It’s one of the happiest times of the year, Black Friday and Cyber Monday. As a marketer, you can position your business for massive sales this season, if you are strategic.
Your customer’s email will be swamped with many Black Friday sales emails from brands wanting a slice of your customer’s purse. One way to stand out with a 98% open rate possibility is through SMS marketing.
I’ll show you how to promote Black Friday sales through SMS.
Let’s get in on the tips.
1. Automate Your SMS Campaign
The first thing to do is to map out the types of messages you’d like to send to your customers–what message goes out first, to what segment and at what time, and automate the entire process. Automating the process helps you to cut out extra time spent doing manual work. It also helps you deliver the best experience to your customers.
3. Segment Customers
To avoid sending generic messages that are not relevant to all customers, segment your customers based on unique conditions like purchase amount, product type which you discover based on the customer’s purchase history, location, etc. Take for instance, the customer list feature on Bunce allows you to upload your customer details on Bunce and you can create a unique tag or segment for that list, and send them exclusive messages. You can create a segment for leads and target the right content and product suggestions to them.
3. Personalise Messaging
One of the ways to grab your customers’ attention during Black Friday is to send messages that resonate with the customer’s journey. Personalisation makes customers feel remembered and cared for and this creates a high chance of them buying from you again. For example, you can send an SMS recommending products that complement a recent purchase they’ve made or share new products that are relevant to the customer segment you are targeting.
Example message:
It’s a good time to get new kitchen wares. Get 40% off purchases for any of these items in our Black Friday sales. Hurry now! Offer ends Friday 12pm. Click here!
4. Keep Your Copy Short, and Urgent
SMS have limited characters so keep your copy short and enticing. Create urgency to purchase by making customers aware of limited stocks and the need to, buy now.
5. Don’t Spam Customers
Nearly every brand will be gunning for your customer’s inbox, you want to have a spot there but not come off as annoying. The first message, a second reminder, and a third are okay to capture your audience’s interest if your copy and offer are enticing.
6. Discount Offers
One of the thrills of Black Friday is discounted offers. Offer amazing discount deals to your customers and keep to your promise. This builds trust for your brand. As an ecommerce marketer, one way to sell more with discounts is to attach less expensive complementary products to an expensive product and give them off as a bundle, at a discount. This gives customers the feeling of getting more on a smaller budget.
7. Optimise Website Load Time
Preparation meets opportunity, I believe you’ve heard this before. Plan ahead of the big day. Ensure your website is optimised to receive the traffic directed at it. No customer wants to waste time on a website with a poor user experience. Also, if you’ll be sharing a link via your SMS, make sure the link is working. You don’t want to lose out to a competitor for reasons like this.
Adequate preparation before Black Friday gives you a better chance at engaging your customers via SMS. You also get to run a series of A/B tests through this messaging channel to know what kind of copy resonates with your customers.
What To Do After Black Friday Sales
Don’t throw a party with your finance team yet, after Black Friday sales. Rather, do the following. These will help you connect better with your customers and encourage further engagement with your product.
1. Send Thank You Messages
As simple as it says, send a thank you message to appreciate all the customers who bought from you.
2. Nudge Customers Who Abandoned Their Cart
Follow up with customers who didn’t complete their purchase and left items in the cart. Encourage them to make the purchase and try to find out why they didn’t complete their purchase. A feedback form will help with this.
3. Review your customer engagement campaign
Review the metrics of your campaign like how many new customers you made, and how many existing customers purchased, check your revenue growth rate, website bounce rate, cart abandonment and other customer and business metrics that help you understand how well your campaign performed. Check the messages that resonated well with your audience, the message open rate and the response to the call to action. I recommend using Bunce for this and I’ll tell you why shortly.
On Bunce, you can see how well your messaging campaigns are performing per customer segment. Reviewing the success of your marketing campaigns on Bunce goes beyond checking open rates and click through rates to seeing how the campaign impacts on your business revenue. This simply means you can see how much each customer segment made and make informed decisions based on this.
To see our data-driven customer engagement tool in action, book a demo here.
Happy Black Friday Selling!