21 Mother’s Day Promotion and Marketing Ideas
for Small Businesses
Mark your calendars! One of the most important holidays for retailers and consumers alike is an opportunity to honor some of the most formative relationships with our loved ones.
While we know that the appreciation for our mothers and mother figures can’t be boiled down to one day, Mother’s Day can be a good excuse and lovely occasion, particularly after a challenging year, to either spend some extra time with them, or surprise them with an experience you don’t usually get to do, or get them some great gifts.
Your e-commerce store can play a key role in the celebrations, so to help you and your customers plan and make the most of the holiday, we’ve put together a list of budget-friendly Mother’s Day marketing ideas for small business owners to consider implementing during this period.
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1) Special Mother’s Day collection
To help mark the occasion and go the extra mile, consider setting up a collection specifically dedicated to Mother’s Day gifts. You can feature it on your website’s homepage, and create a festive landing page that includes all the products that would make great presents. If you have new arrivals specific to the holiday, even better!
Tip: Before you launch it, you can help build up interest by offering sneak peeks on your social media accounts and email campaigns, while also letting followers know the exact date, they’ll be able to find the collection.
2) Create a Mother’s Day gift guide
While a Mother’s Day collection for your online store can help direct shoppers to relevant products, with a gift guide you can get even more creative. Mother’s Day gift guide does not only have to be about gift ideas (useful though they may be!), it can also be about storytelling and creating associations with your items that consumers may not have thought of. Consider categorizing your gift guide by theme, interest, or activity (eg. for the mom that loves outdoor sports, for the mom that DIYs, etc.)
Tip: One of the ideas may be Instagram’s “guide” feature which you can include directly on your feed too!
3) Emphasize experiences
The data is in – people’s gift purchasing habits for Mother’s Day have been changing over the past few years. Consumers are now more likely to be interested in gifting a personal service for their loved ones for this holiday, which is why ecommerce businesses focusing on providing unique experiences in addition to products may have campaigns that especially resonate with customers.
If your online store sells items rather than services, that’s not a problem! You can craft your marketing campaigns to show ideas on how your shop’s products can be used to create an experience for the recipients. While traveling and visiting restaurants and other in-person activities may still not be a safe option for many, you can focus on stay-at-home experiences moms can enjoy and the ways your products can facilitate them!
4) Launch a site-wide sale
Your discounts don’t just have to be on Mother’s Day gifts! To add to your other marketing campaigns, consider launching a discount for all the items in your store (with a relevant discount code for shoppers to easily remember!). It’s a way to highlight the holiday, while also allowing consumers to save on all the different types of products in your store and draw in new customers.
5) Bundle up
Consumers don’t need to narrow down a great Mother’s Day gift to just one product! As they’re browsing your website, you can make the selection process even easier for them by offering value sets that include some of your store’s top picks. Select complementary items relevant to the holiday, add festive packaging to each bundle and, if possible, feature them as recommended items when visitors are looking at individual product listings. Don’t forget to include them in your Mother’s Day gift guides as well!
6) Double points
Don’t have a rewards program for your ecommerce business set up yet? No worries! The period before Mother’s Day is an excellent time to set one up (apps like Smile.io and LoyaltyLion can help you get started). If you do, consider offering a double points promotion, where shoppers can earn double the points for purchases made up to two weeks before Mother’s Day.
Since signing up for your store’s newsletter is often a step to earn points already, remember to include reminders for your double points offer in your email campaigns as well, since your mailing list not only includes people that are likely more invested in your business, but this promotion might be especially relevant to them since they are more likely to be signed up for your rewards program either way. Consider marketing your double points offer on social media too, to encourage not just more purchases but more subscribers.
7) Offer free gift wrapping and packaging
While it’s not the focus, the festive presentation doesn’t hurt when it comes to Mother’s Day gift giving! To help shoppers with their planning, it can be a nice touch for your e-commerce business to offer the option of holiday-specific and complimentary gift wrapping and packaging for all orders. Even if you choose to add this option at a cost, consider introducing special Mother’s Day gift boxes people can select from.
8) Design virtual greeting cards
For some people, a gift is just not complete without the card, and the numbers back it up! According to NFR, The most popular type of purchase during Mother’s Day is greeting cards. While some shoppers prefer physical holiday cards, which you can offer, you can also design digital greeting cards for followers to send. Create a Mother’s Day collection of templates and festive graphics that senders can then personalize as they like. You can even feature them on your social media platforms and dedicate a specific email newsletter compiling them all together. All subscribers can add their mom’s email addresses and they’re good to go!
9) Let customers personalize products
To help shoppers create more tailored and unique Mother’s Day gifts, consider offering the option to personalize products in your store, if possible. Whether that means including their mom’s name on items in your store, or the opportunity to include a message in their order, this extra touch can go a long way and make the gift selection process for shoppers even easier. Remember to specify specific shipping cutoff dates as personalized items can take longer to put together.
10) “Nominate Mom” campaign
One of the most interactive Mother’s Day marketing ideas for ecommerce businesses is to encourage follower responses with a “Nominate your Mom” campaign. Design a set or gift bundle for those who win, and set up a prompt that provides visitors with another outlet to highlight their loved ones. It can be a lovely way to celebrate the mother figures in their lives, and help them win some freebies in time for Mother’s Day! Even if not everybody wins, the responses alone can be an opportunity to engage with what the holiday means for your followers.
11) Highlight staff picks
For a more personalized version of your gift guide, consider emphasizing some of your employee’s favorite items from your e-commerce store. It not only lets your followers connect with some of the people behind your brand, but it also creates additional social proof for your store’s products and may even draw attention to items in your store that they may not have come across on your website. To make their picks more relevant to Mother’s Day, instead of just items that they like, your prompt for your staff can be for them to select the items that their moms would like or the gifts they plan on getting for them.
12) Specify shipping cutoff dates
The pandemic continues to impact shipping and handling times, which makes setting up a clear plan for order fulfillment even more important for Mother’s Day this year. Reach out to your suppliers to determine their shipping capacity, add a few days as a buffer, and let customers know the dates they should get their gifts in time for Mother’s Day!
13) Set up a giveaway
This type of campaign can be combined with a variety of Mother’s Day marketing ideas – a classic giveaway/sweepstakes! Join forces with other ecommerce businesses to put together some of your best-sellers that also make great Mother’s Day gifts, and encourage all your followers to enter.
Whether they need to sign up with their email address to be eligible to win or just simply follow your social media accounts, it can be a great way to build brand awareness. Particularly if your products are in a highly purchased category, consider pairing up with a company that is also niche and offers complementary products.
Take for example the Bouqs and Paper Source collaboration below. One of the reasons it’s so effective is because Bouqs is a flower company and Paper Source is a greeting card company, so their target audience when it comes to Mother’s Day shopping is probably very similar, and at the very least, can be a successful brand awareness campaign for both businesses.
Tip: If you’re running your sweepstakes on Facebook and Instagram, make part of the eligibility requirement by leaving a comment. This will often make reaching out to the winner much easier!
14) Offer gift cards
It can sometimes be an easy step to overlook but alongside all the other marketing campaigns you run for Mother’s Day, remember to always include the option for shoppers to buy gift cards. Whether they are getting one for their mothers or would like to treat themselves, a gift card can be a versatile purchase for the holiday that lets shoppers decide on what they most want from your online store later on.
Tip: If your ecommerce business is run on Shopify, the platform is now offering the option to include gift cards as a product listing no matter what plan you’re on!
15) Write up a blog post
While the bulk of your Mother’s Day marketing campaigns can focus on the products and services you offer, now is also a good time to be a resource in a different way for your followers. Consider putting together an article with ideas of what some fun Mother’s Day activities can be. This type of blog post is particularly relevant if your store is oriented more towards children’s products, as your followers will likely be parents. You can include the article in your website’s designated blog section, or send it as an individual email newsletter to your subscribers.
16) Run a free gift with a purchase promotion
It’s a classic marketing strategy for a reason! While most people are looking to buy gifts for Mother’s Day, adding a freebie in the mix can not only serve as an extra treat for the buyer or gift recipient, it’s also a way to introduce customers to other products your online store offers, at no extra cost to them, while they get their shopping done for the holiday. If you’re stumped on what products to offer for free, you can also consider offering a gift card for all (or qualifying, if your goal is also to increase order value) purchases!
17) BOGO sale
Great gifts for moms can also mean great gifts for their children! If customers find products that not only want to get for their mothers but themselves as well, you can offer them the opportunity to do so at no extra cost to them with a BOGO sale.
18) Go on Facebook and/or Instagram Live
One of the more popular Mother’s Day marketing ideas that more and more e-commerce businesses are using for all sorts of promotions is going on Facebook and Instagram Live to generate more buzz for their online store. Particularly as the option for in-person events is limited, launching a live stream can be a great way to connect with your audience even if you can’t all be together in the same place. Your stream can focus on a specific workshop, sneak peeks on your Mother’s Day collection, or even reflections on the holiday.
Tip: To encourage more people to tune in, offer a specific discount code that customers can only have access to through viewing the live stream!
19) Make video content for the occasion
While Instagram and Facebook Lives can be repurposed as standalone videos, creating a separate video campaign for your YouTube channel and other social media platforms can allow for better planning and higher production value. It can also be useful for remarketing purposes. You can monitor view times through your ad managers and identify viewers who engaged the most with the video based on watch time. To redirect followers to the video, you can also include it in your email marketing campaigns, as Natural Life did.
20) Set up social media campaigns
While you help customers find the right gift for Mother’s Day, this holiday can also be a great time to start a dialogue with your followers and hear from them about their experiences with their moms and motherhood. Consider setting up a specific prompt or more, and encouraging responses on your social media accounts. If you’re reaching out to followers on Instagram, consider also designating a specific hashtag they can use for their posts (this is also a great way to encourage user-generated content!).
21) Mother’s Day messaging
There are all different types of mothers and mother figures so as you plan your Mother’s Day marketing campaigns, don’t feel restricted in your messaging. For example, including grandmothers and other important women mentors in your content can help your followers connect more with your ideas and lead to campaigns that resonate with a wider audience.
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