Five SMS marketing text examples to boost your Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales

Last Updated 4 October 2023

Black Friday and Cyber Monday SMS marketing ideas

Planning a Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaign? As we lead up to this 4-day sales weekend, dozens of brands are preparing their campaigns to make an impact and stand out from the crowd. With text message marketing, you can cut through the clutter of promotional inboxes and competitive digital ads.

Below we’ve put together the benefits of SMS messaging as part of your e-commerce sales and promotion strategy, plus useful SMS templates to get you quickly on your way.

What is SMS Marketing

SMS is an abbreviation for Short Messaging Service—or what is commonly referred to as a text message. Unlike popular chat apps like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, SMS doesn’t require your customer to download an app, have Wi-Fi, or mobile data to be received.

As it is cellular, it also doesn’t rely on app notification permissions and won’t be buried in a spam or promotional folder.

According to Statista, a German company specialising in market and consumer, 6.62 billion people currently own a mobile phone. In other words, 83.32% of the world’s population owns a smartphone.

SMS marketing is the process of sending marketing campaigns by text messages.

Common types of SMS marketing examples include:

• Personalised promotions
• Offers or discounts
• Text-to-win competitions
• Billing reminders
• Booking confirmations
• Remarketing campaigns
• Surveys
• Status updates
• Security codes
• Company updates

And the list goes on.

How e-commerce brands can benefit from SMS marketing around BFCM

Small to big retailers from high-tech to fashion promote huge discounts during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and some extend their deals for the entire month. Shoppers highlight this event in their calendar, waiting to add their favourited items to their online shopping cart.

According to Adobe’s Shopping Report, U.S retailers saw 50% or more of their sales from smartphones on 6 days during the 2021 holiday season.

With most people having their phone within reach, it’s not surprising that studies have shown that the average user takes just 3 minutes to open an SMS. Take special note if you’re targeting Millenials, because studies have shown that 83% of them prefer a business to send them an SMS. And if you’ve got an offer for your customers, 75% are open to receiving it via SMS.

It gets even better. With rising digital ad costs and bidding wars on keywords among brands during BFCM, the ROI on SMS is even greater. SMS marketing has a substantially higher CTR with an average of 10% - far higher than email marketing (2.62%) and 1.7% average for digital ads.

While your competition focuses its energy and resources on email campaigns and online ads, you can make SMS marketing your secret weapon. A big budget isn’t required, and it takes only five minutes to set up and deliver your first message. It’s an essential channel to use in your marketing.

Here are a few approaches:

• Get a head start and let your customers know a big sale is coming up.
• Give your customers a sneak peek of future sale items.
• Notify your customers about flash sales on the spot.
• Run fun competitions and draws.
• Sending cart abandonment messages.

Benefits and tactics of SMS marketing for Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Here’s how Burst SMS can help you with your Black Friday and Cyber Monday goals

• Keywords – Set up a keyword such as ‘SALE’ and ask your customers to reply with this keyword to receive exclusive discounts and quickly grow your database.
• Improve customer experience – 83% of Millenials prefer SMS to speak to customer service teams. Use two-way conversation or Email to SMS so your support can easily handle queries over the holiday season.
• Dedicated number – Brand your number with your business name so your SMS Sender ID is quickly recognisable with every text, building closer customer relationships.
• Use our branded Tracked Link feature - Track which recipient clicked your SMS link, how many times they clicked, and use this data to segment and retarget different subscribers. Add UTM parameters to track SMS traffic all the way through to your website checkout.
• MMS - Add a visual layer and get creative with animated GIF or merchandise image.
• SPAM compliance – Be a responsible sender. Burst SMS makes it easy for you to responsibly send messages and auto-adds ‘Opt-out reply STOP’and unsubscribe links to your texts. Plus, Burst SMS is ISO 27001 certified, meaning your customer’s data is safe and secure.

Five SMS marketing text examples

Start planning your marketing communications for this major sales event today. Here are a few Black Friday and Cyber Monday texts ready for you to use.

Ready for Black Friday?

Don’t miss out on the spike in Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales this November. Burst SMS can help you get event-ready and reach your goals.