SMS tips: How to make the most of Black Frida

The final months of the year mean the main shopping season of the year for many retailers. These few weeks can mean up to a third of the annual turnover for many. And SMS marketing in combination with other communication channels is one of the most effective means of sales support. To help you through this challenging time, we have prepared a few basic points for you to help and guide you on how to get the best out of this channel for your business.

How do you approach the Black Friday campaign?

Prepare a campaign exactly tailored to your offer

Black Friday is knocking on the door and you feel like you’re running out of time. Stop for a moment, don’t stress and plan everything calmly. You don’t have to overdo it with campaigns. Avoid copying your competition and focus instead on what makes sense for your business and what you want to achieve.

Take last year’s results to hand

Last year’s campaigns can be a great source for creating this year’s SMS campaigns. See which ones worked and which ones were flops. Thanks to this data, you can quickly find out what your customers are interested in.

Determine the goal you want to achieve

The goals of SMS marketing are different for different entities. Among these goals, you can include a % increase in turnover, liquidation of inventory, introduction of a new product, reactivation of existing customers or expansion of awareness of your brand.

Set a budget, a timeline and calculate your return

Define how much money and time you want to invest in the campaign. Here it is important to realize whether you have enough funds and time to prepare everything. In this step, calculate which activities are worthwhile and which do not make sense to invest money in.

Don’t forget other important days for your business

The end of the year offers many opportunities that can be used as part of sales. You don’t have to focus primarily on Black Friday. We add more inspiration:

Cyber Monday – another important day after Black Friday. You can use this day as a second attempt to reactivate customers who didn’t take advantage of Black Friday and offer them a slightly better deal.

Santa Claus – play Santa Claus and send an SMS with a Santa gift. This type of SMS is not so common and you will stand out from your competition.

Advent – take advantage of the Advent weekends and prepare, for example, a special Advent calendar with discounts.

Christmas gifts – any marketer who does not take advantage of Christmas would be literally crazy. However, the competition here is really big, so make sure you really care about your Christmas campaign, for which you are already intensively preparing. It really is high time and it’s five minutes to twelve.

New Year’s PFko – strengthen your relationships with customers and send them New Year’s wishes, perhaps even with a nice surprise in the form of a gift or discount. Just like that.

New Year’s discounts – many of your customers will be impatiently waiting for this period. So meet them. It would be a shame to lose this opportunity for further sales.

New Year’s resolutions – if your business focus can be linked to a resolution, use it. Offer your customers products or services that will help them achieve their goals.

Don’t forget the timetable

If you have already thought of everything, it is important to transfer these thoughts “on paper” and plan everything thoroughly. Thanks to this scheduling, you will have a better idea of how many SMS you will send to your customers by the end of the year. In this way, you will also avoid unnecessary stress of not being able to keep up.

When to schedule everything?

According to Deloitt, approximately 26% of purchases are made in November, and up to 54% during December. All other shopping takes place before Black Friday. So it’s the perfect time to plan everything necessary in the coming days so that you don’t miss any opportunity.

For example, create an Excel file or take a pen and paper and write everything down. By all this we mean the types of SMS campaigns, their rough message content, necessary documents or mailing dates. Thanks to this, you will have a detailed time plan until the end of the year that you will stick to.

You will most likely send more SMS within these campaigns. Really include them all in your plan. You will definitely want to tell your customers what you have in store for them as an action when it starts, then towards the end of the campaign you will want to reactivate those who have not yet taken any action and remind them. Remember that less is more. Definitely don’t spam your customers too much.

Use multichannel communication

Expand your campaign with other communication channels. SMS messages work great with e-mailing. 90% of sent SMS messages are read within 3 minutes of their delivery. And that’s a hell of a hit with your target audience.

Expand your contact database with new ones

Expanding the database with new contacts is simply the basis. The more relevant contacts you have in the database, the greater the chance to increase sales of your products or services.

You can get contacts both through static forms on the website and from first orders. You can also include Facebook and Instagram campaigns in the collection of contacts.

Reactivate contacts

You certainly have contacts in your database that haven’t taken any action in a long time. They didn’t click through the SMS, they didn’t make any purchases. The end of the year is the best time to try to reactivate these “dead” contacts and get them to buy.

Segment these inactive contacts from your database and prepare a special offer for them. It can be a special Black Friday discount, a gift with purchase, 1+1 product for free. In some cases, it only takes a little and you have your active contacts back.

Plan your Black Friday

A great opportunity to spin up your sales even more. It would therefore be a shame not to use it properly.

In the beginning, it is important to establish a plan for SMS communication. How many SMS will you send, to whom, at what time, what will be their content.

Scheduling might look something like this:

SMS #1: A few days before the start of Black Friday, inform your customers that you are planning something for them and write to them directly what to look forward to with me.

SMS #2: On the day Black Friday starts, send customers an SMS in the morning, launching your special Black Friday offer and encouraging customers to buy. Highlight the information that this is a non-recurring offer that is truly exceptional and limited in time.

SMS #3: Take the last chance to write to those who haven’t bought from you yet. Encourage them to buy and make it clear that this is the last opportunity that ends in a few hours.

Definitely don’t overdo it with Black Friday campaigns. The offer must be really interesting for your customers. If you are not able to offer anything like that, you better skip this day and prepare for Christmas sales.

Don’t forget to be original. Many of your competitors will take advantage of Black Friday. Stand out from them and offer, for example, a limited collection that is only available on Black Friday or that you donate a certain part of the profit to a good cause. It’s up to you what you come up with.

SMS marketing is one of the channels that must be long-term and consistent, random seasonal shouts in the dark do not work here. Therefore, do not overdo it with campaigns, think them through and plan them well. Consider also the involvement of e-mail marketing, which works great in this combination and effectively complements the SMS campaign.

Try the SMS gateway from GoSMS and reach your customers on Black Friday >>