Why is SMS marketing great tool for Black Friday?

Black Friday is the day of sales, discounts and savings, but it only comes once a year. So what can you do to make this day as successful as possible? With the world's biggest shopping holiday just around the corner, we've decided to bring you some useful tips and advice to help you prepare, set up and execute your Black Friday SMS campaign so well that you'll be delighted with the results. This will encourage your customers to buy more than once from your store and keep coming back in the future!

Start to prepare campaigns ahead of time and prepare backup promotions

It’s not too early to start planning your Black Friday SMS marketing campaigns. As with any other campaign, you should begin planning weeks in advance.

While it may seem like a lot of work and a big investment of time, SMS marketing is one of the most effective ways to reach out to customers and get them to engage with your brand. It will pay off when you see the results from your Black Friday SMS campaign on that day!

Segment your audience using customer segmentation vs. marketing segmentation

Before you begin communicating with your audience, it's important to know who they are. When developing a campaign for Black Friday, segmenting your audience enables you to tailor content and messaging to the unique needs of each group.

Segmenting based on demographics like age and gender is a good starting point, but it's not enough. You should mainly consider psychographics (interests), geographics (location), behaviors (shopping habits).

  • Marketing segmentation (old method)

    • Demographic: age, gender, occupation, education, income, marital status, religion, ethnicity
    • Geographic: location, climate, weather, population density

  • Customer segmentation (modern method)

    • Behavioral: loyalty level, readiness stage, purchase frequency, purchase occasion, buyer status
    • Psychographic: personality, values, beliefs, interests, lifestyles, hobbies

You can use this information to create more personalized experiences for your customers. For example, if you know that some of your customers live in the immediate area of your business, you can tailor the message to them by offering free shipping. For customers who live far away from your company, you can motivate them by offering free shipping for orders over 50 EUR.

Demographic segmentation method (marketing segmentation) looked for common characteristics within society. But beware, the disadvantage of this approach is that it highly generalizes and many times it is outdated Just because someone is a 40 year old man doesn't mean they're going to be interested in the same things as other 40 year old men, does it? If we think about what carries more weight in terms of the similarity of our customers, would it be age and gender (demographic) or how they behave when buying (behaviour)? Personally, I would definitely target an SMS campaign based on the behaviour of my customers.

Behavioral segmentation evolved into modern approach over time. The latest technological advancements made this segmentation method even more relevant nowadays, as new technologies give you more insights into customers and allow you to track their behavioral patterns. Real data means that you know who your customers are, what they want, and how they like to be treated. In other words, by using this modern approach, your customer segmentation will be detailed, precise and, most importantly, dynamic, i.e. always up-to-date.

You can make your segmentation even more insightful by combining it with other variables and characteristics related to eCommerce metrics. This will help you to better understand what your customers are looking for, and how they're interacting with your site.

For example:

Conversion Rate - Are some segments converting at a higher rate than others? Why? Is the content on one of your landing pages more relevant to one group than another?

Customer Lifetime Value - Is there a difference in the amount of time that customers spend on your site depending on which segment they belong to? If so, what might be causing this difference?

Customer Acquisition Cost - Do certain segments have a higher cost per acquisition than others? Does this mean that you should focus more on them when trying to increase sales volume or decrease costs?

Average Order Value - Do different segments have different average order values? Are there any similarities among those who order expensive products (or services) versus those who don't?

Scheduling your Black Friday SMS campaigns for strategic times

  • Best time to send: Weekdays
  • Best time for delivery: Peak hours (morning and evening)

You should schedule your Black Friday SMS campaigns for strategic times. This means that you shouldn’t send them during the weekend, when people are less likely to be checking their mobile phones. The best time to send an SMS is during the week, but it depends on what type of business you have and who you are targeting.

Sending SMS marketing campaigns at peak hours is best because more people will be checking their phones at those times. Peak hours usually occur in the morning (7-9 AM) and again in the evening (5-7 PM). People tend to check their phones a lot more often throughout these periods than they do at other times of day.

If you are targeting customers in a specific area, then you can also use geo-fencing to send your Black Friday SMS campaigns. You can set up a virtual boundary around an area and send SMS marketing messages to people who enter or exit it. This is very effective because it allows you to target customers who are near your store.

Give your Black Friday welcome message a powerful incentive

When a customer signs up for your SMS marketing program, they are giving you permission to send them messages. But how do you make sure that they're getting value from the messages?

First, use an incentive. This can be a big discount or even a free gift in exchange for signing up. Make it clear what you are offering and make sure it is something your customers will value (even if it's just their personal information). The better the incentive, the more likely people will sign up and stay engaged with your brand over time.

Keep it short, specific, and urgent

You have a very limited amount of characters to work with on Black Friday. A good rule of thumb is to keep your message short and sweet, but still complete enough so that people know what you're offering and how they can take advantage of it. Use plain language like "Deal" or "Offer," rather than long descriptions such as "The best deal ever!" or "Biggest savings ever!" When in doubt, ask yourself if you would understand this message if someone sent it to you over text message—if not, simplify further until the message makes sense.

If your offer is time-sensitive or requires some action on their part (like signing up for a subscription), make sure that order’s time-sensitive information is clearly communicated.

Keep in mind that your Black Friday promotion messages will be shown alongside other retailers’ offers, so make sure yours stand out. Include a catchy image or video via shortener url link and tell people what they can expect when they click through. If you're offering free shipping for orders over a certain amount, be sure to mention that up front.

Lastly, don't forget to add a clear call-to-action (CTA) at the end of your message. This is the one thing that will make or break your Black Friday promotion messages—if you don't ask people to take action, they won't!

Use an attractive call-to-action (CTA)

The CTA is your final chance to get people to engage with the message you’re sending. Use a CTA that is clear and easy to understand. The copy should include the key benefits of taking action and make them relevant to your audience. It should also be simple, so that it's easy for users to follow through on their purchase decision or other actionable steps they've been asked to take after reading the SMS message.

A great example of this is “Book now” or “Get it now” - both are very direct, but also include the word ‘now’ so they stand out against other CTAs as an urgent call (and they're not too long either!).

It's best if your Black Friday CTA is in line with your brand's identity and consistent across all channels (including email marketing, social media posts, website pages etc).

Whether you use SMS or business chat platform like Viber, Whatsapp or Messenger for the Black Friday campaign, you can A/B test versions of your CTA element. The results will let you know which one was more effective at driving the desired action.

Clearly identify yourself to avoid spam looks like messages

To prevent the recipient from evaluating your message as spam, it is necessary to create the message so that the recipient can identify at a glance who the message is from, who sent the message, and for what purpose.

Avoid using the default text messaging carrier ID, which is usually a long string of numbers and letters that can be difficult to read, let alone remember. If the carriers in your country allow it, use the Text sender ID (alpha sender ID) with the name of your company or brand.

Include opt-out options

You always want to include an opt-out option in your messages. People will be more likely to opt-in if they know they can opt-out, and also because it makes you look like a responsible company that respects its customers' privacy.

You can include opt-out options in your welcome message, but it's also good practice to give people a way to opt out at any time. For example, if they reply 'STOP' or 'UNSUBSCRIBE' when you send a message, that will immediately unsubscribe them from the list (you might need permission for this).

It's also good practice to include an opt-out option in your welcome SMS message, as well as a link to your privacy policy. This will help reassure people that you respect their privacy and are not going to share their information with any third parties.

Create an SMS-exclusive promo code

In addition to sending out a general promo code, you should also include an exclusive code just for your SMS subscribers. This will help ensure that they are the first to know about any special deals or promotions. This will also make them feel like they're part of your brand, and more likely to keep subscribing in the future.

Make sure the promotional codes are easy for customers to remember when entering at checkout by keeping it short, simple, and consistent with how you've branded yourself in other places (e.g., in emails or on social media). If possible, try not to use numbers as these can be harder for people with dyslexia or similar impairments.

If possible, create different codes for each channel (i.e., SMS vs Viber Business message vs Whatsapp). This way if someone has already used their code on one channel then it won't work on another one!

Then track how much revenue you made from this promotion through analytics tools like Google Analytics or Mixpanel—you'll be amazed!

Track link clicks, and analyze your Black Friday campaign from the last year

The key to any successful marketing campaign is testing, tracking and analyzing the data. If you don't collect data, then there is nothing to analyze and therefore nothing to improve on next year's Black Friday effort. Find out what worked and what didn't in your SMS campaigns by analyzing the data that was collected from both last year's Black Friday campaign and the current one.

This will give you an idea of what approaches worked well for your brand and which ones didn't work so well for you or your customers. The beauty of using SMS marketing is that its so versatile - it can be used effectively during Black Friday or any other time during the year!

Have an SMS prepared for errors

Things go wrong in any business. So, have a plan in place for when things go wrong. You’ll need to be ready to apologize and make it right if a customer is not satisfied with their purchase or experiences any problems. You'll also want to make sure that your customer service team can deal with complaints quickly so that customers don't get frustrated waiting for a response from customer service.

Make sure there's a process in place where every complaint will be dealt with immediately and without fail by assigning specific responsibilities - like which team member should be responsible for responding on social media channels or email addresses - so everyone knows what they're supposed to do when they receive an angry message from disgruntled customers!

Make it easy for people to shop

One of the best ways to encourage people to buy from you is by making it as easy as possible for them. Remove all barriers that would prevent a quick and convenient purchase, such as requiring a desktop computer or long load times. Make sure your website is mobile-friendly so that customers can access it on their phones, tablets and other devices while they're out shopping in stores.

Make it clear what's being sold so that consumers don't have any confusion about what they're purchasing when they click on your link. Make sure there are no hidden costs involved—if your product requires assembly or installation before use, make sure this information is included upfront so customers don't get surprised with an extra fee later on when they receive their order.

You can also make it easy to pay for your products by accepting credit cards and other forms of payment that customers are already familiar with. If you're selling a product that requires assembly or installation, offer free shipping for orders over a certain amount so that people don't have to pay extra in order to receive their item.

Conclusion

The best way to maximize the impact of your Black Friday SMS campaign is by getting creative with your messaging and making sure that you are sending the right message to the right person. If you want to see a better ROI from your holiday sales, take advantage of these tips and make sure your campaign is as effective as possible.

To conclude, Black Friday SMS marketing is as powerful and effective way to make a lot of money and at the same time satisfy your customers . It’s just a matter of finding the right strategy for your business.