How to create a holiday SMS campaign. Step-by-step guide. Part 2

DATABASE AND ITS CHARACTERISTICS

The main thing that you need for SMS campaigns is a client database. In one case you cannot have a clients’ contact, in the other case you have a formed database but it is old and irrelevant or your clients are arguing for your promotion and praying for stopping it. We'll revise all the occasions.

In the first case, you need to create a new base from scratch. How to do it? There are several options for the development of events.

Creating a new database:

1. Buy a ready-made database of numbers.
   This is quick, but a rather dubious investment, because customers did not give consent to your sending, which is fraught with a wave of unsubscriptions and the ineffectiveness of the marketing campaign itself. The worst-case scenario is that most of the generated database consists of invalid contacts. This will bring not only new fears about SMS marketing but also can bring a waste of your time, money, and reputation.


2. Use a lead magnet.
   Surely, every person at least once in their life left their phone number on the website, in exchange for some gift, free book, or webinar. This is the implementation of the lead magnet mechanism, in fact, it is a "trap product": the client is given the opportunity to try your product or service, and the marketer is given the opportunity to follow the client's further actions after trying the free product. You have to suggest something the customer needs. Otherwise, this trick will be ignored and won't bear fruit.


3. Use "fishing rods" programs.
   In this case, you should correctly and carefully choose the right program that will collect valid customer data. Lead Extractor from AtomPark can be a convenient and reliable tool for you. You can collect numbers from the Internet by keywords or from selected websites where your target audience “lives”. There is a filter by country, which will allow you to get rid of numbers whose owners live in other states. But again, you do not have consent to send SMS to subscribers whose numbers you collected using the program.
   In addition, it will be necessary to warm up the database obtained in this way to leave only the numbers of really interested people. Also, be sure to insert the unsubscribe link so that those who do not want to receive your messages can simply unsubscribe and do not complain about spam. In Atomic SMS service you can do it in one click.

Another situation, if you have your own database, but it doesn't work. Let's think about why it happens and how we can solve this problem.

In the base for SMS sending, there are clients who do not respond to received messages. Why is this happening? The reasons are different - from banal employment to the transition to competitors. People who ignore SMS can be divided into two audiences: "dead" and "sleeping".

Here are the characteristic features of each group:

• Dead base. Clients do not respond to the messages, do not show any activity for more than a year. The reanimation of such a base is almost unbelievable.


• Sleeping base. Showed interest for the first 3-5 months, after which they stopped responding. The opportunity of reanimating such a base is possible with operational actions.

Remember: bringing old customers back is easier than attracting new ones. That is why it is so important to closely monitor the behavior of clients and "wake up" the sleeping audience in time.

Rules that you should follow to reanimate databases:

1. Segment your base. Identify customers who are not responding to your texting. Break the base into those who have never opened the texting list, and those who have not done this for 1,3,5 months. The regular analysis will help monitor the situation and weed out the inactive.


2. Define the strategy. Your purpose is to generate interest from inactive customers. For the total, use: discounts on goods and services, contests and marketing activities, free tests and samples. A good reason in this case would be the holiday SMS sending. Here it is important to give the client what he needs - a significant discount, gift, or service.
   


3. How to work with clients who have not opened any messages. Even if generous discounts and gifts are not beneficial, the last step remains. Let the client know that you are waiting for him and offer a "personal" discount. This will make the buyer feel needed and important.
   

If none of the three points helped, SMS messages do not lead to conversion actions - feel free to delete customer data from the database. They are “dead” for business, which means there is no point in wasting time and resources on them. Better to focus them on expanding your base and retaining current customers.

The next step after creating a database is to "build" the audience with the necessary "buns".

What can you offer to the customers in this case? Let's talk about the special date and types of messages for it!

DETERMINATION OF THE SPECIAL DATE

1.Birthday of client or employee

Congratulations can be for the person himself, his children, animals - not so important. It depends more on the area of ​​your business. For example, when a person signs up on a children's toys website, they usually fill out a form asking for the date of birth of their children, if any.

But people on the internet are reluctant to share personal information. Sometimes you need to be creative to find out the date of birth. Then you can randomly send messages with birthday greetings, when a person realizes that today is not his birthday, then out of curiosity, he can fill in this field.

Or congratulations to your employees that have to consist of personal information, such as name and personal gift.

2.Anniversaries

• day of subscription to the message;
• date of first purchase;
• date of the first trip (for travel companies);
• anniversary of participation in the loyalty program;
• points accumulated under the loyalty program and so on.

Data for such occasions is taken in the CRM system.

3.Weekend holidays

Holidays like Christmas, New Years, Thanksgiving, and so on bring expectations from the public. We are all pleased to receive some kind of celebration bonus, so this can be a good chance for your company to increase sales for the holidays due to the offered discount or giving some special proposition.

In the previous article, you could familiarize with the list of reasons for sending SMS. Now let's figure out which sphere certain holidays are most beneficial and what to offer customers for each of them.

• Veterans Day

Veterans Day (originally known as Armistice Day) is a federal holiday in the United States observed annually on November 11, for honoring military veterans, that is, persons who have served in the United States Armed Forces (and were discharged under conditions other than dishonorable). In this case, you can give some offers to military citizens or some gifts. It can be used for some restaurants, wearing shops, organizations for congratulating the servicemen, for souvenir shops, weapons and various "male" types of business, and so on.

Here is a discount proposition from some hunting stores. It is appropriate for the holiday as a reminder.

• Thanksgiving Day

This is a national holiday, for which it is customary to thank neighbors and higher powers for all the benefits. It can be a good promotional time for big and small businesses, such as stores, restaurants, cafes, dealership industry, and any other.

Here you can see the typical proposition from some restaurant, it is more common for this holiday. Because Thanksgiving is the holiday of sharing food and goods.

• Black Friday

The biggest event for every American person. A lot of people are waiting for the whole year to get discounts. It starts with stores, ending the great company. You should use this opportunity to boost your income through discounts.

This holiday is suitable as a news feed for business in absolutely any field. It is enough to make discounts in order to increase sales. And the more they are, the better!

This is an SMS for Black Friday from some webstore. It will have feedback because of some time limits and personalized offers.

• Christmas

This holiday is universal and can be used as a news feed for sending by businesses in any field. It is best to send the texting SMS 5-7 days before the holiday, as people begin to prepare for it in advance.

It is the greatest period of the year. Winter holidays make people believe in miracles. At this time, it is customary to share everything that you have. This holiday will be a very suitable mailing list for charities and various types of business. That is why Christmas will become a good helper not only for various types of businesses, but also for various charitable organizations. Such organizations can send texting SMS with notification of the collection for charitable purposes.

This texting SMS shows the importance of Christmas. The main attribute of this holiday is gifts for loved ones, and also at a discount.

This message will resonate with many hearts, thanks to the carrying mission of Christmas.

• New Year`s Eve

On New Year's Eve, everyone is in a hurry to choose gifts for family, colleagues, and loved ones. With the help of a competent submission of an offer, you will help a person with the definition of a gift and also increase your profit. On this holiday, the promotion of travel companies, souvenir shops, restaurants, cafes, toy stores, and so on is perfect.

In this case, the sale for the holiday will be very useful, since we do not count the money spent on the closest ones, but the additional benefit will attract the attention of everyone.

Conclusion:

So, to summarize our second article in the series on holiday sendings:

• Create a high-quality list of numbers using a lead magnet on the website or a parser program. Or use the service of texting to the bases of operators.


• Create an offer. Offer your customers themed products, discounts, bonuses, holiday certificates. Send messages 5-7 days before the holidays so that customers have time to decide and make a purchase.

Stay with us and wait for further blog updates! In the next article, we will talk about templates for each type of holiday for different kinds of business.

Take care of yourself and multiply your profits with AtomPark

Use Atomic Bulk SMS Sender and increase your holiday sales with our service

Written by:

Наталия Шморгун