Implement these e-commerce marketing leaders’ best post-Black Friday, Cyber Monday text messaging strategies to keep the holiday momentum going into 2021.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday traditionally mark the “official” start of the holiday shopping season. Unsurprisingly, 2020 looked a lot different, and many retailers started holiday promotions as early as October.

Still, Cyber Week remained the biggest e-commerce week of the year, driving a record-setting $24.9 billion in online sales across Thanksgiving ($5.1B), Black Friday ($9B), and Cyber Monday ($10.8B). Many of these online purchases were completed on smartphones. On Thanksgiving, mobile accounted for 46.5% of all holiday sales; on Black Friday, spending on smartphones increased 25.4% YoY, reaching $3.6 billion; and on Cyber Monday, mobile accounted for 37% of digital sales.

And holiday shoppers aren’t finished. Adobe predicts that the entire holiday season will drive over $184 billion in online sales, a 30% increase year-over-year. Retail and e-commerce marketers need to set a strong strategy in place for reaching shoppers and driving sales throughout the rest of December—See real-life text messaging examples here!

From promoting “Days of Deals” campaigns and driving urgency before shipping cutoffs, to sending more messages and pushing gift cards, we’re sharing 16 strategies retail and e-commerce marketers are implementing to drive revenue in December and beyond.

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Promote daily deal campaigns

We’ll launch our annual ‘12 Days of Revel’ campaign during the first half of December to drive sales after BFCM. We’ll also use SMS to drive gift card sales and Gift of Revel sales (our 2021 subscription) during the second and third weeks of December. Since 2020 shipping is unpredictable, we’ll push people to products that don’t require shipping during the holidays.”

– Gretchen Sorce, Digital Marketing Lead at Revel Nail

We’ve set up additional sales, like our ‘Deal a Day’ campaign to help increase communications and drive a sense of urgency around our offers.”

– Briana Wade, Digital Marketing Specialist at SiO Beauty

We’ll be implementing a ‘12 Days of Christmas’ promotion that will offer new daily deals over the course of a couple of weeks—such as free gifts, cash back, discounts, and more. Historically, December has been a slow month for us, soincluding these daily deals is an easy and effective way to boost revenue.”

– Roman Berezecky, Marketing Manager at Legion Athletics, Inc.

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Drive urgency before shipping cutoffs—and push gift cards after

Due to earlier shipping cutoffs, we’re pushing sales to our virtual gift card as an instant way to receive a gift and drive revenue.”

– Lauren Borchetta, Project Manager at Dormify

Our text messages will focus heavily on gifting and shipping cutoff dates, keeping a positive and unifying tone that will help people to feel connected—even at distance. Our plan is to keep it conversational and emotional while being authentic.”

– Julian Quintaes, CEO at PAWZ

We’re hyper-aware of shipping carrier delays we’ll face in December. Our SMS strategy in December will be used to advertise urgency in ordering before shipping cut-offs, pushing gift cards, and encouraging self-gifting and NYE essentials.”

– Kyndal Shewmake, Director of Marketing at BruMate

We’re going to drive hard right up until the expedited shipping threshold. After that, we’re going to start hyping major product and website releases slated for January.”

– Christopher Lander, Founder & CEO at The Basis

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Implement a more frequent messaging cadence

Our plan is to message our subscribers to let them know they can continue shopping online 24/7 throughout the holiday season. We’ll also be promoting gift cards and any other promotions we launch between now and the end of the year.”

– Lexy Blankenship, Sr. Coordinator Email Marketing/Marketing at rue21

We’ll be texting our subscribers with follow-up campaigns, more refined abandoned cart flows, and cross-promotional messaging.”

– McKenzie Bauer, CMO at Thread Wallets

We’ll send more messages during the holiday season to stay top-of-mind. With so many other brands sending emails and texts during this busy time, we want to make sure we stand out and catch our customer’s attention. We’re also offering more incentives to purchase more upfront in order to qualify for additional savings and free shipping.”

– Shelby Powell, Director of Digital Marketing at Cheers

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Focus on segmentation and geo-targeting

We plan to geo-target our text messages based on the locations of our brick-and-mortar retail partners. After the shipping cutoff, we’ll promote gift card purchases. We’re also working on managing expectations on how our customers can get in touch with our Customer Service team if they need help with their online purchases.”

– Chandra Cooks, Marketing Director at Mented Cosmetics

We plan on sending more segmented text messages. We’re also going to send specific campaigns to our high-value customers. Typically, we don’t send campaigns to our active Cheers product subscribers, but we plan to do so this year to help drive even more engagement.”

– Shelby Powell, Director of Digital Marketing at Cheers

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Message about last-minute gifting, gift cards, and self-care

We’ll continue with our giveaway and focus on messaging around last-minute gifts or treating yourself.“

– Courtney Williams, Content Manager at AfterShokz

We’ll be promoting Cheers as a “one-stop-shop” where they can get something for everyone on their list. A lot of our customers who really enjoy our products use the holidays as a way to share their love for Cheers with their friends and family. Who doesn’t love giving AND getting alcohol + Cheers as gifts?!”

– Shelby Powell, Director of Digital Marketing at Cheers

We plan to send a variety of messages, including virtual styling, post purchase, free shipping, ideas for how to spend gift cards, shipping cutoffs, and last-minute gifting.”

– Claire Towell, Copywriter at Dormify