The retail spending outlook for holiday 2023 is bright, as researchers are predicting it to increase 4.5 percent to a whopping $1.3 trillion in the weeks soon upon us.
Yet if we’ve learned anything these past few years, it’s that no holiday season for retailers is ever the same. This might be the year to really center on innovative mobile marketing as your key Black Friday/Cyber Monday engagement driver.
We’re seeing three key trends at Vibes that will likely impact your mobile marketing approach this year:
So what’s a marketer to do next?
It’s important to understand how and when your customers engage with your brand, then adjust accordingly. Findings from recent research conducted on the best SMS send times show that, contrary to common practices, sending before noon on the day of a sale isn’t always a retailer’s best bet.
Somebody somewhere once decided that 10 a.m. local time was the best time to send a message. Don’t do that if you want to stand out, which is the point of SMS. If you’re one of five messages a consumer receives within a span of five minutes, it’s not going to be as effective.
Here are four ways you can set yourself apart and stand out.
We’ve never had a holiday season with this many brands utilizing SMS marketing. That means consumers are going to see an unprecedented number of messages at key times during key days. In fact, we expect the average person to receive an average of 11 marketing messages on Black Friday this year, for some as many as 30-plus.
Being just as intentional in October, November and December can be more important than solely relying on Black Friday and Cyber Monday as the only days to drive strong sales. As you think about whether you do or don’t send messages on Black Friday this year, keep the following in mind:
It might be as simple as not picking a round number (e.g., picking 12:14 p.m. vs. 12:00 p.m. like everyone else does) that can catch more eyes that otherwise may have missed your message among four others they also received right at the top of the hour.
Some of the most successful retailers during the holiday season increase the number of messages they send — with some sending multiple messages in a single day. This is because they’ve learned when their audience is in the mindset to shop, it’s wise to target them appropriately in these moments.
If it makes sense with your audience to send multiple messages on a certain day, this is the time of year to do it.
MMS is one exciting and customer-friendly way to stand out. When considering if you send MMS vs. SMS, here are a few ideas based on the top-performing holiday MMS messages from Vibes’ customers last year:
These are the tactics and tweaks that allow a retailer to soar above the generic, still-stuck-in-2016 crowd filling consumers’ smartphones with unread offers this holiday season.
Alex Campbell is one of Vibes’ co-founders as well as chief innovation officer. For over 20 years, Alex has helped shape mobile marketing both within the company as well as the industry.
Related story: How Mobile Bridges the Gap Between In-Store and Online
Alex Campbell has long been recognized as one of mobile marketing’s original pioneers, working tirelessly to educate marketers on the value of mobile as a viable discipline. A true entrepreneur at heart, Alex oversees Vibes’ innovation strategy. The company’s intelligent mobile engagement platform enables marketers across a variety of industries to connect with consumers using SMS, MMS, dynamic Mobile Wallet, mobile app push notifications, and performance analytics to become the backbone for these brands’ overall digital engagement strategies.
 
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