The holiday season is just ahead of us, and most businesses are already feeling the pressure. Last year’s retail spending almost hit a trillion-dollar mark. During this time, retailers usually explore all the tech-savvy tactics to connect with potential customers. Just like last year, text marketing will likely play a crucial role during this year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
That is because text marketing is spam-free, has a higher open rate, and attracts higher ROI. But to get the best out of text marketing, you need a solid marketing strategy for your small business. That will be our topic of focus in this post.
If you want to learn more about SMS marketing before jumping into the text marketing strategy for small businesses, you can check out these blog posts first:
Let's get started to fly your small business with an effective SMS marketing strategy! 🚀
Here are 7 tips for a successful text marketing strategy for Black Friday & Cyber Monday:
1. Prepare Your Customers
Text marketing is a permission-based marketing strategy for small businesses. Fortunately, customers have an easy way to opt themselves in or out of SMS texts, right in the palm of their hands 🤳-- their mobile smartphones. Unlike many other marketing channels, text marketing is only accessible by customer request, which means that the level of engagement business owners see from customers through text messages is extremely high.
If your audience opted in to receive promo text from you, that is a good indication that they want to be updated on important deals. So, it is your responsibility to ensure that you will be offering them exciting opportunities via mass text messaging. Innovative ways to promote engagement could include early access to new products, flash sales, and exclusive invitations to increase the loyalty of members.
2. Timing Is Everything: Send Real-Time Text Messages
Marketing experts expect sales to hit all-time highs. And due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, retailers might experience strained shipping capacity. To avoid this challenge, you can offer your Black Friday sales in advance via business texting services. Schedule your text marketing messages in advance. Besides this, also be aware of the time that most customers are active on their phones. You don’t want your text to be considered an annoyance or be ignored.
Bonus: Early evenings, when people are relaxing, or mornings, when customers are arriving for work and checking their phones, are usually the best times to send your text messages.
3. Personalize Your Text Marketing Messages
A text marketing message is considered more personal to your audience than social media or email, for example. So, try to mention your relationship with your client. Do it in a way that shows the customer that they are special and wanted. This could mean including their or reminding them of their loyalty and rewarding them for the same.
For this, you can include their name instead of using general terms in your text marketing message. How? You can discover here: Why and how to send personalized text messages
4. Send Texts with Promo Code
Most customers will want to know why you are contacting them and if you have offered them any discount. Offering a promo code will encourage them to convert. After all, Black Friday is one of the biggest shopping holidays of the year. So, you should entice them with a jaw-dropping deal worthy of being treated as a Black Friday & Cyber Monday special within your text marketing messages. Reward loyal customers with a text promotion offer.
See examples: Promotional text message template
5. Use Media-Rich Content and Two-Way Texting
Customer service plays a great role in improving sales during the holiday season. Customers who receive excellent customer service tend to spend more at a store. What is even more interesting is that 90% of them are likely to turn into repeat customers. So, offer your customers an additional option to reach you for assistance through two-way text messaging. Some of them may feel frustrated if they can’t reply to your Black Friday SMS. To make your texts juicier, include gift-worthy MMS images. Videos, MMS/pictures, GIFs, and URL links usually engage your audience further.
Discover more: What is the difference between SMS and MMS?
6. Keep Customers Updated on the Sale Process
Customers need to be fully aware of when their orders will arrive. In most cases, they track their orders and even make inquiries when they don’t have enough information. By utilizing text marketing during this Black Friday and Cyber Monday, you can share step-by-step order fulfillment notices with your customers.
7. Track Text Message Campaign Success
You need a way of tracking responses, delivery statuses, and specific promo codes that you use over the Black Friday and Cyber Monday period. When you track these metrics, you can easily measure or compare your text marketing campaigns' success. From this, you can find out which tactics were most effective and what needs to be adjusted for a better outcome.
Actually, text marketing provides you with more opportunities than you can imagine. In today’s increasingly digital consumers, text marketing provides a way to engage with them in a real-time manner. In fact, most of the texts are usually opened within 3 minutes. So, you need to have a solid strategy for Black Friday and Cyber Monday text message campaigns.
Final Remarks on holiday season marketing strategy for small businesses
Text marketing for the holiday season should be interesting to drive engagement. Whereas business owners will want to remind or sometimes provide information to their target customers, it’s equally important to entertain or delight your audiences. Be sure to use mass text messaging to encourage customers to visit your mobile web page with an exciting contest or promotion. Be creative!
Do you want to enhance your brand value and increase your Black Friday & Cyber Monday sales? Join Pony Express today and start using the power of SMS marketing: the best SMS marketing platform
Please leave a comment if you have any questions 🧡
Happy Texting!