Seize the [Mother’s] Day: 4 Mother’s Day Ideas for Retailers

This is the first Mother’s Day that I’ve ever been married, so now I have two mothers to shop for. My whole life, Mother’s Day gifts were always easy to think of. My mom is easy to shop for. She loves help around her house; she loves fun knick-knacks for the living room; she loves new outfits. My mom is probably the easiest woman in the world to shop for, and I never realized how lucky I am. Until this May.

All of a sudden I have a new woman to shop for who I don’t know nearly as well as my mom. She likes knicks-knacks and outfits, too, but not as much as my mom, and totally different kinds. And my husband is no help, because despite living with her for two decades, he hasn’t figured out what his mom likes. So this Mother’s Day I found myself doing something I’ve never done before: I googled ideas for Mother’s Day gifts.

As it turns out, there are a lot of retailers out there working hard to take advantage of Mother’s Day revenue. Revenue that, I found out, is incredibly high. The average person spends $163 for Mother’s Day.

$163.

You and I both know – that’s a good sale. Depending on what you sell, that’s even a great sale. With 84 million+ moms in the US, this is not a day you can afford to miss out on as a retailer.

There’s a plethora of things out there that you could do to encourage shoppers to buy from you this Mother’s Day. You’re limited only by your own creativity. To help you out, I’ve done a lot of research for you on different ways to take advantage of Mother’s Day. Check out the following list of ideas.

1. Create a Mother’s Day specific product.

Many people like easy mom-themed gifts to pick up for Mother’s Day. These kinds of items basically (or literally) have “mom” written all over them, making it easy to know what to get your mom.

Mom-themed gifts need to be something that your customers can easily imagine fitting into their mom’s life – particularly her special Mother’s Day. I recommend items like pajamas you sell only around this time, and have your sales people point out to kids how mom can wear these during breakfast in bed. Accessories and jewelry stores have the ability to get even more personalized. Create necklaces or bracelets with all the kids’ birthstones (a favorite of my mother-in-law’s, actually).

Mother's Day Gift Items from Zales

One idea I love is creating Mother’s Day baskets – or bundling, if you’re an online retailer. Take some smaller items you have that go together, put them together prettily (in baskets or tied together with ribbons, perhaps), and sell them as one thing. I recommend putting a single price-tag on, simply because people will feel like they’re getting more for their money, even if they aren’t. With my pajama example above, you could put slippers and a robe in a basket – perhaps some hand cream if you have that lying about your store.

For online retailers, bundling is not nearly as pretty, but it does hit that more-for-your-money idea. ProFlowers is really good at this. Many of their Mother’s Day flower arrangements come with chocolates and a colored vase. The genius in this is partially that people certainly feel like they’re getting more for their money. A large part of why this is a great idea, though, is the convenience ProFlowers is offering. Flowers and chocolate are a very common gift-duo. Save your customer the time and hassle of trying to find the second gift by offering it with their purchase.

Check out those awesome bundles.

2. Create a special Mother’s Day display.

You don’t have to have a special Mother’s Day product to do this, but if you do, this display is a perfect place to, well, display it.

Up by the front of your store, put together a small display of merchandise you know moms would love. This can be as simple as pulling together some cardigans, dresses and pants, arranging them tastefully, and putting up a sign about Mother’s Day with them. You can get way more creative, though. For instance, here’s a really unique display.

via Flourish Design & Merchandising

This is an eclectic, but rather ingenius display. It’s set up in a way that looks a lot like mom’s dresser top or vanity – there are some photos, some perfume, a scarf, all items that many moms have arranged in their dressing areas. All of it is set up in a way that looks like someone’s mother already owns all of these items.

There are two main things this display is doing really well.

1. Since it looks like someone’s mother already likes these products, it gives customers confidence that their mother will like these ideas.

2. There’s also a heavy nostalgia factor at play here. This every-mother’s-vanity-top reminds adults of the childhood they miss. This is the perfect feeling to encourage purchases because emotional connections with products sell those products. Plain and simple.

Regardless of your products, you can employ these two features in a display. A shoe store, for instance, could set up a display with “mommy” shoes next to children’s shoes, and maybe some umbrellas or rain coats hanging next to them to make it look like the front entrance to a house.

And you don’t have to be a brick and mortar store to set up these displays. eCommerce stores can set up “displays” on their homepages, or create a special Mother’s Day landing page.

This is a pretty awesone Mother's Day landing page, also from ProFlowers.

In fact eCommerce stores can do a special kind of display pure brick and mortars can’t do…

3. Create an online gift list.

You know how I searched, “What to get your mom for Mother’s Day?” Well, I’m not the only one turning to Google for help. In April of 2014, half a million people searched “mothers day gifts.” (I didn’t spell that wrong. That’s the exact keyword they searched.) If each of those 500k people is going to spend $163, that’s $81.5 million! You want a piece of that. Or all of that. Shoot for the stars.

I suggest creating a special page with a gift suggestions list purposefully to rank for this keyword. This page can serve a dual purpose, too! You can make it easy to navigate to for customers who visit you outside of this keyword and use it as your special virtual Mother’s Day display!

There are a couple of ways to get this list accomplished. If your store blogs, I recommend publishing on there. Come up with a list of great gifts from your store, as well as some homemade ideas (things like free-hugs coupons).

If you don’t blog, or even if you do, you could create a special page just for Mother’s Day items. This page could be anything from a static list with links, to an interactive page that asks a series of questions to find the perfect gift for mom. For this keyword, focus on being helpful. Whatever you do, make sure your page is not aimed at selling, per se, but rather, finding their mother the perfect gift for her.

This is an interesting take on a Mother's Day gift suggestion list, covering many different possible stipulations.

4. Promote!

I may be biased because I’m in marketing, but nothing is ever complete without promotion.

Come up with an email campaign to let your customers know that you have what they’re looking for this Mother’s Day. Start sending your emails between a month to two weeks before Mother’s Day. Send your gift list out (even exclusively brick and mortars can create a list through email!); announce any special products or baskets you’ve created; send out special Mother’s Day coupons; invite them to any special events your store is holding.

And don’t forget your social followers. You can announce special products and things, too, on social, but that’s not what’s going to do best. Try engaging your customers with contests. You could run a Throwback Thursday contest asking your followers to upload a picture of mom from way back when and tag you in it. The follower who gets the most likes gets a shopping spree for them and mom. (Or something more affordable for you.)

This a real #TBT, am I right?

You may even want to try starting a conversation. Ask your followers what makes the perfect Mother’s Day gift (you could offer to make the best ideas), or what their mom wants this holiday.

What else?

Mother’s Day is a great time for retailers. What other Mother’s Day ideas for retailers to use can you think of? Does your store do anything special?