Christmas SMS Marketing for Wine Merchants
With just days left until Christmas, Britain’s thriving wine merchants are now well into the busiest time of the year with sales expected to reach record levels if figures for the last couple of years are anything to go by. According to Decanter, a leading wine magazine, English wines are now experiencing exceptionally high sales – with its sparkling varieties even threatening to soon rival Champagne as the must-have fizz.
Although many will have already completed their festive wine shopping by now, much more will be out to buy in the coming weeks – especially those who have yet to decide on the right bottle or case. With the stakes so high, it is up to wine merchants to win these customers – and SMS Marketing could be the secret weapon in the arsenal.
So how can wine merchants use SMS Marketing to make the most of the remaining few days of festive sales? Here are some tips from our team.
Why Choose SMS Marketing?
There are several good reasons wine merchants should consider using SMS Marketing. Here are some of the advantages:
- Communicate with customers in real time
- Provide useful information that the customer can access from the palm of their hand, even while out shopping
- Supports links, allowing customers to instantly learn more about products and offers using their smartphone
- Exceptionally high open rate – almost 100%
- Significantly higher clickthrough and conversion rates than email
- Much more personal than email
- One of the most popular channels for retail marketing communications
How to boost last minute wine sales with SMS Marketing
There are several simple to implement strategies that will help you to boost wine sales over the festive period. Here are some tried and tested approaches that have been proven to get great results.
- Discounts: Many customers are willing to go that little bit extra and splash out for the best quality wine they can afford within their budget. With such willingness to spend, offering the right discount can help to steer customers to those lines with the highest margins, whilst also encouraging the customer to spend that little bit more. Discounts can also be a great way to encourage cross-sells and upsells to further increase profits and ROI.
- Special Offers: No doubt your customers are shopping around for the best offers – so make sure they know about yours! Whilst emails and other marketing channels may be largely ignored, SMS messages almost always get an immediate response – and might just be the nudge a customer needs to choose your store over the competitors.
- Sales: If you are running any last minute festive sales, then SMS Marketing is the place to share them. There is a sense of urgency in SMS that simply isn’t generated through any other medium, making it a perfect platform to get those customers through the door. Plus, SMS appeals to the impulsive nature of many shoppers.
- Loyalty Programs: Do you run a special wine club? If you do, then use SMS messaging to thank your customers for their loyalty in the last year and wish them the best with some special loyalty rewards, such as members-only discounts or bonus points on purchases. If you don’t already have such a scheme, now is an opportune moment to set one up and get those customers signed up. Just remember to get their express consent to receive SMS Marketing communications in the process – click here to learn more about the rules on opting in.
- Festive Lines/Products: Inform regular customers when you have new seasonal or gift wines due to come in or in stock and give them the website link to view. Even better, invite them for a taster session to really whet their appetite.
- Order & Delivery Status: Whether you’ve ordered a single bottle of the best vintage or a crate of the best bubbly, one thing your customers will want to be sure of is that their beverages are safely on their way. Put their minds at rest by keeping them updated by SMS. This is also an ideal way to keep customers updated if they have ordered wines for collection in store.
- News & Tips: One of the biggest problems many wine lovers have at Christmas is pairing the right bottle with the right menu – so why not give your customers a helping hand this Christmas and share some expert tips? You might also want to share your recommendations for the best bottles for different occasions, and other such seasonally relevant recommendations.
With our easy sign-up and exceptional customer support, you can be ready to get your Christmas SMS Marketing campaign underway in no time. To find out more about how we can help you to grow, call our team of experts now on 0800 945 5305.
Related Articles
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?
Two Companies Using SMS in Surprising Ways
In many ways, SMS messaging is so commonplace people don’t think about it. They just do it. For example, using SMS for mobile marketing in retail is a fairly standard use case whether you’re a company or the consumer. But there are always exceptions – those who innovate when it seems there’s nothing new to be had. Here are two examples of companies from the US using SMS in ways no one else is – yet.
Insights Into The Best SMS Marketing
It’s been said that to be successful at something, you need to find someone that’s already done what you want to do, then emulate them. You don’t need to create or rewrite the rulebook every time. This is true of marketing too. While it’s a creative field, there are tried and true examples of what works. This is why case studies are so important to helping you understand how something like SMS marketing can work for you.
How to Increase Website Traffic with SMS Messaging
Read some practical advice on how you can use SMS messaging to drive more traffic to your website. Include a shortened url in your SMS marketing message that sends the recipient to a special offers page or a how-to video or even a top-up page for consumables. But make sure the page is mobile friendly.
The Role of SMS in Building Consumer Loyalty Programmes
The drive to earn and retain consumer loyalty is big business in the UK. Increasingly, companies are grasping the important role SMS text messaging can play in this. Customers’ mobile phone numbers are gold dust. The most forward-looking companies are developing systems to encourage customers to opt-in. Then, they are structuring SMS campaigns to build loyalty and reap maximum commercial advantage from it.
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?
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.
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.
Do Your Customers Trust You?
I think for much of the last decade, people used the Internet and then mobile devices, without giving too much thought about what they were doing. Or more accurately, what other people were doing with their information. But then came Edward Snowden in 2013 who revealed governments were collecting and using our personal data in ways we hadn’t imagined.
A Checklist for Your First SMS Marketing Campaign
This year SMS marketing is predicted to become an even bigger piece of the mobile marketing pie. Businesses of every size will be launching their first ever campaigns. If you’re one of them, take a look at our handy SMS marketing checklist below to help you do it right from the very beginning.