UPDATE: This post was first published to GoDaddy's U.S. blog on 1 May 2018 and updated for the Canada blog on 5 April 2021.
Home and garden business owners tend to get excited in the months leading up to spring. It’s the first chance many people have to start working outdoors and gardening again. Almost everywhere, regardless of climate, spring is a time for cleaning, redecorating and change.
It’s one that, if harnessed correctly, could help you see an influx of new sales. We’re talking about Mother’s Day.
Tips to increase Mother's Day sales
Step No. 1 is to draw up a list of products that will see increased relevance and consumer interest around Mother’s Day. Here are eight strategies home and garden businesses should adopt to get the most out of the holiday:
1. Start early
While there’s certainly no shortage of last-minute Mother’s Day shoppers, it’s in your best interest as a home and garden business to start marketing for the holiday as early as possible.
Planting the seed early, ideally a month in advance or more, helps you prime your audience so they start paying closer attention to sales, deals and special offers.
This will make your future pushes more effective and encourage your target customers to start buying earlier.
Starting early is also advantageous because it might allow you to do some search engine optimization (SEO) in plenty of time to reap the results (more on this below in tip #5).
2. Plan and automate a series of emails
Email marketing is incredibly effective and one of the most cost-effective ways to generate leads and sales.
Plan and automate a series of emails to your target audience, with increasing urgency as you get closer to the big day.
For example, you could start by giving your recipients a heads-up that Mother’s Day is fast approaching, introduce new products and sales, then eventually warn recipients that Mother’s Day is this weekend, and make a push for last-minute gift ideas.
Editor’s note: Amp up your email, Facebook and Instagram promotions with GoDaddy’s Digital Marketing Suite.
3. Push your top-sellers
Prepare your warehouse or store with additional stock of your anticipated top-sellers. Depending on the nature of your store, this might be floral arrangements, home décor, or other products that make good personal gifts.
Take good photos of these items and update your product pages to make sure the information is up-to-date. Make plans to push these items in your upcoming marketing and advertising strategies.
4. Add a new page to your site
Create a new page or category for your site centered around Mother’s Day. Talk about the history of the upcoming holiday, and list some of your anticipated hottest sellers (or, if you have the data, your top-sellers from previous years).
Make sure to include several hundred words of content, so the page is both detailed enough to hook a reader’s interest and long enough for search engines to notice.
5. Optimize for Mother's Day keywords
You’ll need a boost in traffic to your website if you want to see a boost in sales. Consider adding select keywords related to Mother’s Day to your web pages. Write and publish new blog posts about gift ideas or buying guides for Mother’s Day, and change some of your page titles and descriptions to fit your new strategy.
Related: How to start a retail blog
6. Cater to emotions
Mother’s Day is an emotional holiday for many, so take advantage of those emotions in your campaigns. Use imagery and clever wording to evoke nostalgia, or inspire thoughts of familial love.
If you have the budget for it, consider creating a video ad or product showcase — visual mediums tend to convey emotions better.
7. Take advantage of urgency
Include a countdown timer on your website to instill a sense of urgency and encourage more on-site conversions.
As the day approaches, consumers will be more and more likely to finalize their purchases, and during the last few days, you’ll see a spike in last-minute gift purchasers.
8. Revisit your calls-to-action
Take this opportunity to review the calls-to-action (CTAs) you have throughout your site. These are those buttons that encourage shoppers to "Buy now" or "See more colors."
How compelling are your prompts? Are they well-suited to customers looking for gifts? How easy is it for a user to find a product they’re looking for? How fast is your checkout process? Now is the time to optimize these CTAs to maximize conversions.
Opportunities for home and garden businesses
Mother’s Day always falls on the second Sunday in May. The holiday provides several important sales-building opportunities for home and garden businesses, including:
Floral arrangements
Each year, the average Canadian spends $111 on the mother in their life, on or around Mother’s Day. If your business sells flowers, vases or candies, you can get a piece of this action.
Gardening as a hobby
The average household spends $408 per year on garden supplies and services. Depending on which products you promote, this could be a perfect time to capitalize on both the impending allure of spring, and on consumer tendencies to purchase gifts for their mothers around this time.
Home improvements and décor
For husbands or children who want to treat their mothers to a quality-of-life upgrade, almost any aesthetic upgrade to the home can be a great gift. This might mean a light renovation of a heavily trafficked room, a new piece of furniture or tasteful decorations.
In conclusion
These are just some of the most important opportunities home and garden businesses have around Mother’s Day. But you’re not limited to these ideas — use your creativity and brainstorm other categories of products or services you sell that family members might like to purchase as a gift. Once you've selected the items you'd like to promote and created a series of emails, use social media sites like Instagram to heighten the buzz.
