As we welcome Fall, it’s a time for change – the start of a new school season, the changing of colors and routines. But as a marketer, it’s easy to think of marketing during Autumn with visual appeal – Instagram and Pinterest being the primary channels. But, looking at SMS messages and SMS marketing, how can you make it effective for the season and impress customers with your messages?
Whether you’re a fitness studio or fashion outlet looking to promote your newest products and services, adding Autumn flair to your text messages will encourage your SMS subscribers to buy and boost your audience engagement before the big Christmas push.
So, before we get onto wording and best practices, let’s understand the concept of Autumn SMS marketing.
What is Autumn SMS Marketing?
Autumn or Fall SMS marketing uses text messages during the Fall season to send out offers, alerts, notifications, or promotions to opted-in SMS subscribers.
SMS marketing can be very effective in Autumn because businesses can tie the season into their wording, becoming more relevant to the consumer and being in direct contact with them. This boosts brand and customer engagement and builds credibility and trust over time.
It’s common for businesses to use an SMS marketing tool to help them build templates and get started with SMS automation and bulk sends. This saves the company time, effort, and resources.
Still not sure how to get started with Fall SMS marketing? Read on to view a few examples we’ve come up with.
Ideas for SMS Marketing Messages This Fall
1. Warm Welcomes with Seasonal Greetings
The first business SMS marketing template you can use is all about warm welcomes. With Autumn comes warmth, coziness, and comfort. Why not play on these themes during your SMS marketing strategy?
If you like, you can encourage subscribers to visit your site or store to purchase your new Fall collection or any apparel related to the new season. If you have a membership-based product or service, consider following your warm welcome message with tips and tricks for workouts in the Fall.
No matter what your business sells, you can use the warmth of the season to help remind subscribers about your products, services, and unique features. Below is an example of what a warm season greeting could look like:
2. Flash Sales and Limited-Time Offers
Another SMS marketing idea for Fall is probably the most popular– promoting your limited-time offers or flash sales. As we know, we usually see sales during Labor Day weekend, which many people look forward to. This also feels like Autumn is near. Similarly, your business can create flash sales at the beginning of the season. This means you can promote whichever products you want and send reminders about the promotions.
Moreover, you can send exclusive Fall deals to your SMS subscribers. This means that only your SMS recipients have access to this deal. It creates a sense of exclusivity and community – only those in this community can access this secret and unique discount code. Sounds intriguing, right?
Here’s an example of how to promote your limited-time offer via SMS this Fall:
3. Seasonal Product Launches
If you work with an annual marketing calendar, doing seasonal product launches might be a good idea if it suits your business. You can save some appropriate Autumn products for this time of year. This works well if you sell things like food or clothing items. But you can also do this for other businesses such as agencies, gyms, or online stores. How? Invite subscribers to click on an SMS link. This link should add a launch day reminder to their very own calendar. This is a good way to keep engagement up prior to your product launch.
If you decide to do seasonal product launches, we recommend planning and scheduling multiple SMS sends before and during the season. This will ensure that subscribers are reminded about your product and have all the information they need should they wish to purchase.
Remember not to over-sell your products via text marketing campaigns. You should always watch the frequency of your SMS messages, too. Too often, it will break compliance rules. To avoid this, be strategic with each SMS sent – make sure it’s impactful, informative, and exciting for readers.
Below is our example of how you can promote your season product launch on SMS:
4. Interactive Contests and Giveaways
Another way in which you can contribute to your Autumn marketing calendar is by using interactive contests and giveaways. This is a great opportunity to encourage participation from your recipients, boosting engagement levels and building relationships.
You may be wondering what interactive contests are. They are, essentially, competitions or contests where recipients have to actively answer a question (in this case, via SMS) to enter. This type of contest entry is strongly favored as it captures lead data but also generates excitement and intense anticipation for your SMS subscribers.
But remember that there are some compliance rules you should adhere to when running a giveaway or competition via SMS. Here are some quick notes to remember:
- Always include competition dates.
- Include a link to the competition terms and conditions or rules.
- Provide the subscriber with the correct and accurate entry details.
- Always reply to acknowledge receipt of an entry.
We’ve drafted an example of what an interactive contest via SMS could look like:
5. Holiday Planning and Tips
As we all know, Fall still feels a while away from the Christmas rush. But it’s always a good idea to bring the holidays in as a theme. How? You could send texts to opt-in contacts about upcoming holiday sales.
But you can take this theme to a new level by sharing holiday planning tips and tricks with subscribers. This allows them to become aware of the upcoming season and see your business as one that cares about their overall lifestyle.
Matching holiday tips with pre-Christmas sales becomes a homogenous story to the user – exactly what you want. It is an incredibly valuable reminder tool for customers already in the midst of their shopping sprees and holiday plans. Remember that you need to drive engagement and, consequently, sales. And SMS marketing can genuinely help with that.
6. Tailored Recommendations
This could be one of the most important and impactful ideas for SMS marketing messages in the Fall. Tailoring recommendations for your subscribers check the enormous box of personalization in marketing. This has become a hot topic in the sales and marketing industry in recent years. Did you know that 91% of consumers have said that they are much more likely to shop at companies that provide relevant recommendations and offers to them as individuals? That’s a significant percentage and clearly shows how vital tailor-made recommendations are.
But how do you create tailored solutions?
All you have to do is use premium and modern SMS marketing tools. These tools are designed to heighten your business SMS marketing efforts using data. That’s right – you can segment SMS subscribers to tailor messages to them. We’ll get into segmentation a bit later. But for now, here’s an example of a tailored Fall recommendation:
7. Optimize Timing and Frequency
Our next tip is to ensure that you’re optimizing your texts for peak timing and frequency. It’s vital to acknowledge and understand that your business is only allowed to send a certain number of texts per month. Ensure that you are always staying compliant and that you don’t overwork this marketing medium.
You can do this by ensuring that each SMS sent has a particular goal, message, CTA (call-to-action), and measurement metric. This will help you keep all your Autumn SMS messages coherent and allow you to create a solid content strategy for your business. You can send a variety of messages; some being:
- Reminders about upcoming product launches or events.
- Texts about new Fall collections launching.
- Notes about upcoming flash sales or exclusive offers.
- Contests or giveaways.
- Tips and tricks for the season or upcoming holiday season.
As you can see, this can start to become many messages within one month. So, take each category of Fall messages and map out a story and timeline for them. That way, your subscribers get great information and they don’t feel inundated with texts from your business.
8. Mobile-Friendly Content
As a business owner or marketer, you may be asking, “What content of mine should be mobile-friendly?” And the answer is – everything! Of course, with SMS marketing, all your communication must be mobile-friendly first. But, the truth is that nowadays, most consumers see everything on their phone first. This is why mobile-friendly content is absolutely crucial to your success.
You can create mobile-friendly content by:
- Breaking your content into smaller, bite-sized chunks.
- Divide paragraphs into bullet points.
- Use imagery where you can to showcase a message.
9. Identifying target segments for SMS campaigns
We spoke a bit about segmentation earlier when we discussed tailored recommendations. By using SMS marketing tools, you can segment customers based on behavior, past purchases, purchase frequency, or demographic data such as age, gender, and location.
Here are a few examples of customer segments:
- Demographic: Age, gender, marital status, occupation, household income.
- Geographic: Location
- Behavioral: Purchase behavior, product usage, frequencies, and habits.
The parameters are entirely up to you. But once you have said segments, you can imagine that product recommendations and industry tips will be much more appropriate to that customer group.
10. Visuals and Multimedia in Fall SMS Marketing
Even though this is post is about SMS marketing, you should also be aware that you can embed media into your messages to convert them to an MMS (Multimedia Message Service). This allows you to use seasonal imagery and video to ensure that your messages are more aesthetically pleasing and capture the attention of your reader.
It is important to ensure that all imagery is used purposefully and that it depicts your core message. Check with your SMS marketing tool provider as to the rates that apply for an SMS vs. MMS, as in some cases, an MMS could cost more.
11. Clear Call-to-Action
The last tip is all about your CTA (call-to-action) in every SMS. This is one of the most critical elements in any SMS marketing campaign. Ensure every text has a clear CTA for the reader! This makes it:
- Measurable for your business so you can measure your success.
- Clear to the subscriber as to what they must do.
- Easy for your company to understand what this campaign is trying to achieve.
Your CTA should also be short and sweet. Don’t have more than one-in-one SMS. This ensures no water is muddied for the recipient. Your CTA should also describe what you want them to do, e.g., “Shop now” or “Sign up here.”
Conclusion
Are you ready to venture into SMS marketing this Fall? If you are, and you feel that your business has the potential to grow to new levels during the busiest time of the year, why not sign up for an SMS marketing tool?
With Gleantap, you can be sure that your SMS marketing campaigns are easily managed and automated. Gleantap can import your list of opt-in contacts, create customer segments, use SMS templates, and automate your campaigns. It also has features like email marketing (which can integrate with SMS marketing), analytics, reporting, and sales pipeline management. All this helps to create one unified brand marketing strategy – boosting customer engagement and revenue all in one.
Sound good to you? If so, feel free to schedule a demo to learn more today.
FAQs
1. How can I create engaging content for my fall SMS campaigns?
Keep it short and sweet. Use simple language and share one topic at a time. Have a clear call-to-action and involve the audience using interactive contests and giveaways.
2. Is personalization important in fall SMS marketing?
Personalization is vital as it helps you understand your customers better. It can also help you learn buying habits and allow you to see which products or services are most prevalent during Fall.
3. How frequently should I send SMS messages during the fall season?
You should try to limit your SMS messages during the Fall to between 1 and 2 per week. Any more than that may be too much and cause you to lose subscribers. Any fewer may result in disengaged recipients.
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