E-commerce marketing magic for Mother’s Day

On the second Sunday in May, millions of South Africans will be celebrating Mother’s Day. According to SureSwipe, this once-fairly-low-key day has now become the third biggest retail opportunity globally, after Christmas and Back-To-School. Why not make the most of this and help your e-commerce customers find something suitable?

Promoting Mother’s Day on your e-commerce site

Let’s look at some ideas for how to do just that.

1. Get started early

Spare your customers the stress of making last-minute purchases by starting your Mother’s Day campaign well in advance. An email and social media campaign starting right now could get their thoughts moving in the right direction. Use keywords like “Mother’s Day gifts” to drive your point home and boost your search ranking in the process. It’s also worth mentioning that buying early means they won’t have to worry about their gift arriving late due to shipping delays. Then as the day approaches, focus on last-minute gift ideas.

2. Widen the market

Expand your potential market by reminding customers that it’s not just birth-Moms who deserve a Mother’s Day gift. Anyone who has ever been a mother or acted as a mother figure qualifies, including step-mothers, grandmothers, godmothers, wives, and even daughters, sisters and other friends or relatives.

3. Point them in the right direction

Whether they’ve arrived at your e-commerce site via an email, social media or advertising campaign, once you’ve got potential customers looking for Mother’s Day gifts, make it easy for them to find them. Talk to us about a banner that grabs attention the moment they get to your site then directs them to a page dedicated to the occasion. You could also use the product ribbon plug-in to draw attention to products that are ideally suited for Mother’s Day, wherever they are on your site.

4. Offer a variety of possibilities

The range of gifts mothers might like is huge, from flowers or spa days to jewelry or the latest technology. What you offer will obviously depend on what you sell, and each item should be beautifully displayed on your (ideally mobile-responsive) site.

5. Suggest appropriate gifts

While wracking your brain for something to give Mom takes energy, picking something off a list is much easier. Help your customers by arranging potential gifts in categories e.g. The Mom Who Loves to Cook, Tech-Savvy Mom, Entrepreneur Mom, Physically Fit Mom, Book-Loving Mom, Perfectly Groomed Mom, etc. If they can also search for items by price or browse the most popular gifts, even better.

6. Offer special e-commerce promotions

Many shoppers will make their buying decisions for Mother’s Day based on promotions . The discount functionality that comes standard with the Comalytics package makes this easy. Try combining this with the product ribbons plug-in to draw attention to items on special, or offering great-value bundles of products. You could also send out a discount coupon via your email or social media campaign, to be redeemed against certain products or against all Mother’s Day promotions.

7. Use freebie psychology

Give an extra incentive to the gift-giver by offering them a free gift for themselves with every Mother’s Day gift they buy for a loved one. Our Free Gift Promotion Plug-In allows you to set rules for this, based on spending thresholds, specific products or bundles of products bought together. Alternatively, you could offer free gift-wrapping and/or shipping on all products or just on certain ones you want to promote.

8. Run a Mother’s Day contest

Generate some extra excitement by running a Mother’s Day contest on your e-commerce site. You could give away a prize, like a spa day or dinner for two, based on a random draw or on something the entrants have to do, like posting a selfie with their mother on social media. As an extra bonus, this can also help you build your email list and/or boost your followers.

9. Make gift cards available

These are a win all round:

• They’re quick and easy for the gift-giver to buy online at the last minute, and they can print them out at home too;
• The lucky recipient can spend them on something they REALLY want; and
• While the gift-giver and/or the recipient are visiting your site, there’s a good chance they’ll spot something else they want, boosting the order total.

10. Be generous

Help build the vibe by sharing some facts about Mother’s Day in your campaign, along with fun, relevant and inspiring quotes, images and ideas for taking care of Mom (hint: Google can help with all of these). You could drip-feed this content across your various channels and perhaps create a Pinterest board to consolidate it all, including gift ideas from your site and from elsewhere. Share this via social media or embed it in your e-commerce site.

The bottom line…

As much as promoting Mother’s Day on your e-commerce site is a great opportunity to boost your bottom line, it’s also about raising brand awareness and showing you care. Rather than adding to the ruthless commercialisation of this special day, aim to be thoughtful and inspiring. That’s the way to win friends and customers alike.

Have you run Mother’s Day promotions before? What made them a success or a failure? Share your comments below so others can learn from them.