Follow along with these five retail brands and their Black Friday/Cyber Monday text messaging strategies.
Whether it’s Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or the entire Cyber Week that includes Small Business Saturday, retailers of all types can’t afford to ignore the opportunities to generate sales and new customers this time of year. Of course, when everyone is touting deals for BFCM (as it’s called), you need to make sure you’re reaching potential customers on channels where they’ll pay attention.
The closer we get to the holidays, the busier those customers become. At that point, it doesn’t matter how incredible your promotions are if no one hears about them. This means that retailers need to find creative ways beyond traditional channels like email and social media advertising to get eyes on their campaigns.
To avoid being overshadowed by big box stores, SMB retailers are using text message marketing more than ever to boost their holiday sales.
We spoke with several companies to find out about how they’re using SMS to
2024 research from Sinch found that most consumers (78%) want to hear about Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals through multiple channels. While the traditional channel of email topped the list of preferred ways to hear from brands, more than 43% said text messaging (SMS) was an ideal channel for promotions.
If you’re already doing email marketing, text message marketing is the next logical step for most small businesses looking to scale their customer communications strategies.
Beyond marketing, SMS communication is also an efficient way to deliver transactional messages and have direct conversations with customers throughout the holidays. When you use a mass texting solution like SimpleTexting, you’ve got a tool to reach a large number of customers with promotions, send personalized transactional messages, and have back-and-forth conversations that make small business customer relationships more meaningful.
So, what are retailers doing to incorporate SMS into their BFCM strategies? We asked five e-commerce professionals for their take on holiday text message marketing strategies.
No photo op is complete without a fun background, which is exactly what Kate Backdrop provides.
David Zheng, CEO of Kate Backdrop, shared how the company uses SMS for its BFCM campaign by focusing on sales announcements.
“We usually send out messages like ‘Black Friday sales are now open! Get 15% off for new arrivals!’ to remind customers that they should take advantage of our great sales during this time,” said Zheng. “We also plan to send texts to our new customers and include a call to action like ‘Stay tuned for our BFCM sales!'”
The company saw a sizable increase in customers by using SMS, so they are doubled down on their efforts the following year.
Ecommerce Intelligence is a full-service growth agency that focuses on email and SMS. They understand how important these channels are for each of their clients and plan to implement SMS in this year’s e-commerce holiday campaigns.
“In the weeks leading up to Black Friday,” explained founder Ryan Turner, “we heavily promote SMS sign-ups via email campaigns and website popups to grow list sizes. We’ll be running early access promotions for VIP customers this year via SMS. This will give the most valuable shoppers a chance to get everything they want with Black Friday price reductions before everyone else.”
The company has found that SMS is an effective strategy for their clients because it cuts through the noise of overwhelming promotions and comes with a 98% open rate.
They tried SMS over the holiday season with a few client brands and learned that each SMS contact was worth about seven times as much as an email subscriber in terms of revenue generated per message.
E-commerce jewelry and accessories store Faruzo is using text messaging to harness the power of personalization. Focusing on the consumer experience, the company is investing its efforts for the first time into SMS to drive sales and build customer relationships.
The goal is to curate personalized messages with limited-time offers. And when customers are in the area, they will receive an incentive via SMS to visit the store.
Supplement Warehouse, a national brand with over 20 retail locations and an online store, also uses SMS to drive sales during Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping.
The company takes an omnichannel approach to BFCM promotions by sending SMS campaigns with complementary email promotions to ensure customers don’t miss out on the promotions. After analyzing the results from past years, Supplement Warehouse noticed it’s cost of sales from SMS was 30% lower than email. That prompted the company to roll out its SMS strategy across all store locations.
Online jewelry store Moriarty’s Gem Art has learned the effectiveness of SMS marketing in the past and went full force for the holiday season.
The store plans on using SMS for its entire BFCM campaign, which runs the Monday before and ends the Tuesday after Cyber Monday. They will be sending out sale reminders throughout the week to pique interest and help drive sales.
Previously, the company spent $150 on one SMS campaign during BFCM, and it resulted in over $8,000 worth of sales.
For starters, SMS marketing is extremely easy to set up, and you can quickly create and launch campaigns with just a few clicks.
Secondly, text messaging is one of the most convenient marketing channels for holiday shoppers.
Consider this… More than half of all holiday spending (53%) now takes place on mobile phones. If your business has an ecommerce store for online shopping, a text message is one of the most effective ways to drive people to your website.
Even when people aren’t checking out sales on mobile, their phones aren’t far away. We surveyed 1,300 people and found that 1 in 3 consumers checks their text notifications within one minute of receiving a text. On top of that, 70% of consumers opted in to receive texts from businesses.
The takeaway? Your customers probably want you to text them, and they’re going to see your message soon after receiving it.
As you plan your holiday text messaging campaigns, here are a few tips to keep in mind:
📚Check out our Ultimate Guide to Black Friday/Cyber Monday Texting for more helpful tips!
There’s still time to start using text messaging as part of your BFCM strategy this year. As long as you’ve got a list of customers who opt in to hear from your via text, you can start communicating with them today.
Even if you don’t have time to make a Black Friday SMS strategy for the 2024 season, text marketing will improve your ability to reach people and enhance the customer experience all year long. SimpleTexting was built to support independent retailers and small businesses owners and local businesses with easy-to-use yet powerful tools. That includes everything from two-way text messaging for conversations with customers to customizable SMS autoresponders that automate communications to increase efficiency and save time. You’ll even find AI-powered solutions to help you generate texts and adjust the tone of your messages.
Give your business a gift this holiday season. Sign up for a free trial with SimpleTexting and explore our platform for yourself.
Dani Henion is the content team lead at SimpleTexting and is continuously looking for ways to make text messaging strategies and tips more accessible to SMBs. When she's not writing or planning new SMS content, you'll find her decorating elaborate sugar cookies or thrifting in Atlanta.
More Posts from Dani HenionFounded in 2012, Altitude is the fastest growing trampoline park company in the world. Learn how their Tampa location uses text marketing.
ReadCustomer service complaints happen. Don't panic! Here are four common, negative experiences your customer may run into, and how to handle them effectively.
Read
Start a text marketing campaign or have a 1-on-1 conversation today. It's risk free. Sign up for a free 14-day trial today to see SimpleTexting in action.
No credit card required