The data is in: Extended messaging throughout the holiday season leads to a better ROI and fewer opt-outs. Plan your SMS and email campaigns accordingly.

Get inspiration for your holiday planning by browsing BFCM examples, templates, and more in our Complete BFCM Archive.

The holiday season has become longer over the last few years. Consumers are expanding their shopping throughout Q4—not just Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM)—with 25% of US adults starting as early as October and 42% finishing after December 16. You’ll benefit from engaging shoppers throughout the season.

Our data reflects this trend. To drive sales all Q4 long, brands benefit from sending additional campaigns over the summer to support the high volume necessary for Q4. In 2023, brands that scaled their summer sends saw higher ROI from their Q4 campaigns. 

So you can elevate your brand’s overall Q4 success with a full messaging calendar throughout the summer and early fall. Don’t worry if you didn’t start this process already. You’ll still benefit from slowly increasing your volume now.

If you’ve been following along with our 90-60-30 day countdown, you’ll have established a strong SMS and email foundation. The 60-day juncture is your last chance to optimize your program and make any final strategic decisions for your BFCM messaging strategy based on your data.

‍In this guide: Based on everything you’ve learned works for your brand’s SMS and email program and the KPIs you want to achieve, map out the:

• Kinds of messages you’ll send to ramp up excitement and drive sales
• Segments you’ll send to—and how you’ll engage each differently
• Creative assets you’ll need for your marketing campaigns to drive engagement

Then you’ll have a clear plan for drafting and scheduling campaigns next month.

With careful planning now, you’ll be able to execute a cohesive, impactful SMS and email messaging strategy that drives engagement and revenue. And you’ll reduce stress next month so you can focus on implementation, rather than last-minute strategizing.

Another aspect of implementation that’s critical at this time is implementing marketing AI capabilities. With Attentive AI™, you can capture real time browsing data to tie activity back to real people to both build more accurate customer segments and trigger high-performing, personalized messages. Surprise and delight subscribers on a 1:1 level and let AI deliver messages when each unique subscriber is most likely to engage and convert. 

‍Ready to try AI for yourself? Get started today.

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Map out your holiday season messaging calendar

Engage shoppers before, during, and after Cyber Week to foster relationships and maximize sales all season long.

Before Cyber Week: Build excitement and convert early shoppers

As holiday shopping starts earlier, blend a traditional pre-Black Friday approach (building anticipation for BFCM) with a revenue-driving approach that draws in early shoppers.

• Take advantage of seasonal moments to inspire early purchases: Veterans Day (US), Singles’ Day, and Bonfire Night (UK) are big global retail holidays to take advantage of during the last 60 days before Black Friday. You can also lean into Halloween, Daylight Savings, or niche holidays that align with your brand, like National Taco Day and World Mental Health Day. These moments give you more reason to engage shoppers and match sustained shopping patterns.
• Offer month-long holiday deals and discounts to promote mindful shopping habits and help shoppers get ahead of shipping deadlines. This “Slowvember” approach also helps ease inventory chaos, so you can switch out your deals if certain SKUs go too fast for you to keep up.
• Tease promotions: Preview your deals, new products, and limited-edition merch to build excitement. Let shoppers know exactly when your promos will be, since every brand starts at a different time.
• Share gift guides: Send subscribers curated gift guides around specific products and interests to help shoppers build their BFCM wishlists.
• Introduce subscribers to new products: Send educational content on your products, encourage them to take a quiz, or use conversational texts to deliver personalized recommendations.
• ‍Let subscribers opt in to holiday messaging: If you’ll be hitting messaging hard leading up to Cyber Week, consider giving subscribers the option of participating.
• ‍Early access for VIPs: Loyalists have higher conversion rates and yield higher ROI, so reward them with exclusive discounts or early access to sales.

During Cyber Week: Showcase your best deals of the season

Seize the opportunity presented by the surge in shopping activity. As you map out your Cyber Week messaging plan, consider these best practices to drive sales:

• Leverage your A/B testing data from earlier in the season to figure out what segments to send to. If you don’t have good A/B testing data, segment via behavior (instead of interest) for a higher ROI. 
• Lean on SMS for time-sensitive notifications on limited-time deals or low-inventory items. They’ll reach customers quicker so they can act.
• Personalize your promotions to feature relevant products/deals (e.g., clothing by gender). Shoppers’ inboxes are full of “30% off!” type language. Personalizing your announcement with relevant imagery or a featured collection will help shoppers visualize what they can get with your deal and entice them to click.
• Send inventory updates like low-stock and back-in-stock alerts to encourage subscribers to grab something they showed interest in while it’s still available.
• Send reminders throughout the week to keep the momentum going. Shoppers get distracted easily during BFCM and expect to receive more brand campaigns, so don’t be afraid to bump up your sending volume. 
• Engage in Small Business Saturday if relevant. If a shopper is a fan of your small business, they likely have a soft spot for small brands. Remind them to shop with you on Small Business Saturday and thank them for supporting you.

Get inspired: Check out 36 high-impact holiday campaigns to inspire your messaging strategy.

After Cyber Week: Nurture subscribers and support holiday gifting needs

Many shoppers subscribe specifically for the BFCM deals, so don’t go silent on them now. This is your chance to foster those new relationships and give them a reason to stay subscribed. And since many shoppers are still looking for holiday gifts, there are plenty of revenue opportunities in December to take advantage of.

Consider adding these messages to your post-BFCM strategy:

• Sale-extension messages: Customers expect your sales to stop after Cyber Monday, so if you’re keeping a good thing going, remind them that they still have time to shop a good deal.
• Giving Tuesday: Make shoppers feel good about shopping by offering a donation to a charity.
• New deals to inspire more shopping: Consider mapping out new deals for shoppers that missed out on Black Friday. They shouldn’t be as big as your BFCM deals, but you can excite shoppers with other offers: a smaller discount, free gift with purchase, etc.
• Holiday delivery cutoffs: Remind shoppers that your shipping deadline is coming up if they’re trying to get gifts for the holidays.
• Gift cards: After your holiday delivery deadline has passed, there are bound to be shoppers that still missed the boat. Encourage them to buy a digital gift card for last-minute gifting.
• Boxing Day: This is a big holiday in the UK, Canada, and Australia, but Boxing Day is gaining momentum in the US, too. It’s traditionally a gift-giving holiday, but also serves as a time to gather with loved ones, watch sports, and hunt for great deals. Some brands use it as an opportunity to clear out seasonal inventory.
• Give them something else to look forward to: Give subscribers gratitude for their support and let them know more is coming after the holidays. For example: a new product or a New Year’s challenge they can participate in.
• Send post-purchase messages to encourage customers to use their new product: Share product tutorials that detail ‌how to use and care for their product. And help them figure out how it fits into their life or routine by sending, for example, fashion tips or a skincare routine. Make it seasonal where relevant—like sending a holiday drink recipe.
• Recommend their next purchase: Once a shopper falls in love with their first purchase, suggest products that complement what they bought or reference your data to recommend what people tend to buy next.
• ‍Invite customers to join your loyalty program: Tell them how many points they’ve earned from their recent purchase and how they can use them.

Leverage segments for better ROI

Segmentation enables you to personalize more of the messages you send to increase engagement and ROI. Since 78% of consumers say they’ll likely engage with a personalized offer, segmentation is something you’ll want to capitalize on for Black Friday.

The top SMS segmentation strategies we see from our customers include:

• Engaged vs. unengaged: You can send more messages to your engaged segment without risking low engagement or unsubscribes. But don’t forget about your “unengaged” list. Many wait to shop your big sales like BFCM. Consider warming them up pre-BFCM and reacquainting them with your brand and products.
• VIPs: Reward this segment with exclusive perks or early access to sales. How you define a “VIP” is up to you. It could be a formal loyalty program that subscribers join, or it could be anyone that joins your SMS channel—as 87% of subscribers in the US are likely to make a purchase.
• Interest-based segments: Use zero-party data or past purchases to segment subscribers by interest (e.g., skin type, pets they have, how they exercise, fashion style, health concerns, product category, etc.). Then send promotions featuring the products they’re likely to be interested in.
• Location: Geo-targeting helps you personalize messages and promos based on where subscribers live (e.g., near one of your brick-and-mortar stores or somewhere with snow in the winter.

Lean on your A/B testing from earlier this year to focus on the segments—and parameters that define each segment—that work for your brand.

Pro tip: Get more accurate segmentation with Audiences AI. Predictive analytics identifies patterns and correlations to automatically recommend subscribers to include and exclude from campaigns. As a result, you can better identify subscribers who are likely to purchase and recommend products they’re likely to enjoy.

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Create compelling visuals for your campaigns

The wrong creative can confuse shoppers, but the right one can encourage them to click. So create the visual assets you’ll need for your texts, emails, and sign-up units early—especially if you’re collaborating with other teams—so you have enough time to perfect them.

If you’re sending within the US, MMS is a powerful medium for your text campaigns. 56% of consumers say they’re more likely to engage with text messages from a brand that include GIFs, images, or emojis, compared to copy-only messages. And 32% say MMS makes them feel more connected to a brand, which supports long-term retention.

Just let your creative team know that the max image file size during Cyber Week is decreased to 300kb for MMS messages on the Attentive platform, to ensure deliverability.

Lean on everything you learned from your A/B tests throughout the year to brief designers on what’s effective. What works well for one brand can fall flat for another, so now’s not the time to question what you’ve learned and copy another brand instead.

Request iterations from your creative team so you can test the creative on your holiday sales campaigns themselves:

• Copy variations on the image
• Text-heavy vs simple
• Different types of product images (UGC, lifestyle, on-white) 

Creative consultant, Sarah Levinger, recommends testing emotions. Encourage your creative team to produce a range of images that evoke different moods for testing purposes, rather than solely focusing on different angles.

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Pro tip: Use the GIF generator built into the Attentive platform to make dynamic assets in seconds.

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Stay on top of your BFCM planning

The strategic work you do at the 60-day mark is the foundation for a smoother, less stressful, and more profitable Black Friday.

By mapping out your messaging calendar and knowing which segments you’ll send to, you ensure a cohesive, targeted BFCM communication schedule that builds anticipation, drives urgency, and maintains engagement throughout the holiday season.

If you’re ahead of the game, get a head start on drafting your campaigns with our copy-and-paste BFCM messaging templates or browse all our BFCM resources.