The one and perhaps the only one thing that dads and moms have in common, is providing a great retail opportunity for marketers. There is no doubt Father’s Day (Sunday June 15^th) represents an ever growing online retail sales opportunity.  All online sales indicators are up this year so a seasonal promotion may be in order.

Here are 6 tips for making this year’s Father’s day an online bonanza:

1 – Give Them What They Want and How They Want it

Make sure your site and your email marketing campaigns are mobile optimized – test, and test again. Your message has to reach your consumer wherever they happen to be, and be consumed however they want to consume it.

If reading, browsing and shopping for your products are difficult, you’re probably going to leave money on the table, as your potential customers can’t research and buy the items the way they want.

For example, ZAGG really leverages the mobile canvas when it comes to design. Their emails direct users right over to the relevant landing pages – no breaks in the user experience. Keep the design bold, clean and with a clear call to action.

2 – Get Your Search-Marketing Right

There are great opportunities for seasonal offers with a specialized landing page, a pay-per-click campaign and a proactive reminder-style email campaign.

If you’re a merchant with a bricks-and-mortar store, ensure consistency in your company details across you website, and your local SEO properties, like your Yelp profile and all social sites – especially Google+.

The bulk of interaction with a company or brand on mobile is for research. If your store details and hours of operation aren’t in Google’s map results, that’s a lot of search traffic you could be forfeiting.

There are two additional tools you can use to leverage search. The first is Google Trends, which compares search volume patterns across regions. If you’re going local, figure out what your potential customers are looking for.  The second is Google Correlate, which is essentially Google Trends in reverse. You can explore phrases with the same search volume as your target term, within a region, and discover what else your audiences are searching for.

3 – Timing and Context

Unlike Mother’s Day, many activities around Father’s Day aren’t planned as far in advance. Why that is I do not know… The best time to email customers to remind them about Father’s Day is four to five days before – Wednesday 4 June would be a good day to do this.

Be specific and direct in your messaging. Digital Strategy Consulting saw targeted emails with a Father’s Day subject line focus receiving 14% more opens and CTRs than the average over the period May 29 – June 13 2013. Don’t ‘bury the lede’ – ensure, for example, that your email marketing hero imagery matches your subject line, and that you’ve got your call-to-action on top and cross-sell options not too far down the email.

Here’s a great example from 2013 by a retail company called Metro Candy. Great imagery, mobile-friendly, a sweet offer and a yummy call-to-action.

4 – Know Your Audience

How much is your target audience spending, and what are they spending it on? To know what they’re not buying is key when planning your marketing campaign. According to Experian, a large proportion of Father’s Day search traffic in 2013 was for personalized gifts (cufflinks, mugs, etc.), tech-related accessories (iPhone wallets, headphones, etc.) and ‘homemade gifts’.

In addition, they reported a rise in the number of people who never buy greetings cards – up to 45% of all surveyed shoppers. However, the number of greetings sent via email, text and social has increased: 1 in 10 now send a digital greeting – you might want to consider bundling in the option for your customers to build an e-greeting card to accompany their digital purchase.

5 – Data Capture & Responsible Use 

At the checkout stage, are you capturing that this purchase is a gift? Are you going on to cross-check whether it’s a Father’s Day gift? If so, how are you then using that information? In an automation platform, such as OM3, you might enroll them into an ‘anniversary’ program, reminding them in a year to make another purchase, including recommendation, or upsell items from your ecommerce site.

Consider using our program builder, to identify the behaviors most beneficial to the sale – opens, abandoned carts and past purchase value.

6 – Think Social

Social media is a great way to enrich your data lists – and visa-versa – your subscribers will power your social follow-ship.

Platforms such as Woobox,  ShortStack and Offerpop allow you to build webforms and ‘like-gated’ competition draws within Facebook, without breaking their terms and conditions. These forms allow you to build seasonal promotions like a Father’s Day contest, that allow for engagement while allowing users to opt-in to email marketing.

RED5’s photo-voting contest (click to enlarge)

Market these to your existing lists to grow your social presence.