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Your Ultimate Guide to Black Friday/Cyber Monday Texting
Two of the biggest shopping holidays of the year are coming up soon. Get ready to keep orders rolling in with these Black Friday and Cyber Monday SMS tips.
Two of the biggest shopping holidays of the year are coming up soon. Get ready to keep orders rolling in with these Black Friday and Cyber Monday SMS tips.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) bookend the biggest shopping weekend of the year.
In 2021 alone, 108 million people in the U.S. reported that they expected to shop on Black Friday, and 62.8 million reported plans to shop on Cyber Monday.
These are also days that most businesses set up their biggest deals and steals of the year. If you want to drive more orders than last year this Black Friday or Cyber Monday, you’ll need a foolproof way to get consumers’ attention.
That’s where texting comes in. With high open and response rates, and the added benefit of bypassing busy email inboxes by sending your message straight to your customers’ phones, SMS is the best way to send out your holiday deals.
BFCM weekend only comes once a year, so we want to help you make it count. Here are a few things to keep in mind as you build your holiday SMS strategy.
First thing, if you intend to send out texts to your shoppers, you’ll need shoppers to text. That means you’ll need to grow your text list.
You have a few options for doing this. You can set up a keyword that new contacts can text to your number to receive your messages, then advertise it on your site or in your storefront.
Alternatively, you could set up a web sign-up form or mobile widget that helps visitors to your website or mobile site easily join your text list.
When new contacts join your list, they’ll receive an automatic confirmation message from you.
This is a good opportunity to create some excitement and let customers know you’re grateful to have them on your text list. Plus, the aim of any good brand is to form personal relationships with each customer. A well-written confirmation message can help.
Take advantage of this customizable message to thank them for signing up for your texts and offer them a text-exclusive promotion at the same time.
You don’t want to wait until Friday morning to start sending texts about your sales. Start at least a week ahead of time to let shoppers know that deals are incoming.
This is a good time to double down on the value of your text lists. Let contacts know that these deals are exclusively for those who’ve signed up for texts.
You could even start a countdown to Black Friday and send out messages a couple of times in the week leading up to the big sale.
Part of this tip also includes planning out your texts in advance. Decide which days of the week you want to send your texts and what time of day they’ll go out.
Be sure you plan your messages with sleep schedules in mind. You don’t want to wake anyone up, so be sure you plan for the middle of the morning or later.
You can even automate your texts during this step so you can set it and forget it.
Of course, there’s a caveat to the above tip. While your contacts will appreciate hearing about Black Friday deals and receiving coupons, they’ll appreciate a break from those things even more.
Send out a few messages with helpful content related to your brand or the holiday. That could mean including useful tips for online shopping during Black Friday (as in using services like Honey for extra coupon codes) or recipes for Thanksgiving leftovers.
This ensures that your text contacts don’t get tired of hearing from you. More importantly, it protects the trust between you and your customers. Phone numbers are personal, and you want to respect your contacts by not overloading them with sales pitches.
Of course, not every product on your website or in your store will appeal to every single customer.
We suggest setting up segments – that is, contacts who have something in common with each other–to make sure each customer only sees the information they’re interested in.
It could be anything from product categories they’ve purchased in the past, store locations they’ve visited, or any other criteria that you think will be helpful.
💡Pro tip: You can easily collect this type of information from your contacts by using the Data Collection feature and taking advantage of our SMS integrations.
Not only will this keep customers from getting annoyed or tired of your texts, it will also make them feel more seen and cared for (which will do wonders for your brand’s reputation).
To make your future SMS campaigns better, you need to know how your last messages performed.
Through your SimpleTexting account, you can check all the analytics from your Black Friday texts, including how many responses you got, who clicked on any links you sent, whether anyone unsubscribed from your texts, and more.
Go through all this data and use it to tweak your Cyber Monday messages to make sure you get all the engagement you need.
One excellent way to get customers excited for your big Cyber Monday sale is to give them a sneak preview of what you have to offer.
That could mean a blurb about new products you’re launching over the holidays, teasing a big promotion, or just letting contacts know that they’re in for special benefits now that they’ve agreed to receive your texts.
There’s nothing worse than seeing customers who start to place an order but then vanish before they complete their purchase, especially on one of the biggest shopping days of the year.
Fortunately, you can help them come back to finish their shopping.
Set up a text that triggers when someone who has opted into your text list abandons their shopping cart. This message could simply remind them to come back and finish their order, or you could add a discount to sweeten the deal.
It may also help to offer a direct line to your support team in case of any questions or concerns.
Everyone is competing for consumers’ attention as Black Friday and Cyber Monday get closer.
Lucky for you, texts are in high demand, with 70% of consumers opting to receive texts from businesses in 2022.
That means it’s a great time to send valuable, exciting texts to your contacts ahead of the major shopping holidays. Put these tips to work in your holiday SMS strategy for your best-ever Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Lily is a content marketing specialist at SimpleTexting. She specializes in making helpful, entertaining video content and writing blogs that help businesses take advantage of all that texting has to offer. When she’s not writing or making TikToks, you can find Lily at roller derby practice or in a yoga studio in the Seattle area.
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