With SMS open and response rates as high as 98% and 45%, respectively (in contrast to corresponding figures of 20% and 6% for email), it’s time to give SMS marketing a special place in your Mother’s Day marketing campaigns this year.
In this blog, we’ll take a deeper look into how we can make sure your SMS marketing campaigns stand out amongst the crowd this season.
6 ways to make your Mother’s Day SMS campaign stand out:
Make special offers
If you’ve worked hard to create a limited edition produce range to serve as the perfect Mother’s Day gift, why not boost the hype by getting in front of customers with an early bird discount? A simple SMS text with a link to your new range and an offer code could be all it takes to steal business from your competitors. Who doesn’t enjoy being organised and getting their gift shopping out of the way early?
It’s not just retailers who can rise to the occasion this season. If you work in the hair or cosmetics industry, you could create a bulk SMS send offering discounted treatments for mother/daughter pamper days, afternoon tea, or certain treatments, especially for mum.
You could even set up a virtual number to enable interested customers to book in directly through SMS, in response to your text campaign. It’s also a great opportunity to open up a two-way conversation with your customers and start to build on their sense of brand loyalty.
Create a sense of urgency
Alongside informing customers of the offers that are circulating for Mother’s Day, you could create a bit of urgency by letting them know the last date that they can place their order to make the Mother’s Day deadline.
With 53% of consumers, more likely to purchase from a brand that they can reach through a messaging app, a time-sensitive SMS campaign is an ideal way to convert more customers this season.
For example, if you run a floristry, you might be busier than usual in the run-up to Mother’s Day, so ensure customers know that they can’t leave it too late to place their order.
Send at the right time
SMS marketing is the ideal medium for promoting products, but if you send the reminders or promotions too close to the 10th March, you may have already lost out to competitors. Perfect timing can often be the difference between a conversion and an unsubscribe, especially for seasonal campaigns where there is a clear deadline ahead.
Want to ensure that your services and promotions stand out against competitors? Allow the promotions to run for an appropriate length of time to give customers a chance to engage with them.
Similarly, it could be worth setting up a last-minute SMS marketing call for final orders just before the delivery deadline for Mother’s Day gifts to arrive in time. You might even succeed in poaching business and rounding up the less organised shoppers and last-minute planners.
Have a clear call to action
Let’s say that you’ve got as far as sketching out your SMS marketing strategy, and you’re planning on sending out a few well-timed reminders to support your Mother’s Day campaign. Have you thought about what you’d like the recipient to do then?
That’s why the right call to action can be a huge game changer for boosting ROI and customer engagement with your SMS marketing campaign. A general rule of thumb is to include something that is simple, and helpful for your customers such as a shortened URL to a specific product range or your website, or a landing page that offers gifting advice.
Customers are like water – they will always take the path of least resistance, so make sure that your CTA effectively bridges the gap between your messaging and your product offering.
It also might be an idea to incorporate a shortcode and keyword as a call to action, making it easier for customers to communicate directly and organise a booking.
The bottom line
Text campaigns have become a staple for marketers in the retail industry in recent years, particularly for getting in front of customers ahead of big seasonal campaigns. According to a study last year, Mother’s Day has enjoyed a top spot as the third most lucrative holiday for retailers for the past few years, with last year peaking at an all-time high.
That’s why it’s essential to make sure that your Mother’s Day SMS marketing campaign follows the four main principles that we’ve set out in this blog – offers that are too good to be missed, creating a sense of urgency, making sure your SMS timing is perfect, and having a clear call to action.
Please remember as well that Mother’s Day can be a sensitive holiday for some, and it’s always worth offering your customers an opportunity to opt out of any themed comms prior to your first campaign being launched.
