Complete Guide to BFCM SMS Marketing (2023)

bfcm sms marketing guide

With less than 50 days to go for BFCM, it’s crucial to prepare your Shopify store and start marketing your upcoming sale and discounts. As a time-sensitive sale, you need to ensure that you can reach your customers as soon as your BFCM sale is live and bring them back to your Shopify store to shop. SMS marketing is one of the best channels to use for such time-sensitive marketing messages, amidst the other channels that bring a lot of noise with them.

With SMS, you can inform your customers about your sale, even if they are offline. With its instant deliverability and high visibility, SMS helps you reach out to your subscribers with ease, getting them to come back and make a purchase.

But, how can you leverage SMS marketing to sell more during BFCM? We’ve listed a few best practices to help you get started.

Why is BFCM SMS Marketing Essential to Increase Your Sales?

With open rates as high as 98%, SMS marketing is a must-have channel for every eCommerce brand. With SMS, you can reach customers instantly since the channel is not dependent on internet connectivity. This way, you don’t have to wait for your customers to come online to bring them back to your Shopify store or tell them about your upcoming BFCM offers.

You can basically sell to them even when they are offline.

It was found that it takes only 90 seconds to respond to a text. On the other hand, it takes customers 90 minutes to respond to an email.

Many SMS marketing apps allow you to set up automations to run your marketing campaigns on autopilot. Such a feature helps you save time. However, during BFCM, you need an SMS marketing engine that helps you personalize your offers to different kinds of customers.

For instance, customers abandon their cart for different reasons— some may find the price too high while others may have just forgotten the BFCM deal you’re offering.

A templatized abandoned cart message just doesn’t make sense for these different types of shoppers.

Think about how you walked into Walmart and your purchase decision for every item you picked up during BFCM was dependent on different factors.

This is where human-powered SMS marketing helps. With a human-powered SMS marketing engine, you can interact with customers and create conversation to understand their needs and what they were expecting from the BFCM deals you offer.

Based on this, you can offer them different discounts or just educate them on information like shipping, returns and more.

What’s more, human-powered SMS marketing doesn’t have to take your time! With an SMS marketing app like TxtCart, your conversational marketing is done by SMS experts within the app. These experts interact with your customers and help them with the information or motivation they need to shop.

This mix of automation and human-powered marketing allows you to sell better and cater to different shoppers, increasing conversions effectively before, during and after the BFCM sale.

BFCM SMS Marketing Best Practices to Increase Shopify Sales

BFCM SMS marketing can be used in many ways based on the products you sell and who you sell to. But there are a few best practices to ensure you get the most out of text marketing campaigns:

1. Send a pre-sale SMS informing your subscriber list

Hype your upcoming BFCM sale by sending an SMS a few days before your sale. Ensure that your SMS includes that your items are sure to fly off the racks so that they keep an eye out for the sale and start shopping as soon as the BFCM sale is live.

Here’s an SMS marketing copy you can use to promote your upcoming BFCM sale:

Hi Jane,

Don’t miss our BFCM sale in 2 days! Get 70% off on all our products, even newly launched items. The sale will be live at 5 pm on Friday. ⏰

You can even use this pre-sale marketing message to get your customers to wishlist items they want.

Hi Jane,

Get 70% off on all our products, our sale starts in just 2 days. Save items in your wishlist so you can buy them before they are stocked out! ????

Pro tip: Set up customer reminder campaigns on TxtCart to make sure that no one’s missed your messages.

Pro tip 2: Use your customer segments to personalize your BFCM sale announcements too! For example, sending price-sensitive customers early access to get them to wishlist more items.

2. Customize your cart abandonment message to include your BFCM discount

Shoppers usually abandon their cart during this sale period, especially because of the numerous options they have to browse through. You need to be able to bring them back with a well-crafted abandoned cart message.

Now one way of doing this is setting up automated BFCM SMS marketing campaigns such as these to recover abandoned carts:

Hi Jane,

It looks like you left your cart behind. We’ve saved the ‘Sweetheart Neckline Red Dress’ for you. Checkout before it goes out of stock!

But during BFCM, it might take more than just an automated message to convert a cart abandoner. After all, they have so many other deals to choose from. That’s where a bit of human touch comes in.

Use TxtCart’s human-powered marketing engine to converse with your abandoned cart shoppers and get them to buy based on their motivation. So what you’re doing in addition to the usual automation, is reaching out to shoppers personally to ask why they didn’t complete a purchase.

So instead of simply reaching out with a generic discount, you’re actually asking them why they left the deal behind.

The responses from customers will also help you analyse what’s stopping you from getting as many sales during BFCM. You can then use this intel to further optimize your offers, promotional messages and more to entice shoppers.

Install TxtCart to set up abandoned cart text messages and recover carts smartly.

3. Send reminders during the sale

Set up SMS marketing messages to be sent during your sale. You can send these SMS messages twice during this sale weekend to let shoppers know what they are missing out on. Here are 2 types of SMS you can send about your BFCM sale:

Build social proof about the number of shoppers

Make your SMS subscribers feel like they are missing out by showing how popular your BFCM sale is. Send an SMS letting your shoppers know how many people have already bought from your sale and nudge them to shop.

Here’s an SMS copy to give you an example:

Hi Jane,

1500 people have already bought from our BFCM sale. Don’t miss your favourites on a discount! ????

Shop now!

Inform shoppers about any newly launched, limited edition or bestseller products

Let shoppers know about any new products that were exclusively launched for this BFCM sale or even promote your trending or bestselling products. You can do this easily with one-time campaigns on TxtCart. For further personalization and to see higher conversions, you could push this message to a particular segment of customers.

Hi Jane,

Our BFCM exclusive— essential T-shirt collection— is available only this weekend. These are perfect at work or for a casual day out. Check them out and get them before they run out! ????

4. Craft exclusive SMS messages to loyal shoppers

Your loyal and repeat shoppers deserve a more personalized messaging. Tap into your customer data to identify your loyal shoppers and set up SMS campaigns that are targeted to them. You can use an analytics app like RevTap which segments your customers. Here, you’ll be able to identify your loyal shoppers and download a CSV of that data.

You can then upload the CSV of your loyal customers on TxtCart to send out an exclusive SMS marketing campaign.

TxtCart also segments your subscriber list so that you can easily identify your loyal shoppers based on their previous interactions.

Here’s a simple BFCM SMS marketing copy that you can use to make your BFCM sale seem more enticing and inviting to your loyal customers:

Hi Jane,

It looks like you have a lot of shopping left! As our loyal shopper, you can avail FREE shipping on top of our big BFCM discount! Shop now! ????

5. Send an SMS reminder before the sale ends

Send an SMS a few hours before the sale ends to remind your customers about your sale. Use phrases like ‘3 hours left’ and ‘ends soon’ to build urgency and get your shoppers to come back and buy before the sale ends.

TxtCart also enables you to set up reminder campaigns, so that your customers don’t miss out on the deals you’re offering!

Hi Jane,

Don’t forget— our BFCM sale ends in 3 hours! Get any of our products on a deal before you miss out! ????

6. Send a last-chance SMS to shoppers who didn’t buy

Target shoppers who haven’t bought from your BFCM sale by sending them a last chance SMS. Such a message can let shoppers know that they did miss the sale but can still redeem your BFCM discount.

Hi Jane,

It looks like you missed out on our big BFCM sale. Not to worry— you can use code BFCM70 to shop. Offer expires in 10 hours so make the most of it!

This allows you to sell to these non-shoppers before you close out your BFCM sale. What’s more, by enabling human-powered text marketing, you’ll have SMS experts who can interact with your subscribers, helping them find the best deal even at the last moment.

Set up human-powered text marketing during BFCM with TxtCart.

Ready to turn your visitors into customers with BFCM SMS Marketing?

We hope this guide helped you understand how you can use SMS marketing to sell more and turn your SMS subscribers into paying customers. When sending SMS promotions, it’s crucial to cater to the different needs that your shoppers have.  Also check the best shopify apps that can help your store grow seamlessly.

TxtCart is built to help you personalize your promotions using its human-powered SMS marketing engine. TxtCart’s SMS experts interact with your subscribers, helping them find the right offer or shipping information, or even clearing any queries they have. This conversational marketing tactic helps you bring back more SMS subscribers to your Shopify store and increase purchases.

Install TxtCart to set up SMS marketing and turn visitors into customers this BFCM

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