Can you believe it? It’s that time of the year again! That’s right, Black Friday and it’s online cousin Cyber Monday are just around the corner and it’s safe to say that currently, we are in the calm before the storm of online offers and in-store sales.
Each year we have seen the bar raised as the sales become more frequent and the competition to be the top retailer offering the best deals continues. And as each year passes the purchasing and spends only increases, so it’s sure to be the biggest year yet. To top it all of Black Friday falls on the 26th of November this year, do you know what that means? That’s right PAYDAY!
Over the years, Black Friday has started to become Black November, with sales starting weeks before the official date. This means it is now the perfect time to start preparing your campaigns and putting together a master plan of how to get noticed among the mass sales. For example, by reaching out to your customers prior to the event, letting them know you have got something to look forward to will result in them looking out for you on the day.
For most retailers, Black Friday can be the biggest day of the year to maximise sales and build customer relationships. Often potential consumers will receive a huge number of email campaigns, while social media posts are also plastered in front of them. However, the key thing to consider is originality, emails often sit unopened for days maybe even weeks, while social media becomes a scrolling frenzy, and it is unlikely your posts will be noticed.
This is where SMS comes in as your perfect solution. The statistics go through the roof, with a 93% open rate you can be sure your offers won’t be missed. You can even ask yourself, how often would you leave your text message unopened and unread? Personally, as soon as I hear my text tone go off I check it without hesitation. Your business could take advantage of this perfect communication tool!
Not only is SMS proven to be extremely effective, but it is also both time and cost-efficient. Whether you choose to upload your contacts and send a campaign directly from the platform or make use of one of our handy integrations, you could send a campaign out individually or to millions of numbers in a matter of minutes. This is great for last-minute or time-bound campaigns and therefore perfect for highlighting your sales.
With a FireText account, you can make use of several of our awesome features that will enrich your SMS campaigns and improve your return, please see below for some handy tips:
Personalise Your Campaigns
Essentially SMS is still a personal form of communication, so it is important to consider this within your campaigns. Luckily when uploading your contacts into your FireText account you have the opportunity to also upload their first name, last name and three additional custom fields. This means you can still benefit from the efficiency of firing out a bulk campaign, however by using the ‘Personalisation’ tool you can include these additional personal fields.
Include Emojis
WIth FireText you are able to send messages including Unicode! If it fits with your customer’s voice, emojis are the perfect way to add an extra pop to your message. They allow you to portray emotion in within your text so it to come across more light-hearted and less sales driven. Emojis can also help your message stand out to the customer, which is the key aim during the Black Friday Frenzy!
URL Tracking
With the FireText system, you can track a URL within your message. This is a perfect way for retailers to provide a link to their website and be able to track the success of their campaign. The FireText URL tracker, not only tracks exactly who has clicked your link, at what time and on what device, but it will also shorten it right down to 20 characters. By being able to see data on exactly who has clicked your link means you could decide to send follow up campaigns to those who haven’t, to help maximise sales.
These are just a few handy features that you can take advantage of this Black Friday. Our team of friendly SMS Gurus are on standby to assist with your campaigns and are available to chat through your plans and suggest the best way to optimise your campaigns, so please don’t hesitate to get in touch.