Go against convention, break the habit and turn the next winter sales into a true commercial success. Surprise your customers by sending them SMS invitations to your coming winter sales. You will find here pieces of advice to make a success of your sales SMS campaign.
So start the year with a bang and create your SMS campaign with TextingHouse !!!
Warm up your winter sales : A bit of history.
Did you know that the first sales period appeared during the 19th century with the arrival of the first major retailers. In order to increase their sales started stocking products and then made the first massive stock clearance operations.
However, it was not before the beginning of the 20th century that the first regulations on the official sales dates were implemented.
Winter / summer sales : A brief reminder on the current regulations.
For the most part, discounts used during this period can exceed the production costs, and retailers can even sell products at a loss. The law is made to help getting rid of unsold articles. However, reductions are linked to a reference price that cannot exceed a price put into practice 30 days before the official sales period.
The General Directorate for Competition Policy, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF in French) point out the main following rules :
- The “no refunds or exchanges” mention is forbidden by the law, guarantees remain imperatively applied on the sold products,
- The shopkeeper cannot put new sold off products on his stall,
- The shopkeeper cannot make fake discounts by rising its prices just before or during the sales period,
- Outside of official sales dates, shopkeepers can make special offers with attractive prices but without overusing the official terms “sales” and “discount”.
Warm up your winter sales : Reviewing the last sales in France
The summer sales season officially ended on 8 August 2017 in France. Although there was some turmoil during this period, the results were somewhat underwhelming according to LSA, a French weekly magazine that analyses trading trends. Indeed, the number of consumers during this sales season has decreased by 8%. This decline can be explained by all the special offers made by major retailers throughout the year. These allow consumers to buy cut-price products more often during the year.
The explosion of communication costs by French companies supports this fact. A study made by an accounting firm (Emst & Young) has shown that expenses for communication were already more than 46.2 billion Euros in 2015. This study insists on the digital emergence and especially the new smartphone users.
Warm up your winter sales : Mobile phone communication is becoming essential to stand out from the crowd.
Among many different means of communication such as web sites, video clips and e-mailing, you must rely on a solid, cheap and easy tool : professional text messages.
Warm up your winter sales : The advantages of professional SMS…
First of all, know that consumers have a good image of the commercial SMS they receive.
Moreover, opening rates for professional SMS is around 95%, and the average person looks at his smartphone 150 times a day…
What’s more to note is that French consumers receive on average 4.3 commercial SMS in a month, which is relatively less compared than e-mails.
Finally, the character limitation of an SMS forces advertisers to be very clear in their messages, which explains a memorizing rate of received texts above 60%.
3 tips to energize your winter sales SMS campaign
1. Warm up your winter sales : A good preparation to optimize the sales.
- 2 months before : Evaluate the situation, your stock, and choose which products will be put on sale. Store new products that will be showcased at this time.
- 1 month to go : When the Christmas sales start, think of communication themes and ideas. Set up a subscription system in your store and on your web site to invite prospects and customers to receive your sales offers. Plan a mailing campaign.
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Right after Christmas : Get your social network and web pages ready for the coming sales season, with new introductory offers for example.
- One day to go : Set your SMS communication going with all the contacts that you have managed to gather.
2. Warm up your winter sales : A clear and well informed message.
That is the challenge of SMS communication. A short message that will contain all the necessary information for the comprehension and to incite people to buy. That is why you have prepared more detailed web pages on your topic : include a link to this web site in your SMS.
On this matter, we recommend reading our blog post on the preparation of SMS campaigns entitled « Create your SMS campaign step by step », where you can find a link that helps you to shorten URLs in order to include them in your text messages.
Also remember to customize each message for each recipient by reminding him of his last visit or last product bought. Every professional SMS solution must include SMS customization using personalized fields.
3. Warm up your winter sales : Reward your loyal clientele during sales.
Don’t hesitate to reward your loyal customers with extra advantages such as additional discount, private sales invitations, or special offers only available to them.
Warm up your winter sales : TextingHouse, the SMS platform designed for your SMS communication management.
We have put these recommendations and advice into practice ! Adding to this a local communication, we have developed and improved our SMS platform.
Inform to retain customers, promote and alert = a good customer relations management …
This is our conviction !
Our professional SMS platform is easy to use and requires no configuration. It is a free access extension, without obligation and subscription-free : you only pay for the SMS, and prices begin at €0.05. We give you 10 free SMS to try it out …