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
More People Prefer SMS Loyalty Programmes
Loyalty and rewards programs can help your business retain your best customers. But they only work if customers see your messages and can check their reward status. A new survey shows most people prefer companies use to SMS for loyalty programs. Find out why in this blog.
Retailers Can Use SMS Marketing For More Than Just Coupons
Discount codes, limited time sales, special exclusive pricing...you may have seen, or used, all of these in a text message campaign. For retailers, it is the most obvious and direct use of SMS marketing. It works and it's cost effective. But are there other ways you can put your SMS channel to work for you?
How SMS Can Help Your Local Business Optimise Your Local Campaign
One of the great advantages of SMS: it's completely trackable so you know exactly how your campaigns are engaging your opted in customers and clients. And if you’re a small business, operating in a specific geographical location, then that local knowledge can be invaluable in targeting your campaigns to a local audience.
SMS Marketing for the Domestic Pets Market
With consumer spending on Britain's 57 million furry friends valued at over £4.5 Million and all the signs showing that this is only going to increase, there has never been a better time for the sector to invest in marketing - and SMS marketing should be top priority. As pet owners spend more and more time pampering their pets and investing in pet paraphernalia, the opportunities are infinite. SMS marketing is one of the best ways to ensure that your offers get seen - and in most cases, instantly. With its low costs, exceptionally high open rates and above average response rates, SMS Marketing offers huge potential for ROI.
3 Reasons Your Customers Want You to Use SMS Messaging
In my last blog I looked at five reasons you want to use SMS messaging in your business. In this blog we're looking at the same topic, just from the consumer's point of view. For example, how do you really know your customers want you to send them messages via SMS? Isn't email or a phone call good enough? Is it worth your time to learn how to use SMS messaging in your business?
When the Internet Goes Down, SMS Messaging Can Save the Day
At the end of February, Amazon’s S3 servers went down. And so did much of the Internet. What can we learn from the experience about communicating with customers during an online disaster? According to experts, having a plan that includes SMS messaging is key.
SMS Remarketing: What It’s All About
You’ve seen or heard about remarketing online. But did you know you can use SMS to remarket to visitors who abandon their cart in your ecommerce store? According to one study, using it can double your conversion rates. Check out the blog to see the details.
7 Tips for a Successful SMS Marketing Campaign
SMS marketing is still one of the most effective marketing channels available to businesses but is often overlooked in the pursuit of newer, more digitised technologies. When you include SMS marketing as part of the marketing mix, you're in a far greater position to increase engagement with your campaign, helping you generate a greater return on your investment. As with all channels, there are certain ways you can ensure your campaign is more effective, by following these simple steps.
How to Avoid Failing at SMS Marketing
For many businesses it's often a knee-jerk reaction to create an app, or to run mobile ads, or to start an SMS list. But without really understanding what it’s all about, you can waste a lot of time and money before realising what you actually need to do.
3 Retail Predictions to Increase Footfalls This Holiday Season with SMS Messaging
Last year footfalls for some high street shops dropped during the Black Friday weekend. Even though the UK spent a record breaking £1.1B, some saw their in-store sales slump. Find out the three things retailers need to do to get customers to come back.