Last year The Cavendish Hotel in London used Valentine’s Day and Vine to entice people to the hotel. Applicants were invited to make a Vine video on why they and their partner should win a romantic break for two at the hotel. The competition promoted their social media channels, brand awareness and most importantly got their customers to engage with them and create content.

Uber, a car service company in the States, developed an app called Romance on Demand. Users can select a bouquet of roses to be delivered to their valentine in a luxury vehicle with a dedicated driver. Flowers in style! Since Uber’s cars are already on the road the campaign is a cheap one for them to run and gives off the right message for their business whilst adding value for their customers.

Scribbler, a UK based card company, compiled a Valentine’s Day eBook by asking their followers, fans and clients to complete a short survey on what they think love is. The best answer won an iPad and all the good ones went into the ebook. A great way to capture data for use later, and get content from your fans as well.

There are some great promotional Valentine’s campaigns out there, but why should it matter to you? Holidays like Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s and so on are a great way to connect with your audience and put a creative new twist on your traditional marketing concepts. People are more likely to engage with current, relevant information, and engagement may lead directly to business and increased brand awareness.

So, how to start your campaign?

1)     Research – find out what your audience like and what they are most likely to respond to. Facebook’s graph search is a great tool for this

2)     Plan – leave time to plan and implement your campaign leading up to the holiday.

3)     Make it worthwhile – the promotion needs to be for something that people will want, and that may not necessarily be directly linked with the product or service you provide.

4)     Follow up – make sure you collect as much data as you can on the people who participated in your campaign. They are interested, make sure you don’t lose the opportunity!