5 ways to use SMS with your holiday promotions this year

A common myth about SMS marketing is that it’s too intrusive or spammy for customers, especially during the busy holiday season. However, the reality is that SMS is one of the most effective and engaging ways to reach your audience and boost your sales. 

SMS holiday marketing allows you to send personalized and timely messages that can drive immediate action and create loyalty.

With the majority of SMS messages read within three minutes of receipt, it’s the perfect tool to cut through the inbox noise and increase sales.

Don’t make the mistake of limiting your holiday campaigns to email alone.

Instead, stand out by using SMS marketing holiday promotions. 

Discover five effective ways to leverage SMS holiday marketing and ensure your brand shines in the crowded holiday landscape.

Why SMS marketing is your secret weapon for holiday sales

The competition for customer attention intensifies as the holiday season approaches. But SMS marketing cuts through the noise to deliver huge benefits through holiday SMS promotions. Here’s why:

• Personal and direct: Holiday texts don’t accidentally end up in the spam folder. They’re delivered straight to customer phones and you can segment your audience to suit preferences and behavior. 
• Fast and timely: SMS messages are delivered instantly, which means you can reach your customers at the right moment. You can send holiday SMS promotions based on triggers, such as when a customer makes a purchase, browses a product, or leaves a review.
• Wide reach: SMS marketing is accessible to a vast audience. Most people have mobile phones and SMS messages work on both smartphones and basic cell phones, making it an inclusive channel. 
• Automated messaging: You can set up automated SMS sequences for various purposes. They can nurture leads, engage customers, and drive sales without manual intervention. 
• Cost-effective and easy to implement: A big budget or lots of technical skills aren’t needed to start sending holiday text messages.

Learn key stats and tips

SMS is easier to use and more cost-effective than ever. Discover the real impact behind SMS marketing and why you should incorporate this valuable channel.

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Collect phone numbers for holiday SMS promotions

If you don’t have an SMS program quite yet, don’t worry—it’s not too late. The first step is to grow your subscriber list. As you don’t have much time left before the holiday season, look to the most efficient and effective ways to grow your SMS list quickly:

• Collect phone numbers through immediate or exit-intent pop-up forms. Update your existing on-site sign-up forms and add an extra field for the phone number. You might also want to consider including incentives to increase the sign-up rate of new visitors. See how Love Fitness Apparel collects its contacts below:

• Promote SMS sign-up on social channels. Launch the campaign with a CTA leading to the landing page that asks for a phone number. To increase sign-up rate, promote the exclusivity of your SMS program by promoting text-only deals, early access, exclusive bundles, etc. The example of the Brooklinen landing page is below:

• Let your existing customer know about your SMS program. Send the campaign to your current customers and ask them to sign up for your text program, as seen in this Misen example.

5 ways to use SMS with your holiday promotions

The sky’s the limit when it comes to ways on how to incorporate SMS into your marketing strategy. Let’s cover the most relevant holiday-related ways to use SMS to increase sales during this busy period:

1. Send SMS with time-sensitive messages:

• Flash sales
• Coupon code or sale expiration reminders
• Sale extension notifications

These types of messages are most often sent during the holiday season. When announcing a flash sale, you might want to send a bold MMS message with bright colors and an enticing discount offer, but remember that reminders and sale extension notifications don’t have to be so special. Some simple holiday text messages can definitely be enough. Here’s how your messages could look:

2. Send early sale access and SMS-only offers

These kinds of holiday texts will help make your SMS subscribers feel special.

For the initial announcement, you can send MMS, but for follow-up messages, a simple text with a link to your store will work just fine. How many messages included in this campaign depends on you. But sending a reminder or two before the end can significantly increase your overall campaign performance.

3. Use SMS to drive people to email

There are certain emails you want your subscribers to see. SMS can help. Here’s how it works.

Send a holiday text message saying that a special offer is waiting for the customer in their inbox. If it is a time-sensitive email, tell them to check it out now because the offer is time-limited. This is your opportunity to have more touchpoints with your customers, increase email open rates, drive traffic to your site, and improve email deliverability.

Having launched their SMS program, Silver Street Jewellers sent a similar SMS message, saying: “Hey, check your email. Just sent you some awesome coupons!” As a result, the following email campaign brought a nearly 25% click-through-open rate. This helped them to re-engage with customers, generate online awareness, and drive sales.

4. Use SMS in workflows

• Welcome Series
• Browse/Product/Cart Abandonment

Text messages for your marketing can be a powerful add-on to your existing automated workflows, so be sure to incorporate them into your welcome and abandonment workflows. Here are some suggestions.

If your welcome series consists of three emails that offer a discount for the first order, consider adding a reminder of that via SMS shortly after the initial welcome email. During the holiday sales rush, customers don’t wait for days or even weeks to make a purchase. So be more visible and persistent – send a more personal reminder of a coupon code that a customer can redeem right away.

Revise your browse, product, and cart abandonment workflows. While accounting only for a few percent of all emails sent, these workflows generate from 20 to 60 percent of revenue from the entire email program. These messages may be powerful, but SMS can make them even better
Here a few examples:

• If the abandoned cart is of high value (you choose how high it should be), send a text, and offer a unique value-add, such as special customer service, gift wrapping, and an additional discount.
• Extend your abandoned cart series via SMS
• For browse or product abandonment, send a text reminding them that products tend to sell out fast. If they have an incentive, remind them about the expiration date.

Note: For the holiday period, consider incentivizing customers more than usual, because this year they will be price-sensitive as never before. Also, revise your discount policy and make your coupon validation time shorter than usual. It will help customers make a decision faster.

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5. Use SMS for order and shipping confirmation messages

Transactional messages tend to receive the biggest customer engagement because they contain critical information about the purchase. Send these through SMS can make them faster and easier to see—something your customers will appreciate.

Also, consider using confirmation SMS messages to:

• Send a powerful thank-you message
• Offer a limited-time incentive for the next purchase
• Up-sell and cross-sell the customer
• Promote other benefits of yours

Wrap up

There are a plethora of things that you can do to get ready for the holiday season. However, don’t get distracted by the noise. Focus on implementing only the most critical things that will generate the biggest ROI.

Here’s how to do SMS marketing holiday promotions like a pro: 

Tweak your marketing automation workflows, add time-sensitive SMS offers to your email campaigns, and avoid the holiday madness. Thanks to holiday texts, you’ll be enjoying huge sales in no time.