How to Make the Most of Christmas with SMS Marketing

As the most important holiday in the UK calendar, Christmas is a key time for businesses of every shape and size to get their message out. Whether you are selling a product or service or simply out to increase brand recognition, this is the one time of year that it matters more than ever that your brand is seen to be joining in the spirit of things – and SMS Marketing is the obvious solution. So how can businesses and brands use SMS Marketing to increase profits and build their profiles this Christmas? Here are some ideas you can try.
1. Christmas Competitions
Let’s admit it, everyone likes to be in with a chance to win – especially at Christmas. SMS Marketing lends itself perfectly to text competitions, often known as ‘text to win’. The basic concept is that your audience participates in a contest or sweepstake to win a prize by sending an SMS message from their phone to an SMS shortcode – ideal for combining your SMS and print marketing campaigns. With fast entry and instant confirmation, it is one of the easiest possible ways for customers to enter a competition and has proven incredibly popular – especially at a time of year when it is natural to offer gifts.
A text to win campaign is a great way to increase engagement with your brand and ultimately drive traffic to your business, be it physical, online or both. They are great for high profile publicity campaigns and can generate a great deal of hype if well thought out.
2. Join the club
Another great way of fostering continued customer loyalty is to invite them to join a special VIP club by signing up to your SMS Marketing database this Christmas. It really is as simple as it sounds, but it is a well-known fact that customers who feel they are part of a special ‘VIP’ group are highly responsive to offers and incentives and likely to become repeat customers. Studies also indicate that the cost of retaining customers is considerably lower than that of acquiring new customers – and with SMS Marketing the overheads of maintaining a loyal customer base couldn’t be lower.
Retail stores, in particular, have an outstanding opportunity to build a text club database from their festive foot traffic and find out more about the individual consumers who walk into their store and what they think about their products and services.
3. Updates and alerts
Text message alerts (also known as SMS alerts) are a great way to engage with customers with relevant information which keeps your brand top of their minds and makes sure that you do not vanish into the crowd as brands compete to capture the Christmas market. Text messages work for a variety of purposes – from telling customers about your Christmas product or seasonal sales, bursts of news or simply keeping customers informed about an area of interest. SMS alerts can be used on their own or as part of a larger Mobile Club program – see point 2 above.
The key is to encourage as many customers as possible to register their mobile details with you at the earliest possible stage of their relationship – and the checkout is a great place to do this. If you have the budget available for the staff, why not even get somebody on the shop floor to capture sign-ups. Just be sure to comply with the PECR rules concerning SMS Marketing.
4. Customer surveys
Let’s face it, in the modern world everyone has an opinion and people love to share them. So rather than see it as a threat, why not cash in on it in your SMS Marketing strategy? SMS powered customer surveys are a great way to engage consumers in the retail environment, as well as giving you valuable feedback on products or even the customer experience. With retail environments becoming more interactive than ever, mobile marketing is totally natural for developing complete consumer interaction.
Consumers carry their phones with them practically 24/7 and check them almost constantly, so interacting with them in the retail environment is as easy as tapping into their mobile device. A customer survey can be a great opener to invite them to join your SMS marketing list. To incentivise participation, consider offering a reward scheme such as a prize draw. It really is a win-win scenario.
5. Season’s Greetings
SMS Marketing doesn’t just have to be about the hard sell. As we mentioned at the beginning, it is a hugely versatile tool for increasing brand exposure and market penetration at this busy time of year. An incredibly simple way to use SMS Marketing is to simply send a message of Season’s Greetings to your customers. By simply appearing in their SMS inbox, you will keep your brand at the forefront, and may well remind customers to check out your products or services simply because they have been reminded of you.
There’s still plenty of time to get your Christmas SMS Marketing campaign underway – give our award-winning team of experts a call now on 0800 954 5305 and you’ll be ready to send in no time with the UK’s leading provider of low-cost business bulk SMS Marketing bundles.
Related Articles
Here’s Why SMS Marketing Is Literally The Best Idea Ever
Is SMS marketing the worst idea ever? That’s the opinion of one author in Entrepreneur Magazine. He gives five reasons why companies should never bother sending SMS messages to customers. I take him on, point by point to show why he’s wrong and SMS marketing is the best idea ever.
Why SMS Marketing is Like Facebook Marketing, But Better
Facebook is a popular place. According to Statista, they had 1.44 billion active users in the first quarter of 2015. It’s no wonder then that businesses are flocking to advertise there. But big isn’t always better. SMS marketing is similar in many respects to Facebook advertising, and for some uses it is actually better. Let me explain and see if you agree.
Growing Your Business with SMS Messaging
How A/B Testing Works in SMS Messaging
A/B testing in SMS messaging is something that sounds vague and possibly complicated. But with a little knowledge it’s something you can do for your organisation. We make it simple to understand and share some tools to make it easy to do.
SMS Marketing: 10 Things You Shouldn’t Do in Your Marketing Strategy
In order to gain success with SMS marketing, certain strategies need to be put in place. Here are a few top tips on what not to do when marketing your business through SMS messaging.
3 SMS Marketing Metrics That You Need to Know
SMS marketing is one of the most effective mobile marketing channels available. It’s also one of the easiest to measure your performance for every campaign, even every message. Read the full blog to discover the three of the basic metrics you’ll need to know to evaluate your success.
An A-Z of SMS Marketing – E is for Email to SMS [Infographic]
Why SMS is the Biggest Missed Opportunity for Marketing to Millennials
With the continued rise of different and more diverse technologies in the social and mobile web, it would be easy to dismiss the potential benefits of SMS marketing - and that’s exactly the reason you shouldn’t. An SMS is the unexpected visit of a familiar friend, and there’s one demographic that embraces an old trusted ally in this new, noisy digital world more than anyone else: the millennials.