No two shoppers are the same, and brands should never take a one-size-fits-all approach when engaging these consumers. While some folks spend hours agonizing over the perfect present for everyone on their gift list, others wait until the last minute to wing it.
As such, brands need to invest time and effort into their holiday marketing strategies. Thoughtful campaigns carefully tailored to individuals, not large groups, can reap the most rewards.
While each customer journey should be precisely tailored to unique individuals, three types of holiday shoppers routinely pop up year after year. Identifying and effectively engaging these three personas can make your marketing team’s job much easier.
Here are three kinds of holiday shoppers to keep an eye out for and how you can win them all over with an omnichannel marketing strategy, specifically SMS.
Why omnichannel?
A mature holiday omnichannel marketing strategy ensures your brand accurately targets the right customers and engages them with consistent content across all platforms. According to findings in our State of the Customer Experience report, a comprehensive omnichannel strategy allows brands to deliver a customer experience that deserves an “A.”
Compared to brands with little to no omnichannel strategy, businesses that had implemented a complete omnichannel strategy were:
- 4X more likely to report extremely loyal customers
- 3X more likely to report a significant spike in revenue growth over the past year
Furthermore, an omnichannel approach allowed these brands to alleviate the workload of their customer support teams. Companies with a complete omnichannel strategy were able to respond to consumers’ inquiries in real-time or less than an hour. Better yet, marketers and customer support associates reported better channel effectiveness when using united omnichannel tactics.
Our benchmark report also revealed that SMS was the most effective channel for marketing initiatives and continuous customer support. With a 98% open rate and 30% response rate, SMS is a highly effective, affordable way to engage every shopper this holiday season.
To help you out, we’ve simplified the process and provided suggestions on how to engage three types of holiday shoppers with SMS.
1. Early bird holiday shoppers
It’s the early bird shopper’s time to shine during the holiday season. These folks start prepping for the holiday shopping season well in advance, creating thoughtfully curated gift lists for their family, friends, coworkers, and even their mailman.
Early birds take their time and shop with intention. They tend to ignore the usual marketing tactics of scarcity, urgency, or the fear of missing out. To successfully attract these shoppers, marketers must understand what is valuable to early birds. These customers crave convenience and want to know that the size, color, or style they’re looking for is readily available. The best selection always trumps deals or discounts.
They also value their time and go out of their way to avoid crowds and never-ending checkout lines. Thus, most early birds prefer to shop online. Marketers must avoid traditional sales and discount tactics to effectively reach early bird shoppers. Instead, they should hone in on how their brand delivers an effortless shopping convenience, a swift checkout process, and limitless availability of relevant products.
Early bird shoppers love SMS messages that alert them to the newest product drops, back-in-stock alerts, shipping notifications, and the first pass at your most recent product releases.
While it may be too late to grab early bird shoppers this season, it’s never too early to start planning for next year!
2. Procrastinators
“This can wait until tomorrow” is the life motto of procrastinating holiday shoppers. Well, before they know it, tomorrow has turned into the night before the gift-giving festivities. As natural thrill-seekers, procrastinators get a rush when they have to do a last-minute shopping spree. Representing 50% of the world’s consumers, procrastinators will rely on their phones to help them get the best deals within the final seconds.
When it comes to enticing procrastinators, marketers can lure them in with last-minute must-haves they can’t afford to miss. Additionally, it is in your best interest to get these shoppers to finalize their purchase as soon as possible to avoid adding to your shipping backlog.
Send procrastinators timely SMS reminders to complete their purchase in order to avoid potential shipping delays and expensive delivery fees. Take a friendlier approach and avoid using call-to-actions (CTAs) that reek of urgency. Instead, emphasize convenience and that your brand is here to help.
3. Bargain hunters
Because of supply chain disruptions, prices for most goods are still sky-high. Deal seekers want to save as much cash as possible while shopping for the holidays. They are always on the lookout for the best deals and promotions. These coupon-clippers love Black Friday and Cyber Monday savings and will complete most of their holiday shopping on these two discount-heavy days.
Engage these bargain hunters by sending them relevant, timely SMS holiday discounts. You can also encourage them to become members of your SMS loyalty program with the promise of exclusive offers and savings for VIP customers.
To reach more deal seekers, extend your promotions past the holidays.
Mitto can help you reach all holiday shoppers with SMS
While early birds and bargain hunters may have already finished their shopping, 50% of holiday shoppers fall into the procrastinator group. It’s not too late to reach out and engage them before the end of the holiday season. A clever SMS campaign could differentiate between losing and converting potential customers. Using our products, you can quickly build customized SMS marketing campaigns or even add SMS to your existing apps, CRM, or tech stack.
To engage more shoppers this holiday season, contact us today.