property management company and she called it YOLO Homes. as a property management, and she received this week letter from YOLO attorney to stop using that name because they, I mean, they own the trademark. So she needs to close the company.

Vira: 21:55

Oh no, poor thing.

Andriy: 21:58

Inconvenient.

Vira: 22:00

Inconvenient. I’m still, I think she’s gonna power through it, but that’s a, that’s an interesting story.

Andriy: 22:07

Of course, I’ve worked She’s hustling.

Vira: 22:09

She’s a hustler. She’ll be fine. Cool. Well, a few more examples that I do love on that same Valentine’s Day discount strategy thing. I really love this example from MacPaw. I think we shared it before, but I just like in general love this company. They are like a big Ukrainian company. I think they’re like the biggest company for like apps for cleaning Macs. But anyways, they had this promotion last year. It’s called I Just Cleaned to Say I Love You, where you could get 30% off CleanMyMac app. And I think it’s like so adorable. They were on point. It was like very true to their brand and still very like festive. I think they did an amazing job.

Andriy: 22:56

And I think they also, they have a green email, but they did insert some of the pink hearts. So it relates to the holiday. So it’s a combination, like they stay on the brand, but also they relate it to the holiday.

Vira: 23:11

Yeah, you see, Andriy, I don’t know why you’re like so fixated on this like pink and purple thing. For me, as long as it’s like on brand, and as long as it’s like delivering the value, sometimes I can even like appreciate that it’s like different, that it’s like stands out in the inbox of like pink and purple hearts, you know. So I can appreciate that as a user too, but that’s just me.

Andriy: 23:32

So for me, maybe again, maybe it’s a preference, but for me, you must catch people’s attention as a step one. For example, for you, maybe it’s different. So you like, if a brand does not do pink and red, for you, it’s the brand stands out. But for me, it’s brand does not care about the holiday or So does not personalize for the holidays. So it’s like basic personalization for me.

Vira: 24:01

Right. On that like standing out note, I really love what McDonald’s did last year. They had this like email that says a secret admirer or a secret offer. Tap the heart to find out. And then they had this like white envelope and like a red heart in the middle and you had to like tap it. And I assume that you would get to like McDonald’s website with a discount code. But I just like love how they put it together. Yes, it’s a discount code, but they did it differently and I could— and I appreciated it. I think it was super fun. And I assume their click-through rates went up, to be honest, with this type of emails.

Andriy: 24:38

If you are able to use AMP technology, after the click, the envelope can open and reveal the discount code or envelope can open and whatever message inside, you can reveal the message.

Vira: 24:49

The next strategy that a lot of brands loving and doing around the holidays is Valentine’s Day giveaway. Andriy, have you experienced any cool giveaways lately?

Andriy: 25:01

No, not actually, not really.

Vira: 25:04

That was, that was actually a hook for you to keep talking about the next example, but whatever, Andriy, I can, I can do it myself.

Andriy: 25:12

I missed it. I missed it. I didn’t see that giveaway, but you can talk about the giveaway.

Vira: 25:20

You guys, just like to give you some like background right now, it might, it might sound like me and Andriy, we don’t have like a really good chemistry on the podcast, but in reality we don’t have freaking good connection because like everything we record, he receives like a second later or I receive a second later, which is super inconvenient.

Andriy: 25:43

No, it’s not. Trust me, it’s not a second later. It’s a few seconds later.

Vira: 25:47

Oh gosh. Yeah. Anyways, we hope that our magician in our content creation team will be able to resolve this thing. But anyways, going back to that Valentine’s gift giveaway, The Postable did really cool giveaway a few years ago. They were doing $100 Valentine giveaway. So you had to go to their Instagram, tag someone you love for a chance to win $100 of free cards and Postable. This is like a cards company. And yeah, and I mean, they hit so many things right here. First of all, the email is beautiful, has a lot of hearts, just like Andriy loves. It also has like some really good examples of like cards and stuff like that. But also it asks their customers to go on the social media and to tag someone they love. They didn’t specify who it should be. Uh, but just like creating that awareness for the brand, I think they did really good job with that giveaway last year.

Andriy: 26:55

Nice.

Vira: 26:56

But hey, you guys, Valentine’s Day is not just for brands who cater to couples or who cater to people who are in relationship. I really love this trend of doing the gifts for friends kind of Valentine’s Day, the Galentine’s Day. Andriy, do you know what Galentine is?

Andriy: 27:18

No. Is it like gal and Valentine’s Day or no?

Vira: 27:22

You’ve got it. Yes. Yes. So basically, so basically, there are like a lot of brands who are doing these campaigns for like your friends, for your like girlfriends, for people that you care about. And it does not have to be necessarily your like romantic partner or someone you are in love with. Andriy, I know you have like a few cool examples here.

Andriy: 27:47

Okay, so we don’t have email, but 1-800-Flowers, they did an amazing campaign where they were talking about giving flowers not only to your loved one, not your person in the relationship, but to your friends, to your friend, girl or guy, just to kind of to celebrate Valentine’s Day. And I know that in school, My kids go to school. It’s a common holiday for kids to do gifts to their classmates. So it’s not only about people in relationships, but like in romantic relationships, but people in relationship in general holiday. So you can celebrate them.

Vira: 28:27

Yeah, no, brands are being really creative. There is this like example that I personally am totally obsessed with from the brand called Rep. I think. So this is basically like a workout or like gym equipment kind of brand. And they had this huge campaign that called Rep Swolemates Giveaway. Swolemates because soulmates and swolemates because you work out and you get swollen. I mean, I love this game of words. So basically, I’m just going to share this email with you guys. I think it’s super, super smart. So they, uh, the email says, prank your swolemate for a chance to win $1,000. Step 1, go to repfitness.com and build any rack you want using our 3D rack builder. Press view in your space. So you can basically like build this like machine and then you can see how this machine will look in your space, like using your phone. Step 2, place your virtual rack somewhere ridiculous, the middle of the living room, roof of your house, maybe even the top of the mountain, save a screenshot. And then as a step 3, you are sending this to your swolemate, to your friend or something. So this is kind of like a prank. You guys, it does look super realistic. So if I would receive like a message like this with a training rack in the middle of the room, I would freak out. It does look realistic. But I think it’s, it’s such a cool idea. It’s fun. It’s different. And even though it’s like Valentine’s Day themed, it’s like still very true to the brand, to that like fun and, and like a really cool voice of the brand.

Andriy: 30:10

Nice. So the next strategy, inspiring love stories and some kind of messaging around the cause. So around the cause is like, I like what WeatherTech did with Bracelets for Africa. So basically you are buying some, you’re buying gift which related to Valentine’s Day, but they are donating those money to, I believe, to either feed or, I mean, support Africa, like people who don’t have enough either food or like they support people in Africa. So this is kind of, you’re buying gift, but with that gift you’re supporting some special cause. So I like this kind of email, it’s like inspiring and It adds more meaning to the gift you’re buying.

Vira: 30:58

Yeah. And I really like, like this type of inspiring love stories email as well. And WWF, the, this is like the organization, like you guys, you’ve seen it. It’s like an organization that protects animals and they are a nonprofit that like collects money, like to support some certain like animals and stuff like that. So, they did like this really cool email last year where they, like, instead of doing something like simple and something that you would kind of expect, they did this email that talks about animals that mate for life. So, yeah, so the email was pretty much saying like, did you know that although finding one mate for life is primarily a human thing, Some animals do have partners for life as well. And they even shared this, like, cute pictures of, like, 4 different animals, and you could vote for your favorites. So there were, like, African wild dogs, owls, blue and yellow macaws, and king penguin. And honestly, I think the penguins should be winning because they are adorable. But apparently the barn also was the most popular option out of these 4 options because people were able to vote for them.

Andriy: 32:16

But this is amazing, Oleg. I strongly recommend for you to check that out, this email, even if you don’t use it for this idea for Valentine’s Day. I strongly recommend for you to use it for some other emails. Why? It’s gamification here. And when I read it, which is your favorite? Click to vote. And just imagine how many clicks you will get. I guarantee you, click rate will go through the roof. In comparison to your other emails, because this is like, oh, and they put it, they put in votes, for example. So in Vira’s case, she’s saying the penguins should win. So psychologically, she’s like, oh, I need to press on penguins so they get more clicks, so they get more like votes. So this is very, very powerful email. First, great for email from Valentine’s Day perspective. but also very powerful from email marketing perspective to increase click rate.

Vira: 33:14

Andriy, who would you vote for? African dogs, owls, parrots, or penguins?

Andriy: 33:20

100% not for the dogs. They look not as nice. But I would agree with you, either penguins or parrots. But those parrots were trying to steal something from us when we were in Mexico. So I’m like, I have a grudge against them.

Vira: 33:37

Andriy, you have something with, uh, with like birds, because I remember when we were in Africa, you were eating your— what was it, like a sandwich or something? And there was like an eagle who came and like stole it from you. And it happened like—

Andriy: 33:51

It wasn’t an eagle, it was like a dinosaur. Like, it was like a plane.

Vira: 33:57

It was pretty scary. I mean—

Andriy: 34:00

No, but what I had in my In my head, so we are in Africa in the safari and it’s like kind of perfect, perfect lake. There’s no, not very hot, not very cold, like perfect, perfect weather. It’s extremely beautiful and they gave us lunch boxes to eat and I’m like, okay, I’ll eat and I’m so hungry. I’ll sit on this. It was a perfect view. I pull out this like burrito style sandwich And I’m like, there’s like very intense wind. And I see there’s only half of my burrito and I have no clue what just happened. I’m like raising my head and I see the big creature just left and like, I was scared to death.

Vira: 34:48

Yeah, I still don’t know what was it. Was it like some sort of like an eagle or I don’t know. It was like super scary and it was huge and it took us literally like 2 seconds. I couldn’t even like notice what happened. Yeah.

Andriy: 35:04

Yeah. And I finished my lunch in the car.

Vira: 35:08

We all did, Andriy. We all did. Cool.

Andriy: 35:13

By the way, before we continue to the next strategy, we also have an example of email. It’s my favorite charity from email marketing perspective. They’re doing the most amazing email design and concept and strategy called Charity Water, and we will have soon a person who in charge of email marketing from this organization. So in case you have any questions to this person, please leave it in our WhatsApp chat and we’ll make sure to ask them. Just go to flowium.com/whatsapp. You will be redirected to our chat and you can ask any questions and we’ll make sure to ask.

Vira: 35:53

Yeah, yeah. I’m very excited about this guest of ours. A few more recommendations that you can use in your email marketing strategy for Valentine’s Day is personalized gifts. If your brand can personalize something for Valentine’s Day, if you have some, I don’t know, maybe you can like write things on the, on your products or going back to that wrench example, right? It’s like a simple product. They didn’t change the product itself, but they did change the packaging and you could personalize it. And that promotion was such a hit. So if you have this like optionality on your website, definitely use it around the holidays.

Andriy: 36:36

Yeah, so it was a gift. I’m not sure Valentine’s Day or maybe birthday, but my wife gave me the AirPods, the Pro one, the new ones that I was very skeptical to use because I like the simple one. But now I fell in love with this one. But she was able to write me a message here with hearts and everything on this on this case. So it’s like personalization does work and it makes this AirPods special for me.

Vira: 37:07

Yeah, I remember like back in the day, it was like maybe 15 years ago or something. My husband, he went to US for this work and travel thing and he bought himself an iPod, like this big one. It looked like a phone, but it was an iPod. And then he was selling it like 2 years later and he had this like personalized message written on it. He was selling an iPod and the guy bought the iPod and then the guy called him. It was like before the internet was popular, probably. He called my husband and he was like, hey, by the way, what did you write on your iPod? What does it mean? Because it was written in English and the guy was speaking Ukrainian. So yeah, so know what you’re writing on these boxes. But it’s such a cool idea and there are some ways you can personalize your products and definitely talk about this function around them Valentine’s Day. Cool. The next strategy that we love is a customer spotlight. I know a lot of our brands that we work with are using this strategy, and it’s just like, I think it’s such an amazing strategy that always puts that like human face on the brand. Andriy, do you have any good examples of like customer spotlights emails?

Andriy: 38:22

I don’t have an example today, but Roosevelt, we always talk about that brand. I remember they had an email. They sell t-shirts, shirts with prints of famous classical, like famous movies like Star Wars and The Office and The Sandlot. And I remember there was email where a couple get married, get engaged in their shirts in the Star Wars, like a theater or something, which was kind of so romantic and so relevant to the audience who in love with Star Wars. So it was a client spotlight.

Vira: 39:05

I mean, that’s a huge story. I would totally love receiving an email like this. Love that. Love that. Yeah. One of the actually strategies that I’ve started noticing more and more brands are doing, a lot of brands are actually doing some sort of like collaborations around like the holidays. They’re either doing some sort of like giveaway together, or they give like one, or they go like one step further and they like launch product together. And yeah, I think BetterBrand did something like this a few years ago, right? They did have some like collaboration around like around holidays.

Andriy: 39:40

So personally, I believe this is also low-hanging fruit for brands to collaborate with other brands who have, where you share the audience, sorry, the similar brand has the same ideal client as you do, but maybe they do not know about your brand, but they also, they don’t sell competing products. So this is a perfect strategy to collaborate with 2 or 3 brands and do promotion. You have maybe one budget, kind of you share the same budget, but you benefiting, so your cost goes down 50% or even like 70%. Because you’re spreading the cost. So this is amazing idea and Valentine’s Day might be great opportunity to do that.

Vira: 40:29

Yeah, and Better Brand, a few years ago, they did this collaboration with like a coffee brand. So basically they called it the It’s a Match campaign or like Better Together. So they did have like a giveaway of the bagel and the coffee together. So this way they capitalized on like 2 audiences that shared like the similar sort of like customer, they grew their list. And I think it’s like such a cool idea. And just like you said, Andriy, a low-hanging fruit. Yeah, cool. And if you guys are not into that like romantic love, not into Galentine, not into that kind of promotions.

Andriy: 41:08

Palentine.

Vira: 41:09

Yeah, Palentine, Galentine. Another thing to look into is self-care, self-love kind of topic. And I think generally February is a great month to talk about all of this wellness routines and stuff like that. But the topic of self-love is actually something that we’ve done a few years with one of my clients. Once a month, on a monthly basis, we are sending for them this newsletter that consists of different relevant sort of like blogs and resources that are relevant to the customers, that are relevant to this audience, but they are not overly promotional. So this is basically like a long, long list of the resources that the customer can benefit from even if they don’t buy our products. And a few years ago, in the month of February, we’ve done this self-love month and with a focus on heart health. So we created this huge newsletter, all things heart health related. So we had the blog talking about, about like the different things to do for your heart to be healthier. We had like a product of the month that was like omega oil that was like obviously helps you with heart health. And we also had like a podcast, the recipe of the month. And again, every time we send something like this, our engagement is super, super high. We build like good relationship with the client or with the customers, and we do promote products without being overly salesy.

Andriy: 42:48

Nice. And the last thing to consider from today’s episode is to opt-out message. It’s not as commonly used as for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Because people are extremely sensitive about those topics, especially when, let’s say, your mother passed away or your father passed away. But some people might not be comfortable, let’s say, if they don’t have significant other and you’re sending them as a message like, oh, buy the gift for your significant other. It’s like, you know, like hitting the person at the pain point, but it’s a very, very bad strategy in this case. So you might consider this or you might not care, but this is one of the strategies.

Vira: 43:34

It’s a good one. Not a lot of brands are doing that, but it’s just like, shows that you care about your customers. And yeah, I think it’s a lovely strategy and you don’t have to create any like complicated designs or anything. Sometimes something as little as the plain text email from the founder would work really well and it would show that you care. It would show that you want to be like considered of your customers.

Andriy: 44:02

And we had Neil Patel on our podcast and at that moment I was not co-host. So Vira interviewed him and I believe you had that question about plain text and plain text, it’s a good strategy for you to increase your deliverability sometimes to send the plain text and this might be the great opportunity to send that plain text without any images, just one link and simple text.

Vira: 44:29

Yeah. Yeah. Well, now you have it, you guys, all of the exciting strategies to use for Valentine’s Day, Galentine’s Day, Palentine’s Day. You do you, boo. We, we gave you all of the options and you decide for the best option for you and your brand.

Andriy: 44:47

So boo as a Halloween boo or boo like honey?

Vira: 44:52

I don’t know, Andriy, in your case, it might be both, all of them. I don’t know. But yeah, don’t limit yourself, guys, on this Valentine’s Day. It doesn’t have to have this like romantic theme to it. It can be anything. You can be creative, you can be fun. Such a great opportunity to like talk about your brand, but definitely do not ignore this holiday because it’s a big one. And people kind of do expect to receive something from you on Valentine’s Day.

Andriy: 45:20

And I believe this is the first time we like dissected, like went deep into only one holiday and described it except the Black Friday, Cyber Monday. So I would, we would appreciate if you share your opinion, like you love it, you hate it, it was so-so. Like we want to know, was it, is it helpful for you? Because it will help us to understand, should we create the next one for, I don’t know, St. Patrick’s Day, Memorial Day, 4th of July, Like, do you want more examples or do you care more about strategy? So please give us feedback for us to create better content that you care about.

Vira: 45:56

Thank you so much. Thank you for listening. And we hope to have you back here next Tuesday. Thank you, guys. Take care.

Andriy: 46:02

Bye. See you next Tuesday.