Thanksgiving is upon us and, in most cities, the temperatures are starting to drop, the Starbucks red cups are out in full force, and visions of sugarplums might be dancing their way into your dreams.
So, we thought we’d jump aboard the holiday express and get into the gift giving spirit. When it comes to marketing to your customers, mobile is the gift that keeps on giving – with a near 100% open rate and 10x coupon redemption rate.
We’ve made our lists and have checked them twice and without further ado, here are our 12 best holiday mobile marketing tips to spread mobile marketing cheer.
1. Incentivize Your Customers to Sign Up
How will your program grow without a great sign-up offer? Not easily. Use calls-to-action to get your customers’ attention and incentivize them to sign up for our program. The more places you display your CTA, the better. Learn more about how to create the perfect call to action.
2. Send Back-in-Stock Messages
Nearly half of all shopping will be done online and mobile this year, according to the National Retail Federation. Given the increase in shopping, it’s certain that products will be unavailable. Instead of angering customers, be proactive and let them know when their items become available again by sending back-in-stock messages. See more about how e-commerce sites can reduce shopping cart abandonment with back-in-stock messages.
3. Integrate with a Point of Sale System
We know that shopping increases during the holiday season. This is a great time to integrate your mobile marketing provider with your Point of Sale System to really understand your customer, and send more intelligent, helpful messages. Learn what to consider when purchasing a new point of sale system.
4. Quickly Communicate Important Details
Once you’ve integrated your POS and mobile provider, communicate important dates such as order confirmations, expected shipping dates, and order tracking links. SMS is the perfect channel for operational alerts, especially over the holiday season. Understand what you need to know about implementing operational alerts.
5. Be Consistent
Whichever messaging cadence you set upon your customer opting in, stick to that. For example, if you set a messaging frequency of 1 message per week, it’s not a great idea to surprise them with 1 message per day. The opposite is also true – if your customer signs up for 12 days of holiday deals, you better make sure you send a deal a day. Learn more about creating consistent messaging campaigns.
6. Send Mobile Coupons
Sending coupons via SMS helps brands see increased engagement and redemption rates. In fact, millennials say they find messages with coupons useful and are redeemed 10x more than coupons in emails. In addition, 58% of consumers say they would opt-in to a brand’s mobile program if they sent coupons. To learn more, check out this definitive guide to discounting with 16 mobile coupons you can use today.
7. Look to the Power of Social
Combine mobile messaging and social media to support and grow the other. For example, you could promote your text program on your brand’s social page and send your SMS subscribers a link to your social page. Use the power of social media to make it simple for your customers to share great mobile deals on their social networks.
8. Automate Your Most Common Messages
Relax this holiday season. Use a mobile messaging platform to schedule and automate your most common messages like welcome messages, purchase confirmations, thank you notes, etc. Work more efficiently so you can get back to enjoying that egg nog. With these essential platform capabilities, automating your most common messages is easy.
9. Help Out the Physical Stores
Even though most holiday shopping happens online, customers still visit physical stores. SMS is great for sending exclusive in-store only offers which helps drive traffic to your brick-and-mortar locations. See how physical stores and e-commerce stores can support each other.
10. Send Targeted Messages
Use the immediacy and effectiveness of SMS as an opportunity to make your messages as targeted and relevant as possible. Your mobile subscribers are most likely your most loyal customers. Reward them with special, personalized offers and targeted marketing.
11. Thank Your Most Loyal Customers
Now that you understand your mobile subscribers are very loyal, thank them. Thank them for their loyalty throughout the year with an exclusive discount or a thoughtful gift. Confused about mobile loyalty? This webinar teaches you how to connect with your mobile audience to improve loyalty.
12. Send Joyful Messages Just Because!
While it’s not recommended to frivolously message your customers, we do think a creative “just because” message every now and then is a great idea. Here are 4 insanely creative ways to use MMS (messages with videos/pictures instead of text) to make your messages especially interesting (and festive) for the holiday season.
There you have it. Twelve mobile messaging gifts to send you on your way this holiday season. If you’re interested in learning more about creating your own mobile campaign, let us know and we’ll be in touch soon.
