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With the Valentine's Day around the corner, it is hard to resist not dabbling something about it.

We at E-junkie are all about expressing L-O-V-E, but a love of different kind.

We LOVE our readers! We Love minding our own business! And that's exactly what we suggest that E-commerce businesses do this day.

So rather than doing the monotonous "tips to gift your Someone Special" or writing about the sites that offer good deals for the day or coming up with soppy quotes, we decided to keep things simple.

Whether the quality of emotions expressed have much weight or not, sensationalizing the phenomena called Valentine's Day certainly has become the "in-thing".

According to a survey by the National Retail Federation Valentine's day is only second to Christmas in terms of consumer spending in the U.S. Americans, males specially get their pockets holed after the cupid strikes them, with a whopping spending rate of $17.6 billion. Another statistic informs us that this spending aounts to $15 trillion of total American GDP.

Among the top retail industries that never go out of fashion this day are :
  • Jewelry- $1.6 billion
  • Restaurants- $9.5 billion
  • Flowers- $6.6.billion
  • Candy $2.7 billion
  • Greeting cards -$5.5 billion
  • Gift cards 1.1 billion

Economics professor Dr. Kishore Kulkarni of Metro State College opines in this regard that "higher spending gives a better idea for businessmen to go invest some more in the future".

It may seem like a silly day for those who aren't exactly the lovey-dovey types or reserve their expression of "love" for a single day. But for small businesses, the week-long melee of events has a lot to capitalize on.

Moreover, businesses supported by social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest, see a surge of activity during this week. The burning question is how should this should be handled? There might be a huge load of posts that need to be shared or if you are a business that is a Valentine's destination for couple, management issues become crucial.

For those of us who are into doing business online, the small relief is that you don't have to invest so much into "decking-up" your business store for the day as other shopkeepers. It's unfortunately a necessary consequence of modern day advertising!

So if you aren't doing enough or rather lack ideas about how to begin, here are some useful tips to begin right away.

1.Mail-Advantage

Composing a near-perfect giveaway e-mail or discount deals that does not go pooped into the spam box, is a real task for businesses. The simple reason for this is that businesses, big and small, want to do everything correct this day and cash-in the maximum. Well the intentions are good but there is a correct way to go about it too.

What businesses should do is firstly avoid the cliched words like Wow, Clearance, Opportunity for Grabs, Bargain or Discount coupons. They have a ring of spam written all over it. So keep your subject line strong, simple and clean. Overdoing the mail with animated gif's or grammatically wrong write-ups just do not appeal any longer. The consumers have seen it all somewhere. Even if you do not present a completely new idea, at least keep the present things uncluttered.

Also remember that start sending your deals or special offers first to your loyal customers first. This keeps them in the loop and adds a pretty feather to your business reputation.

2.Site-the-Traffic

Since most businesses today are social-media friendly, the pages need to be filled with content that is absorbing. A common trend during the days is to share funny or romantic messages, jokes, quotes and infographics with friends. Now that's a clue about what to do apart from the regular.

Your website is your best tool, so dressing up your landing page with emoticons or festive-related templates will add a small aesthetic touch and inform the visitors that something is "ON" in the page.

Another word of advise is that businesses that are into sharing or accepting posts from their readers, tend to get flooded with requests. While satisfying all your customers is important but don't get frustrated with the workload of filtering the appropriate content that needs to go online. If necessary, cut down on the regular share of work and divert the IT team to handle the traffic surge that happens.

3.Declaration-of-Selling

Most online businesses float great promotional offers for the day as well as the week. A minor mistake that happens in many cases is that businesses lack patience when deals don't materialize instantly. Well that's the underbelly of advertising campaigns- endless efforts, minimal results!

But no need to be disheartened at the first dip in the curve. Things take time to catch up. As an additional word of advise, businesses should not rush in to announce a "Out-of-Stock" or "Sold" tag at the first deal that comes to fruition. Wait for a better offer and this also gives all the other customers a chance to participate equally. Putting up such signs on the website reflects badly on one's customer service due to lack of back up inventory.

4.Find Your Affiliate Partner

While the couples celebrate the day showing their love for their someone special or the Singles brood go 'partner-hunting', businesses need to find the perfect sites to host affiliate programs. This facilitates marketing your promotional offers and help submit coupon codes.If you already have an affiliate program in place, you can extend your services to the lesser ones this day. That's some business philanthrophy!

5.Campaign Gear

Most businesses are adherents of the PPC campaign model. However, come this day what's important is to showcase relevant ads that meet consumer demands. If you are a new PPC user, it is better to run a few test ads with Google AdWords to have a great conversion rate .

Valentine's Day may not be a national holiday per say but the fervor equates to something of such enormity, no doubt. It's best to capitalize on the day. So businesses be grateful to the Cupid that strikes gold for you!

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