Be Mine, Valentine. Get more store traffic with these ideas.

Special ways to show customers your appreciation on Valentine’s Day.

Holidays are a great time to invite customers to visit your storefront for a special event. Valentine’s Day is coming soon and more businesses like yours will offer customers special discounts. Do not miss out from a potential marketing event. This a great way to pull in more traffic and awareness of your business. The size of the event does not matter. You can choose whether to make your Valentine’s Day big or small. Here are some ideas to consider:

1. Card decorating contest. Buy some supplies from the craft store and invite children from the local community to create a unique card. Award a prize to the child with the best design.
2. Feature special Valentine’s Day products in the front of your store. Make sure you organize your products by category as well as by price.
3. Host a Valentine’s Day celebration party. Complete the event with music, face painting, door buster events, and offer special discounts on select products or services.
4. Host a Sip and Paint party. Companies like Painting with a Twist will provide your business an art instructor to teach your customers how to paint.
5. Host a “love your look” photography session. Invite a photographer take photos of individuals or families at a special discount. You might also want to invite makeup artists and stylists to this event as well.
6. Offer a “Guess the Kisses” jar. Fill a jar of Hershey chocolates or any valentine-related confection. Invite your customers to guess the total number of candies. Award a prize to the customer who guessed the correct amount.
7. Host a raffle. In exchange for your customer’s contact information, you offer customers a chance to win select prizes.
8. Host a bridal show. Provide booth space and invite wedding photographers, event planners, dress designers or hair stylists to speak with your customers about their services. You can choose whether to charge each vendor a booth space.
9. Create a value bundle of products or services that are designed specifically for men or women. For the men, he gets a shaving kit with alcohol. For the women, she gets a spa pampering kit with lotions and candies. And kids can also get their own special gift baskets.
10. Restaurants or catering companies: offer to provide food free of charge for a community event at your local library or community center.
11. Share the love by offering to volunteer your company time or resources for a community event.
12. If you have time, create a special print advertisement either in print or online. Do not forget to share the message with customers via your social media channels.
13. Do not leave out your employees! Invite interested employees to participate in a white elephant gift exchange party. Employees can exchange gifts valued no more than $20 to each other.
14. Create a special Valentine’s Day themed landing page on your website that features special in-store events.
15. Invite your local radio station and have them play G-rated theme songs at your store.
16. Help save a life and host a blood drive with your local Red Cross chapter. The Red Cross collects blood year round. Invite your customers as well as your employees to donate blood. Here is a link to read more about the Red Cross blood drive. Share your love for others in the community.
17. February is the Heart Health month. Invite medical and wellness professionals to educate your customers on simple ways they can maintain their health.

Make sure that you advertise your event online as well as in print. Also, create special flyers or brochures that you can include alongside the customer receipts. Make the flyers stand out from the receipts with bold red color.

One more thing I forgot to mention earlier: Make sure you account for new traffic. Instruct your cashier to ask each customer prior to sale this question,“Did you come specifically to celebrate Valentine’s Day with us?” You should provide your cashier a system where they can notate the special holiday customers from regular customer.

Do you have a Valentine’s Day event idea that I did not mention above? I would love to read it! Please write it down in the comment section below.