International Women’s Day is March 8. The goal of this day is to celebrate the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating women’s equality. It’s also a part of Women’s History Month, taking place throughout all of March.
It has also become another “e-commerce holiday” that successful brands utilize to promote products, sales, and missions. That’s why creative and innovative IWD marketing campaigns can help bring you to the next level in what might also be a less-than-busy sales time.
To get you inspired to take on the challenge, we’ll share how International Women’s Day can help you grow your sales and improve cash flow. We’ll also reveal some top product and marketing ideas, plus real-life examples to inspire you to show up and show out on this one-of-a-kind holiday.
International Women’s Day Marketing for E-commerce
- How International Women’s Day Can Help You Scale Your E-commerce Brand
- 5 International Women’s Day Marketing Ideas
- International Women’s Day Marketing Inspiration
How International Women’s Day Can Help You Scale Your E-commerce Brand
International Women’s Day is not a traditional “sales holiday” in the way events like Prime Day, Black Friday, or Cyber Monday are. It is certainly designed more around female empowerment and equality.
Does it make sense to invest resources toward promoting this event? While we highly recommend consulting your buyer personas to see if this is a relevant effort for your business, running International Women’s Day marketing campaigns could certainly pay off.
Increased Traffic Can Help Boost Lead Volume
On International Women’s Day, people of all genders from all around the globe take to the internet to share interesting facts, words of encouragement, and acknowledgements of the important women in their life.
Community-minded brands can take advantage of the elevated traffic to start conversations with potential customers, kickstart a relationship with new buyers, and increase their overall number of qualified leads.
Get Ahead of Gift-Giving Opportunities
In the run-up to International Women’s Day, many online shoppers will be seeking out gifts to say thank you to the women in their lives. This holiday also comes on the back end of Valentine’s Day, when people are shopping for gifts for their loved ones.
Bundling complementary products can help boost average order value while making it easy for shoppers to deliver gifts with a little extra wow. Plus, this helps your buyers think less and spend more.
Boost Cash Flow to Subsidize Slow Seasons
With the state of the supply chain where it is, merchants need to be increasingly far ahead in inventory planning and purchase orders.
Unfortunately, this leaves even less time to generate the cash flow needed to cover these orders. Your Q4/holiday sales may get you through the first half of the year, but how do you make up the difference to get through the rest of the year.
By leaning into relevant holidays like International Women’s Day, you can boost your sales and drive that cash flow for future seasons.
5 International Women’s Day Marketing Ideas
As more brands catch on to the revenue potential from IWD, just having products geared toward women is no longer enough.
To really steal the show, it’s essential to ace two key areas — your product and your marketing.
1. Launch a Competition
There are so many opportunities here! Launching a competition will help generate buzz about your brand and your products, and it will also help create a bank of user-generated content that you can use (with permission) throughout the rest of the year.
Keep the competition relevant to your product and your brand. From there, the possibilities are endless for competitions you could run:
- What’s an unconventional way to use your product?
- How many orders has your top customer purchased from you?
- How tall can you make a stack of your products?
- Can you make any new recipes with your products?
There are so many options with this marketing tactic. See what kind of social content your competitors (or even your loyal customers) are posting, and learn from what resonates with your target audience. Create a specific hashtag to accompany the promotion, and you’ve just created a bank of UGC.
2. Create a Product Bundle or Gift Basket
Depending on your niche, you might not even need to create a brand-new product line for International Women’s Day.
All you really need is some creativity and an ad budget.
Simply repackage your existing products into offers catering to the wants and needs of your target customers who identify as female.
For example, say you sell hair care products, you could offer a free detangling brush with every product. Or, if you sell skin creams and face masks, you could create bundling around goals or feelings your target user wants to achieve like “relaxation,” “reenergizing,” and “reset”.
Additionally, you can create “gift baskets” or bundles with decorative wrapping, and potentially sell it for even more per item, again increasing that AOV. It’s not just about grouping products. It’s about grouping them together in a way that people want them.
3. Refresh an Email Marketing Campaign
Another great way to get your audience engaged is through a tailored email marketing campaign. For maximum conversions, combine education, entertainment, and purchase opportunities.
To get started, here are some ideas you can incorporate into your email marketing for International Women’s Day:
- Take your email subscribers on a fun ride acknowledging the bravery, leadership, and pioneering work of women past and present.
- Provide exclusive discounts and promos to your list to celebrate the big day.
- Share “day in the life” content to shine the light on your female staff and acknowledge their contribution.
- Ask your community who is on their list of inspirational women and share answers on social media.
Make sure your content is authentic. Only post content uplifting women if it reflects your company’s core values and internal practices. Shoppers can sniff out phony brand messaging a mile away!
4. Customize Content Across Your Website & Social Media
A great way to drum up excitement and encourage people to hit “buy” is to spread the word about Women’s Day on your website and social channels.
People lead busy lives. It’s easy to forget events that aren’t as big as Christmas, Boxing Day, etc. Your content will act as a friendly nudge to encourage consumers who want to celebrate Women’s Day to start shopping and learn more about this global event.
Here are some fun ways you can inform and remind shoppers of the big event:
- Create a dedicated landing page highlighting what International Women’s Day is all about.
- Craft blog, image, and video content about International Women’s Day and market it with paid ads and social media.
- Share special messages from your social media followers and email subscribers to their loved ones.
- Optimize your product pages and banners with a “Happy International Women’s Day” or “Happy Women’s History Month” message.
- Create flash sales and limited-time promos using a code that is unique to this event.
5. Create New Video Content
Video marketing is on the rise. With channels like TikTok and Instagram reels, algorithms prefer video content. It can be both labor- and capital-intensive to create this kind of content.
Create a video series discussing and celebrating topics like equality, womanhood, and motherhood. Start with the people in your office (and, yes, get the men involved), and then encourage your customers to submit their videos too.
International Women’s Day Marketing Inspiration
Barbie Role Models/”Sheroes”
As part of The Barbie Dream Gap Project, Mattel has released a new set of “Role Model” dolls to inspire young girls. These dolls are created from influential women from a variety of industries, professions, and more. Recent inspirations include the likes of Shonda Rhimes, Bebe Vio, Dr. Maggie Aderin-Pocock, Naomi Osaka, and so many more.
Why This Works:
Barbie is finding a way to inspire young women. If you’ve seen the latest movie, that was the intention of the toy since the beginning. However, over the years, some of that got lost in translation with fashion efforts.
Mattel creates these dolls based on powerful women across the globe, with proceeds of these purchases going back to women-oriented organizations. It’s a win-win for all parties involved.
CPB London’s Change the Narrative Project
CPB London is a marketing agency that has helped with countless projects all over the world. In 2023, as part of their IWD efforts, they launched the Double Standards campaign. This campaign was designed to bring to light the different word choices used to explain similar behavior between men and women, comparisons like “assertive” and “bossy” or “passionate” and “hysterical”.
Why This Works:
This campaign perfectly balances action from men with strengthening a woman’s voice. It might be International Women’s Day, but we need men to buy into equality as well. By bringing to light some of the struggles that women go through, we can all become better.
Lottie London’s #embraceTRANSition
In 2023, this makeup brand launched their #embraceTRANSition campaign to celebrate transgender women’s experiences and also educate the community on proper terminology and steps involved in transitioning. The brand wanted to encourage allyship and donated 10% of sales to a worthwhile cause.
Why This Works:
The theme for IWD 2024 is #InspireInclusion, which means inclusion for ALL. Lottie London’s campaign brings to light a community of people that go through the same (and more) struggles daily. Female-oriented companies are becoming more inclusive because that is what is needed this day and age. This was a creative and necessary angle to take for IWD.
Deliver a High-Impact International Women’s Day Campaign
International Women’s Day is both an undercover moneymaker and genuine opportunity for e-commerce brands to show up and do good.
With a little creativity and a charitable spirit, you can win the hearts of shoppers and increase cash flow ahead of the peak season rush.
Start preparing your winning marketing campaigns and products. Partner with like-minded brands and influencers and get ready to make an impact. With the right strategy and approach, your brand’s International Women’s Day campaign just might be the next one to inspire many others.
