Is your store ready for the biggest retail event of the year? Black Friday followed by Cyber Monday is the yearly retail event, where consumers go nuts for specials, deals and sales at their local retail outlet or ecommerce store. As Black Friday approaches, SMS marketing emerges as a powerful tool to engage customers and boost sales. With high open rates and instant delivery, online SMS services make it easy to send mass text messages to your audience, making it easy to share exclusive deals and promotions.
A recent survey by Finder revealed that 35% - equivalent to 6.8 million Australians – plan on shopping this Black Friday and will spend approximately $3.8 million in November on a variety of products including clothes, beauty, gadgets and travel.
When it comes down to the crunch, your store can stand out from the competition with an effective marketing campaign and communications strategy by targeting your audience on the channel they use the most: SMS. Sending SMS broadcasts can provide your store with the push it needs to improve sales, convert leads into customers and ultimately boost business revenue from Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.
Start the Hype Early
We recommended starting your Black Friday and Cyber Monday SMS communications as soon as possible. If you’ve been planning for it the entire year, why not send out a sneak peak in October to get your audience pumped for what’s to come? With Notifyre, you can schedule SMS broadcasts ahead of time, so your Black Friday and Cyber Monday planning just got a whole lot easier.
We’ve put together some great Black Friday and Cyber Monday pre-sale SMS messages you can use to get your audience excited for what’s to time.
Black Friday SMS example 1
{store.name}: Are you ready, {first.name}? Subscribe to our mailing list to receive exclusive updates and be the first to hear about our Black Friday sale: {website.link}. Opt Out reply STOP
Black Friday/Cyber Monday SMS example 2
{store.name}: Black Friday & Cyber Monday are almost here! Join us in-store or online for thousands of deals on your favourite products: {website.link} Opt Out reply STOP
Black Friday SMS example 3
{store.name}: Only 3 days left until Black Friday! Deals start from 9am and we’ll have new deals every hour! Opt Out reply STOP
Create Custom SMS Messages
Making your SMS messages appeal to your audience’s human side can help to build trust in your brand. Marketing a big sale event such as Black Friday or Cyber Monday is the perfect opportunity for you to add a little something extra to your SMS, such as a personalisation token or emoji. Did you know that 70% of people believe that images express their feelings better than words?
Using an emoji in your SMS marketing for Black Friday or Cyber Monday can introduce feelings of enjoyment, happiness and excitement within your message. This can lead to a more positive experience with your brand and hopefully, a higher chance of them purchasing your products and/or services during your sale event.
Notifyre’s handy SMS personalisation tools make it easy to add an emoji, customise your SMS sender ID and personalise your SMS sends by inserting your audience’s personal details such as first name, last name and more directly into the body of the SMS.
Craft Your SMS Content Carefully
Although it’s perfectly fine to have a little fun by humanising your text messages, you need to always make sure you are following the correct rules and regulations around SMS marketing at all times. If you’re sending Black Friday and Cyber Monday text messages to your audience globally, there may be different rules and regulations you need to follow. In Australia, the Queensland Government provides some general rules and guidelines on Text (SMS) marketing, that include:
- Ensuring that the recipient has expressed consent to receiving your messages
- Identifying your business through either a custom SMS sender ID or putting your business name in the body of the text message
- Adding a functional unsubscribe option, allowing the recipient to opt-out from receiving further messages.
Have a Back-Up Plan
Sent out a few text messages through your Black Friday and Cyber Monday marketing campaign but your audience still hasn’t made a purchase? SMS can be a great way to get your leads to turn into customers through an abandoned cart strategy, and is particularly effective for retail and ecommerce stores during big sale events.
There are many reasons why people abandon their online shopping carts. Baymard Institute found that 50% of consumers abandoned their cart because of fees, 28% abandoned their cart because they had to create an account and 21% felt that the checkout process was too complicated. SMS can’t solve an account creation or checkout process issue (unfortunately), but it can help to improve customer conversion if your audience are leaving their carts empty due to fees during your Black Friday or Cyber Monday sales.
Take this opportunity to send an abandoned cart SMS offering free shipping, or even a discount off their total cart price. See some recommended abandoned cart SMS examples below to get you started.
Abandoned Cart SMS Example 1
{store.name}: {first.name}, you’ve left something behind! Are you still interested in {product/service.name}? Get 10% off your total order if you purchase today with code BFCM10: {website.link}
Abandoned Cart SMS Example 2
{store.name}: You’re almost there, {first.name}! Get FREE shipping on your order if you complete your purchase in the next 24 hrs. Use code FREESHIP at checkout: {website.link}
Abandoned Cart SMS Example 3
{store.name}: Let us give you a hand! Get another 5% off your BFCM order if you checkout today with code CART05: {website.link}.
Keep Your Audience on the Edge
The chance to convert your customers doesn’t stop at Black Friday or Cyber Monday. It’s just the beginning of the holiday season, with Christmas, Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve around the corner, there’s many more sale opportunities to be had for your retail or ecommerce store.
Once you’ve grown your SMS opt-in list through Black Friday and Cyber Monday, it’s time to send your audience exclusive offers, deals and coupons to keep them updated about your products and/or services. With 54% of consumers wanting to receive promotions from a business via text message, there’s nothing worse than signing up to receive marketing communications from one of your favourite brands and never receiving any.
Take advantage of your SMS opt-in list by sending SMS to your audience for product launches, offers, coupons, events and more. Keeping an active SMS opt-in list not only provides your retail or ecommerce store with the opportunity to gain more sales, but also gives you the ability to start early with your SMS marketing campaigns for Christmas, Boxing Day and New Year's.
Start Your Black Friday and Cyber Monday SMS Marketing Campaign Today
Don’t wait any longer. Now’s the time to get started with your Black Friday and Cyber Monday SMS marketing campaign. Easily reach your customers and improve customer engagement rates with your retail or ecommerce store during the busiest time of the year through SMS. In addition to promoting your sales, you can also monitor deliveries of purchased items with our SMS delivery tracking and notifications. Try Notifyre today.
