Is driving traffic and making conversions your primary goal this holiday season?
Yes! I know that would be, but in the mid of the chaos, “coupon codes, blockbuster sales, or hurry up” words echoed all over the internet and SMS.
At this point in time, you must be thinking about How to stand out from the noise of your competitors.
The answer is simple: it’s via SMS marketing; let me tell you why. According to Crazy Egg, SMS (text messages) is the only marketing channel with a high open rate of 98%. Aren’t these stats making you think “Wow”?
There is a common myth floating around among brands that SMS marketing is intrusive and spammy, but the reality is that it is one of the most effective and engaging ways to reach your audience. So, use the SMS marketing channel to reach your audience on time, be it a holiday season like BFCM or normal day sales, to drive more sales traffic.
What is SMS Marketing?
Like email marketing, SMS marketing is also an opt-in for a business; customers must sign up for the brands they would like to receive updates and offers.
In layman’s terms, SMS marketing is sending promotional messages or transactional messages to your customers on time to stay on top of their minds. Mainly, SMS marketing (text messages) is used to communicate time-sensitive messages, offers, alters, and updates to your customers.
It is no secret that building a strong relationship with your customers takes time and effort. It is where you must know exactly how to use SMS marketing effectively.
“It is not enough to wait for your customers to come to you. You must be proactive and go wherever they are ”. – Pon Pandian, CEO of TargetBay.
Why SMS Marketing Can Be a Secret Sauce of Holiday Sales
We all know SMS marketing is a crucial aspect of holiday season sales. Brands can opt for it more along with their email marketing campaigns because SMS is compatible with all mobile phones, but only if executed correctly.
During Black Friday/Cyber Monday, several major retailers such as Walmart, Amazon, Starbucks, IKEA, and Domino’s Pizza use SMS marketing strategies to boost their sales. According to Jeff Hasen, the chief marketing officer at HipCricket, online payments made through PayPal increased by 650 percent during Black Friday sales. Here is why.
1. Forthright and Personal
SMS won’t be lost in the pool of messages in the inbox, Unlike email marketing. As an eCommerce store owner or marketer, you should ensure that holiday season messages aren’t in the spam folder. In that case, SMS marketing can help you massively for the brands to deliver straight to the customer.
2. In a Swift and On Time
Compared to other channels, SMS reaches your audience fast and on time. You can send your promotional message to your customers with the link in a swap with effective SMS marketing tools like BayEngage to make it the best conversion on the holiday season. Moreover, you can also send an SMS when your customers make purchases or browse/abandon the product.
3. Artful Open-Rate
Undeniably, SMS marketing has the highest open rate compared to email marketing in an instant because people are glued to their smartphones. According to Simple Texting, 70% of consumers have subscribed to SMS, indicating a 12% growth in the open rate year after year. On the line, even shoppers like to receive offers/promotion updates from their favorite brands.
4. Automated Message
Like email, you can also set SMS into the automated sequence to nurture the leads, engage customers, and drive conversions. According to the ZipWhip State of Texting report, 58% of consumers believe that SMS is the most effective brand communication, which can be done effectively and strategically via tools like the BayEngage SMS automation tool.
5. Cost-Effective and Easy to Implement
Unlike email, SMS is not a free platform to reach your customers, and charges may vary from one country to another. Still, it doesn’t cost you a huge budget or technical skill to send holiday text messages to your customers. But you can automate your SMS marketing campaigns along with your email marketing campaigns for better conversion.
But how do you use SMS marketing effectively during holiday sales? I will take you through seven ways you can consider for your brand on this holiday season sales, especially on Black Friday/Cyber Monday (BFCM) sales.
7 Ways to Use SMS in Your Business Holiday Promotion
The holiday season is the most active time of the year for all eCommerce businesses. It is time to think more about holiday themes, campaigns, designs, in-store promotions, online offers, channels to connect with your customers, and more.
What is the best way to reach the shoppers to boost sales this holiday season?
The answer may be SMS marketing, along with your email marketing campaigns, because SMS is one reliable option for businesses to reach their customers with offers/promotions. Below are the seven ways to use SMS marketing in your business holiday promotion.
1. Start Early and Give them Early Access
Always starting early has its own pace than your competitors. So, it is good to start early, if possible, start right off the bat! Because of the holiday season, order placement and shipment are overwhelming. It is good to start it early and give customers early access so the supply chain doesn’t hit your bottom line.
Consumers have outpaced themselves in September alone, which is expected to surge in December because post-BFCM, Christmas, and New Year are around the corner. Make your customers engage with your text messages with offers, early-bird discounts, and MMS.
So, make it merry, but at the same time, make it hasty as well.
2. Send them an SMS-Only Offer
Who doesn’t like discounts? Especially this time of the year, your customers are excited about and expecting it. So, these kinds of SMS messages make your customers feel more special.
A recent survey by EZtexting reported that 25% of people redeem text coupons within three days, and 60% redeem them within a week. Hence, it’s proven that SMS and MMS messages bring cash in. You can send them MMS for an initial announcement, and follow-ups can be done by normal text messages with your store link.
3. Send an SMS With a Time-Sensitive Message
Some types of messages are most often sent by brands to their customers during the holiday season, like
- Flash Sales
- Coupon code
- Offer Expiration
- Offer extension
- Limited time offer
You can send these kinds of messages to your customers through MMS in a strong, bold, and attractive way there are some tools available in the market, like BayEngage. But, usually, reminders and offer extensions don’t have to be the same way. It can be a simple text message. As a brand, it is good to add SMS marketing to your marketing strategy that brings in more customers.
4. Use SMS as a Pathway to Email
Email marketing is a go-to channel for every marketer and eCommerce store owner. Certain emails that your audience might miss in their pool of messages in the inbox. So, I would suggest SMS marketing is the next go-to channel to drive your customers to email. But how can we make it happen?
When you send a holiday text message to your customers, send them a message mentioning your holiday season offer, which is waiting for your click in your email inbox. This way, it can be an opportunity to drive traffic to your website, increase the email open rate and overall email deliverability.
5. Use SMS in Automation Workflow
Without a doubt, SMS marketing is a powerful way to connect with your customers. In that way, text messages for your marketing is a great add-on to your existing marketing workflows. It can be,
- Welcome series
- Cart/Browse/Product abandonment
For the Welcome Series – when a new customer gives their information to your database and wishes to be part of your brand, sending them a welcome email with some offer is mandatory. But, by incorporating text messages in your automation. Welcome messages can be added to the trigger flow with the coupon code or link to it. You can also send as many personal reminder messages as you want so a customer can redeem them correctly.
The same way,
Abandoned Cart – During the holiday season, sales like Black Friday/Cyber Monday (BFCM), this abandonment (browse/product/cart) happens often. To make them into conversion as an eCommerce owner, it is normal to add your customer database to the trigger automation workflow email. But now you can add your SMS to the workflow, which will have a higher conversion rate.
- Send your cart abandonment series messages via SMS for more conversions
- For browse or product abandonment, send your customers a text message reminding them the product they looked or searched for is selling too fast.
- If the abandoned cart value is high, you can send a customer a customized offer as text messages, like free shipping, gift wrapping, add-on products, special discounts, and more.
“Automation is sweeping the business world, especially marketing automation for e-commerce. It is highly effective with more conversions and open rates,” said Pon Pandian, CEO of TargetBay.
6. Send an SMS to the Power Loyalty Program
The holiday season, like BFCM, Christmas, and New Year, is the best time to boost your loyalty programs to existing and new customers. You can reward your customers for being loyal to your brands by offering a special discount for them to use it. This will make them feel valued and encourage them to glue to you even more.
For new customers, it is the best way to introduce your loyalty program and invite them to be part of the gamification. In these aspects, text messages do wonders for your brand.
7. Give Customer Updates about Order/Shipping Confirmation
The holiday season is the season of gift-giving and gift-self! Meanwhile, your customers are more glued to their mobile devices for tracking the order, purchase confirmation, and shipping information.
It is best to simplify your customers’ lives by sending them updates via text messages. These transactional messages receive the biggest customer engagement because it is the important information they expect after making a purchase.
You can send
- Powerful thank-you messages after the purchase
- Upsell/cross-sell your product
- Give a special discount for their next purchase if the order value is high
3 Best SMS Marketing Software to Make Your Promotion Successful
You can see the N number SMS marketing software in the market, but not every marketing automation software is yours in terms of cost, deliverability, customer support, features, automation, and more. I have three of the best SMS marketing software to go well with your business.
1. TargetBay’s – BayEngage
BayEngage is the best SMS marketing software for eCommerce, from small-scale to enterprise, allowing you to send email and SMS on time to your customers to attract their attention to conversion. As marketing automation is ruling the market, this tool offers you many features at an affordable price.
The tool has
- Pre built-in SMS ideas
- AI text generator
- Insert personalized and dynamic coupon codes with Tags
- URL shortener
- SMS keyword sensitive
- Set automated replies
- Toll-free number
- MMS activation
- Full TCPA compliance
- Easily move from email list to SMS list
- Analytics and Reporting
- Omnichannel automation is possible
As an eCommerce store owner or marketer, you don’t need any creative or technical skill to send text messages to your customers, which can made possible with a few taps with the BayEngage SMS marketing tool.
Moreover, you can also set automated triggers to send SMS from your automation dashboard with the time delay set automatically after your email.
“Like email, SMS is also now a cost-effective and highest revenue-generating channel for the brands – If that is implemented and done perfectly.” – Pon Pandian, CEO of TargetBay.
2. Omnisend
One more effective SMS marketing tool in the market for the eCommerce industry. The tool allows you to send emails and SMS to their customers easily, where you can integrate SMS into the email automation in a few clicks. Omnisend is an effective tool that offers various features for SMS marketing, like
- Pre-built workflows
- Omnichannel automation is possible
- Send targeted SMS and MMS
- Add GIFs and images
- Full TCPA compliance
- Sensitive to the keyword replies
- 2 way SMS
- Data-driven adjustments
- MMS activation
- Collect numbers via pop-ups, landing pages, teaser
- Free SMS credits for pro members
- Toll-free number
Omnisend is one effective SMS marketing platform that eCommerce store owners and marketers can consider to design their text messages and send them to the audience on time. The tool supports customers globally and offers pro members free SMS credits.
3. WebEngage
Get connected with your customers easily with the WebEngage email and SMS marketing platform. The tool lets the eCommerce owner and marketers stay closely connected with their customers. Make your text messages more than OTP. The tool offers different features like
- Send personalized SMS
- Send SMS based on customer behavior
- Multiple campaign management
- Campaign reporting
- Real-time data
- Conversion tracking
- Simple configuration
- A/B testing
- Send time optimization
- Dynamic template
- DLT support
Get your text messages to your customers, not only transactional messages but also all your promotional messages, by easily configuring to track DND, throttling, and frequency gapping. The tool allows you to seamlessly configure with your SSP (SMS service provider) to start your campaigns.
Ready to Use SMS Marketing in Your Holiday Season Sales Effectively?
Though there is a profusion of things you have to do for your holiday season as a brand, it is good to use text messages effectively. By incorporating it into your marketing automation workflow.
You might hear a lot of noise around in the market from your competitors, but don’t be distracted by it. Instead, focus on the important things to generate huge ROI for your business. Tweak your marketing efforts by implementing SMS marketing to your workflows, sending time-sensitive messages and MMS, and catching your customers’ attention.
