Do you know that 72% of retailers enhanced their investment in Holiday Mobile Marketing Campaign last year as compared to the previous year? Customers are riddled with holiday-related SMS marketing promotions and social media ads as soon as November hits; so, as a business, how can you break through the noise of the season and gain the attention of your audience?
SMS marketing can be the solution to your holiday campaign woes. When you have created an opt-in list of people who want to receive your SMS marketing promotions, implement the following tactics for successful SMS marketing on holidays.
These tips are equally practical for your SMS marketing campaign for events like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and throughout the season.
1. Holiday Coupons for SMS Subscribers
Holidays are a perfect opportunity to increase the list of subscribers to SMS marketing promotions. If you haven’t already explored SMS marketing, it’s a good time to do so. No matter what your business is, if you have a physical space where you communicate with people, do advertise your SMS marketing opt-in code and incentives that you offer with it.
Your promotion message can look like, “Join our SMS list to get exclusive deals this holiday season.” This call-to-action increases the probability of people opting-in to your SMS marketing campaign and get engaged to your brand.
However, if your company is largely focused online, you can use your social media and email marketing to promote the benefits that you offer to your SMS marketing subscribers. More the opt-ins greater would be your customer engagement in the long term.
2. Create a Loyalty Program with Shopping Points
When you have new opt-ins, send a welcome message to your list and give a new subscription coupon as a token of appreciation. Introduce a system of holiday shopping points to help build loyalty. You can be creative about how you organize the system if you give the customers a chance to collect points, proportional to the money they spend. The loyalty point can then be traded with bonuses at the end of the holiday (which could consist of more coupons, discounts, and free items, etc.).
Customers also appreciate text reminders and alerts when stock is either low or replenished for products or services that they regularly buy.
3. Send Greetings and Happy Texts
It is frowned upon to be a Scrooge or a burdensome marketer during this time of year. Even if you’re tempted to drive sales by SMS marketing, don’t. Let your subscribers know that you are not invading their inbox overly and without reason.
Build a relationship with subscribers, raise brand awareness, send occasional friendly greetings via SMS, and send them warm holiday wishes during the season. However, try not to assume which holiday your opt-ins celebrate, so keep it general.
And after you get through the holiday season, start applying these tactics to the new year to attract your followers and keep them engaged with your brand.
4. Time-limited Holiday Sales
This holiday season, you can beef up your sales by making your customers decide to buy by having flash sales and last-minute offers.
You can use SMS to inform your customers about these sales, as the delivery time in SMS is almost instant and reliable.
Alert your customers when your bestsellers are about to get out of stock and build a sense of urgency. Also, notify when new stocks arrive in your store.
5. Gift ideas as a service
Choosing the perfect gifts is one of the frustrating aspects of holiday shopping for many of us. Not everyone wants to shop or has the time to find something that’s perfect.
Brands and retailers could encourage consumers to subscribe to a service that provides gift ideas based on the generic descriptions – age, sex, or interests – of people on their gift list.
This would not only assist those in need of gift ideas but would also enable brands and retailers to engage consumers throughout the holiday season and feature new products and promotions.
6. Don’t Overdo
SMS Marketing is about finding the right balance for the frequency of your marketing messages. If you send to many text messages, you’re going to turn people off. If you send fewer, they will forget about you.
There is no precise frequency that holds good to all businesses, but, in general, 1-4 messages per month is a good start.
Don’t forget to tell your subscribers how to opt-out of your SMS marketing campaigns and promotions.
7. Make it Fun for Subscribers
Customer engagement is not just about offering services and giving coupons. It is also about making it fun for your subscribers. On holidays you can use text messages to drive your opt-ins to a fun contest or promotion on your mobile web page.
Send scavenger hunting clues via text as means of driving traffic to your online store or landing page on your website. Or just write a reminder for an exclusive holiday event. You can also link it to a Holiday Gift guide that you have on your blog.
Be imaginative, and the possibilities are endless!
Summing Up
Don’t wait till the eleventh hour, this year to include Holiday text messaging in your SMS Marketing Campaigns. Whether you’re an online retailer or you’re running a brick and mortar business, make sure you have all the resources in place to meet your customers on their mobile phones. If you are not sure how to do it, contact an excellent SMS marketing service and let the pros handle it for you.
Ready to start mass messaging campaign?
Tell us about your task and we will offer a suitable solution.
