Voyage 2019 Holiday SMS Marketing Guide

With 2020 projected to be the first-ever trillion-dollar holiday season, brands are eager to capture potential customer attention effectively. As one of the fastest-growing channels for B2C marketing, SMS has become a core marketing channel for eCommerce brands.

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Why SMS (and why now?)

Consumers are increasingly using smartphones to shop for holiday gifts and to find good deals and promotions, making SMS an ideal marketing channel to reach potential customers with a high purchase intent during the holiday season.

• SMS open rates are shown to be as high as 98%. Mobile messages have a higher chance of being seen by your most loyal, dedicated customers.
• Unlike email or other advertising channels, SMS is a much more focused and reliable conversion funnel, allowing brands to reach consumers in a more intimate and compelling way.
• 85% of customers prefer receiving texts over phone calls or emails, and up to 66% of consumers say they would pay more for something if it was supported by a mobile messaging channel.
• 61% of marketers still don’t use SMS and 65% of brands still don’t have a formal strategy for bulk SMS messaging.

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Tips for using SMS for the 2019 holiday season

The best times to reach consumers and build your SMS lists this holiday season are during the Black Friday to Cyber Monday period (Nov 29 – Dec 01) and during the late December holiday to New Year’s period (Dec 25 – Jan 01, 2020). A few tips from the team at Voyage:

• Timing is key: Brands should begin thinking about their SMS strategies early and keep customers engaged before, during, and after to achieve the greatest outreach and customer satisfaction.
• Keep it simple: Customers appreciate brevity; with a 160-character limit for basic SMS, brands have to be more direct & actionable.
• Use compelling visuals: Improve CTRs and conversion rates drastically through rich images and GIFs which engage, amuse, and persuade your customers.

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Build your SMS list today with Voyage

Start getting an ROAS of 25x by building your SMS list with Voyage - get a demo today.

(Sources: 1. US Holiday Sales, eMarketer, 2. Text Message Marketing, Tatango, 3. SMS Marketing Statistics, Tech Jury, 4. 44 mind-blowing statistics about SMS marketing, SlickText)