Smart brands are discovering a powerful revenue secret: seasonal gifting occasions. While many companies focus their gifting strategies on Q4, they're missing billions in opportunities throughout the year. With Valentine's Day alone driving $28.5 billion in consumer spending, the potential is massive. Join us as we explore data-driven strategies to transform seasonal moments into consistent revenue drivers for your brand.

The Gifting Shift: Drive Revenue All Year Round

The global gifting market is undergoing a dramatic transformation. Projected to reach $94 billion by 2031, it's growing at 3.74% each year. Why? Simply put, today's consumers aren't limiting their gift purchases to December. 

A study of over 1,000 shoppers revealed that most (81%) buy birthday gifts throughout the year, and significant portions are also purchasing for Mother's Day (47%), Father's Day (35%), and Valentine’s Day (37%).

On Valentine's Day, consumers expect to spend $185.81 each on average, according to data from the National Retail Federation. What’s more, the opportunity extends beyond traditional categories like flowers and chocolates. Consumers also plan to purchase higher-value gifts such as jewelry (22%) and clothing (21%).

To sum up, while many brands still operate with a holiday-first mindset, there are valuable revenue streams throughout the year.

Find Your Brand's Perfect Gifting Occasions

Building a successful gifting strategy starts with identifying the occasions that naturally align with your brand and products. While some brands have obvious gifting moments (like flowers for Valentine's Day), others need to dig deeper into their data to uncover opportunities.

The first step is examining your existing customer behavior for gift-buying signals. Does the gender of the product differ from the gender of the buyer? Are items being shipped to addresses different from billing addresses? Are there patterns in when these behaviors occur? These data points can reveal gifting occasions you might be overlooking.

Beyond the holidays, consider how your products might fulfill gifting needs throughout the year. The key is matching your brand's strengths with specific gifting moments—whether that's personal milestones, relationship celebrations, or seasonal traditions.

Success Stories: How 3 Brands Maximized Different Holidays

Before founding Daasity, I led data strategy at ProFlowers and its sister brands. The experience taught me valuable lessons about using data to drive gifting revenue. Here's what we discovered about turning seasonal moments into revenue drivers.

ProFlowers: Maximizing Traditional Gifting Occasions

Valentine's Day and Mother's Day were natural fits for ProFlowers—who doesn't buy flowers for their mom on Mother's Day? But even with obvious gifting occasions, data helped us optimize our approach. 

We learned that procrastination was predictable, with Valentine's Day orders peaking on February 12-13. While overnight delivery meant we could accept these last-minute orders, timing was still critical. 

We transformed our website 10-14 days before the holiday, added countdown timers to create urgency, and critically, simplified our product selection as we got closer to the date. The fewer choices we offered in those final days, the better our conversion rates.

Red Envelope: Elevating Gift-Giving Through Personalization

Our data showed that our core customer was typically an affluent, middle-aged woman looking for meaningful gifts. Instead of competing in traditional gift categories, we leaned into personalized items—customized jewelry, monogrammed office accessories, and unique keepsakes. 

This strategy helped transform Valentine's Day from a flowers-and-chocolate holiday into an opportunity for more personal, lasting gifts.

Personal Creations: Uncovering New Audiences

At Personal Creations, we noticed an interesting trend: Grandparents were frequently purchasing personalized items for their grandchildren. This insight led us to develop specialized campaigns, featuring items like customizable plush toys, books, and treasure boxes. 

As a result, we unlocked an entirely new gifting audience that most brands weren't targeting.

How to Identify and Engage Your Best Gifting Audiences

Not all gift shoppers are created equal. By segmenting your audience based on their gifting behavior and potential, you can tailor your marketing approach and timing for optimal results. Here are three key segments and how to approach them:

Segment #1: Previous Gift Buyers

Your most valuable segment consists of customers with a proven gift-buying history. Look for telltale signals, like different shipping and billing addresses, gift wrap additions, or selecting "gift" in checkout surveys. Focus especially on high value customers who have already gifted on multiple occasions—they're likely to become repeat gift buyers.

Segment #2: Likely Gift Givers

These customers show promising indicators but haven't explicitly purchased gifts. Watch for patterns like buying across different size ranges or gender categories than their own profile suggests. Cross-category purchases during traditional gifting periods can also signal gift-buying potential.

Segment #3: General Gift Audience

This broader segment requires different messaging and timing. Start marketing to them slightly later than your proven gift buyers, focusing on holiday-themed messaging and "don't forget someone special" reminders. 

3 Tips for Gifting Campaigns

1. Time Your Campaign Messaging 

Timing is crucial for gifting campaigns. Traditional gift brands (like flowers or chocolates) can start closer to the occasion, whereas brands offering alternative gift choices need more time to change consumer mindsets. 

For example, at Red Envelope and Personal Creations, we launched SMS and email campaigns mid-January to establish our personalized items as Valentine's gifts.

Regardless of how early you start your campaigns, you'll always have last-minute shoppers—so, optimize your fulfillment capabilities and clearly communicate cutoff dates.

2. Keep It Simple

Fewer options can lead to better conversion rates in the final days before Valentine's Day. As shipping deadlines approach, streamline your gift selection to prevent decision paralysis and speed up the purchase process.

3. Let Data Guide Your Demographics

Look beyond traditional gift-giving personas. At Personal Creations, our data revealed that grandparents were a major gifting audience—something we would have missed without carefully analyzing customer patterns.