Father’s Day, though perhaps not as widely celebrated as its counterpart dedicated to mothers (sorry, Dads), is nonetheless a significant occasion to recognize the impactful fathers in our lives. And 2024 is poised to be the most lucrative yet for retailers, with substantial spend expected on tech accessories, personal care items, fitness apparel, clothing, and gifting.
Despite persistent inflationary pressures and the increasing cost of living stifling consumer spending in most areas, special occasions have been the exception. Both Valentine’s and Mother’s Day saw record spending, and Father’s Day is set to be no different. Over the past decade, Father’s Day spending in the U.S. has generally increased annually, reaching a record-breaking $22.9BN in 2023 – a 14.5% uplift on the previous year.
With June being traditionally a flat month for online spending, typically dipping around 30% below the months towards the end of the year, Father’s Day presents a timely opportunity for marketers to capitalize on consumers’ inclination to prioritize red-letter days.
The challenge, of course, is staying top-of-mind when consumers are ready to make a purchase, amidst fierce competition from other retailers. Consumers often hopscotch between multiple tabs, channels, and platforms, making it essential to maintain visibility. With that in mind, here are six messaging strategies to boost sales and deliver campaigns that would get your Dad’s nod of approval.
Father’s Day Messaging Best Practice
When it comes to driving those all-important sales, email and text are the preeminent channels, considering their cost-effectiveness and capacity for precise targeting and true personalization. An average triggered email drives merely $0.04 in revenue compared to $0.95 from Wunderkind — the difference is Wunderkind’s performance marketing engine that recognizes more of your website traffic so that you can send truly personalized, 1:1 triggered emails and text messages that drive performance.
1. Get ready ahead of time
Without leaning into clichés, let’s not leave things to the last minute like Dads and gift shopping. Given that a significant portion of Father’s Day spending happens in the week leading up to it, it’s crucial for retailers to be well-prepared for this relatively short buying window.
Generally, you can seldom start too early, so launching in April establishes a strong presence from the outset that accommodates both early planners and last-minute shoppers. Buying, of course, is merely the end of the purchasing process. The initial pushes along the sales funnel should be happening in the weeks and months prior.
2. Remember your value proposition
Showcase your best-suited products whether it be tech, fitness, or apparel, as well as any specific deals you might have, and emphasize why customers should choose you over the competition. Additionally, considering that Father’s Day isn’t a celebration for everyone, offering recipients the option to opt out of Father’s Day marketing is a great way of fostering better brand-consumer relationships and avoiding bombarding them with potentially upsetting content.
3. Create a gift guide
This is an easy win for highlighting your Father’s Day specific products and can be segmented into gifting categories such as tech-savvy dads, foodie dads, sporty dads, etc. Family structures have changed a huge amount over the years, and a curated gift guide can help you reflect that too, for stepdads, moms who do both roles, and so on.
4. Help with a last-minute prompt
Dads and customers alike can sometimes forget important dates. Help those who might need a gentle reminder by sending email notifications with last shipping days, special offers, and alternative options. As the big day approaches, follow up with text reminders. This presents a perfect chance to highlight experiences or gift cards, eliminating the need for physical delivery.
5. Use text for real-time customer engagement
Utilize text to reinforce messages one day before an offer expires, serving as a timely reminder and gently nudging customers towards making a purchase. Real-time customer updates, time-sensitive offers, and tracking information will elevate your text initiatives and enhance the customer experience.
6. Upsell in the confirmation email
You’ll be sending a confirmation email anyway, so why not take the opportunity to try and accrue some additional sales. Maybe some artisan coffee to go with the “World’s Best Dad” mug. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.
The unmatched performance marketing channel, driving 8-10% of your digital revenue for Father’s Day
79% of U.S. adults celebrate Father’s Day, and forward-thinking retail brands are turning to Wunderkind to identify this surge in website traffic and use it to intelligently trigger the best offer in real-time to a given visitor across multiple channels.
What will make marketers proud during Father’s Day activity is to convert as much traffic into sales as possible. But the journey can take time. Getting the perfect gift takes some consideration, and as with all purchases, brands see far more visitors browse and bounce than purchase on every visit. All-too-many brands will chase those visitors around the web with remarketing ads, trying to stay top-of-mind, tempting them back to their website for the opportune time when they’re ready to purchase. This isn’t the way.
Identity resolution, and the ability to use it to intelligently trigger the best offer in real-time to a given visitor across multiple channels, is the key to not only scaling revenue but delivering guaranteed revenue-as-a-service on your owned properties. Wunderkind is the only solution that guarantees a lift in revenue powered by our unique ID graph and customer data, along with our best practices.
Recognize your audience on Father’s Day
Last year, Wunderkind recognized over 9 billion consumer devices (roughly double the amount of active global consumers), equating to trillions of browsing events and crucially, $5BN in revenue for our clients.
By recognizing shoppers regardless of cookie or login status and across multiple devices, browsers, and sessions that users shop for big-ticket purchases, you can retarget your most valuable site traffic throughout the consumer journey and drive more revenue than is otherwise possible with just your ESP.
So begin early, personalize, and keep your customers updated. And remember what works, or doesn’t work, can also be applied to back-to-school, Black Friday weekend, and beyond.