How to use the US holiday invasion and SMS marketing to boost your sales
Traditionally Boxing Day is the biggest shopping day in the UK. But last year, the US holiday shopping events on Black Friday and Cyber Monday were also huge events in the UK. If you start planning early, you can take advantage of the special days to boost your holiday sales in 2014.
Black Friday is the day after the American holiday Thanksgiving Day, which occurs on the last Thursday of November. The Friday after Thanksgiving is frequently a day off for many, so retail establishments have been offering specials to get shoppers into their stores since the mid-1920s. The term “Black Friday” first appeared in the 1960s and refers to the companies finally being “in the black” financially after the shopping day.
The much more recent Cyber Monday began back in 2005 as a marketing ploy to get shoppers to buy online, rather than fight through the crowds in brick and mortar stores on Black Friday. Both days however, have become shopping traditions for millions of Americans. And now, Brits as well.
In 2013, Black Friday in the UK saw 113 million online retail site visits. Cyber Monday topped 115 million. For comparison, Boxing Day led both, but just barely with 129 million visits. All these stats are great, but how can you use SMS marketing to make sure you get your share of visits in 2014?
Start an opt in campaign now. Even if you have a list of customers and are already using SMS marketing, you can be sure to add to it if you set up a campaign using the following guidelines.
- Decide on an exclusive deal you’ll offer just to those who sign up for your SMS marketing before Black Friday. This can be early notifications of items or sales, actual discounts or coupons, or perhaps even special in store or online shopping times to avoid the crowds (or slow connections due to surges in Internet traffic).
- Don’t offer these deals anywhere else. The most successful opt in campaigns use exclusivity to encourage people to sign up.
- Choose your keywords, virtual mobile number or short codes to use in the campaign. Set all this up with your SMS service provider. Note custom shortcodes are expensive and take months to set up. But most SMS service providers let you rent keywords on their shortcode.
- Post the sign up information with exclusive deals on your website, on social media sites, in your store, and any other adverts you’re placing. Think of it as being the same as including your phone number or website address on everything.
- Have a plan in place to offer everything you promised to those who signed up. What special offers will you send out and when? How often will you send them?
- To capitalise on the two American holidays, be prepared to offer something that coincides to one or both of the days. Perhaps the night before Black Friday you send out a text message with a special discount code to let your customers know they should visit you first before they make a purchase somewhere else. If you’re offering something for Cyber Monday, send a message letting your customers know about it just before Black Friday so they may choose to wait to purchase using your code. If you do the latter option, make sure it’s a deal they’ll be willing to wait for.
And of course you can use the same list for your Boxing Day deals. Just be careful not to over send during the holiday season. People want to get great deals, but they don’t want to be annoyed.
Related Articles
The Super Amazing Speed of SMS Marketing
One of the greatest advantages of SMS marketing is how fast it is. You might be thinking I'm talking about the almost instantaneous delivery rates, or how quick it is to write a message and send it to your entire list - but this time we're talking about how fast you can get results.
B2B Needs to Get Mobile and Digital
Businesses that sell to other businesses (B2B) are having trouble keeping up in the digital and mobile age. That’s according to a couple of eMarketer articles. The reasons for it are varied, but it may be mostly because they’ve been slow to acknowledge a change in culture.
SMS Marketing For The Equestrian Sector
The British Equestrian Trade Association’s findings from their National Equestrian Survey 2015 put the economic value of the equestrian sector at £4.3 billion of consumer spending across a wide range of goods and services, with the average spend per horse during the same year at £3600. It is an incredibly varied industry encompassing all types of businesses from sole traders making a living in remote areas to multinational companies. Their customer base typically tends to be busy people who lead largely outdoor lifestyles so the obvious and most effective means of communicating with them is by mobile phone, yet very few equestrian businesses appear to be utilising SMS text messaging marketing. So how could businesses in this sector benefit from this method of marketing?
SMS Messaging Makes for Great Customer Service
It was late Thursday afternoon on a busy week when I heard the familiar jingle. I received a text message from the company I rented a DVD from about a week prior (I know, who rents DVDs these days - but stay with me). They wanted to ask if I’d forgotten about it, since I hadn’t yet returned it. Indeed I had forgotten.
Enhancing Two-Way SMS Messaging with Autoresponders
SMS messaging can be a one-way, or a two-way affair. Sending coupons, sale notifications, or event announcements are all one-way messaging. The recipient doesn’t need to reply in order to use the information sent. In two-way messaging though, recipients can reply to your messages. And that makes it much more interesting, engaging, and potentially a lot more work to manage.
Attention! The mCommerce Summit is Happening Now
Mobile Marketer is holding the mCommerce Summit: State of Mobile Commerce 2016 today in New York City. And you'll get to find out what happens when I get back and write about it next week. But today, I'm going to give you a sneak peak at what I'm seeing in New York at this moment. Before I do though, be sure to check our fastsms Twitter feed throughout the day. I'll be sharing the best tidbits as they come up in each session as they happen.
What Your Customers Want From SMS Marketing
Mobile marketing offers an unprecedented access to your customers virtually any time, anywhere. This is particularly true for SMS marketing because it is “always on”. Customers don’t have to be surfing the web, or using an app to receive messages. Instead, they see the marketing messages right alongside ones from their friends and family.
How to Use SMS and The Olympics to Boost Business
Almost any business, or even a not-for-profit company, can take advantage of the frenzy of sporting events, like The Olympics. Especially when you combine it with mobile marketing. That’s because there are plenty of fans, and their devices, here in the UK.
5 Reasons You Want to Use SMS Messaging in Your Business
Are you looking to grow your business? Get more customers? Have larger profits? Of course you are. Isn't every business looking to improve, grow and generate more sales? More and more businesses are realising how SMS messaging can help them do all those things. But it's nice to have some facts to back up what most people seem to assume is true.
What Makes a Great Call to Action in an SMS Message?
Marketing messages, whether in print or electronic have many parts to them. In the beginning there’s the hook that entices someone to continue reading, and near the end is the call to action. That’s where you make it clear what you want someone to do after reading the message. There are many parts in between these two, but these are, arguably, the two most important.