Can Black Friday be personal?

You’ve been counting down the months, never mind the days. With a pre-sunset alarm scheduled, you’re ready to go. It may take hours, but you’ll be among the first when the doors open, and it will be worth it… it’s the Black Friday sale and it’s time to score those discounts. Or not. Suddenly those queues, complete with social distancing measures and masks, don’t sound so appealing because this year we’re all still navigating Covid-19 and what that means for retail shopping. And, while the pandemic has boosted e-commerce sales and people are shopping online more, this shift also means that digital marketing advertising needs to stand out more than ever.

Black Friday marks the start of festive season shopping and retailers are re-looking at how they will attract customers safely from supply chain to the sales floor — or website. An increase in online sales can also mean delayed delivery which is why so many e-commerce sites are extending their sales window to manage orders more effectively. More time to shop? Great. So, the next step is reaching your customers in a way that makes sense and that is where text message marketing comes in.

Direct SMS communication

A recent survey by Zipwhip found that 80% of consumers want businesses to offer text messaging as a communication option. Why? How you speak to your customer affects their shopping behavior, and text message communication speaks to them far more directly. And with Covid-19, everyone is shopping online (or at least window shopping online) which makes it all too easy to miss an email, disable a website pop-up or abandon a full cart.  What’s more is that consumers want communication that’s personal - personalization can drive sales. Think about it – you’ve been searching for the perfect set of wireless headphones. You know exactly what color you’re after and are pretty sure about the price range and specs. And then your phone beeps… it’s a Black Friday message advertising a marked down pair of high-top sneakers. Where the perfect headphones likely would have resulted in a sale, the high-top sneakers fall short. So, what if you could better define that data set and speak the right product language?

It’s about you

To thrive in today’s retail climate, it’s important that retailers invest in scalable and customizable technologies which will help them market more effectively come Black Friday (or any other big sale day). Instead of sending customers with generic discounts, segment your audience and target them based on previous purchases to boost engagement and increase conversions. Why? When a text message is generic, it risks looking like spam and it’s more likely that your customer will opt out. So how do you stop them from typing ‘STOP’. The solution lies in Mobiz’ Personalization Engine. It’s never been easier (or more effective) to set up a Black Friday campaign according to specific conditions or targeting requirements that are already in your database. It’s about using your customer database to its full advantage, sending better campaigns and coming out with meaningful insights which drive buying behavior. What’s more is that with Mobiz’ Personalization Engine, you don’t need to create thousands of separate campaigns – you’re simply creating one campaign with dynamic content fields and conditioning that will instantly create unique, individual SMSs and landing page for each customer.

Text message marketing is an essential piece of the personalization puzzle to increase Black Friday and Cyber Monday spend as the holiday shopping commences. The days of hiring extra security in order to fend off a fist fight over a flat screen TV may be over but that doesn’t mean you, as a brand or a retailer, can’t be prepared.

To find out more about Mobiz’ Personalization Engine and how it can make Black Friday personal for your customers, connect with us. Our sales and customer success teams are here to answer your questions, book your demo and guide you through the Mobiz journey.