How to optimise your SMS campaigns this Black Friday

Issued by BulkSMS.com
Johannesburg, Nov 5, 2019

For many businesses, Black Friday is one of the most lucrative times of the year. It offers the perfect opportunity to engage with customers, build brand loyalty and create hype around your products and services.

And, while Black Friday offers you the chance to attract and engage new customers, you still need to be able to stand out!

For this reason, SMS volumes on and around Black Friday have increased significantly over the past few years, with more and more customers using SMS to cut through the clutter of Black Friday noise. But how do you make sure that your SMS is the one they take note of?

Well, we've got some tips!

1. Get the timing right

Schedule your SMSes to be sent at appropriate times of the day. Nobody wants an SMS at 2am offering them discounts on pet food. Most countries have regulations about when you can and cannot send marketing messages to your customers, and we'd recommend checking them out before you start sending.

2. Get consent

Do you know what's worse than getting an SMS at 2am from a pet store? Getting an SMS at 2am from a pet store and you don't even have a pet! SMS is a permission-based opt-in communication channel, which means you can only SMS customers who have agreed to receive messages from you. Make sure that your SMS campaigns are targeted to customers who are actively engaged with your brand or business.

3. Personalise each SMS

Rather than sending out the exact same text message to all your customers, why not make each customer feel valued by personalising each SMS? Your customers want to feel valued and a personalised message goes a long way in achieving that. If you'd like to go a step further, you can even personalise other fields to make sure that each customer is being notified of deals and specials that are meaningful to them.

4. Keep it short and sweet

The last thing you want to do on Black Friday is to send long messages that will get lost in the clutter. Keep your SMSes short and to the point. And try not to use abbreviations. Extensive use of abbreviations could lead to confusion and is not always effective in SMS marketing.

5. Use a drip campaign

Thinking of getting a head start on your Black Friday campaign? A drip campaign is a perfect way to start creating some excitement and anticipation around your deals. Add SMS communications to your drip campaigns to gradually build interest in your offer and get customers buying.

6. Add variety

Another way to stand out is to add some variety to your SMSes. Spice up your offer by adding a special discount code in each SMS or add a visual element to each SMS by creating and sending a Mobi-gram. You can even send a link to your e-commerce store or to a Web page with all the offers listed in one place.

Now that you've got the tips, go out and make the most of the Black Friday hype! Click here to find out more about the compliance requirements involved when setting up an SMS marketing campaign or here to find out how other businesses are doing it.