As the back-to-school season approaches, your e-commerce brand has a golden opportunity to maximize its ROI. This period is one of the dependable peak sales times, as parents and students alike prepare for the upcoming academic year.
Leveraging a well-crafted SMS marketing strategy can help your businesses capture a significant share of this market - but not with low-effort campaigns. After all, we’re marketing towards the educated!
In this post, Emotive’s team of expert marketers will highlight effective back-to-school SMS campaign strategies that can drive traffic, increase your SMS ROI, and help you scale long-term.
Why Back-to-School Sales Work for E-commerce
Back-to-school sales are a lucrative period for e-commerce brands for several reasons:
High Consumer Demand: Parents and students are actively seeking deals on school supplies, clothing, electronics, and more. The urgency to get prepared before the school year starts creates a heightened willingness to spend.
Seasonal Necessity: Unlike other sales periods, back-to-school shopping is driven by necessity rather than discretionary spending. This makes it more predictable and easier to target with specific offers.
Repeat Purchases: Many items needed for school are annual purchases, offering e-commerce brands a chance to build recurring customer relationships.
Omnichannel Shopping: As online shopping becomes more prevalent, consumers are looking for convenient ways to fulfill their back-to-school needs, making e-commerce a preferred choice.
At Emotive, our job is to find trends that yield the most profit for our clients, and back-to-school campaigns have been winners for decades. Even though marketing competition is more intense now, it doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of this time.
How to Prepare for Back-to-School SMS Campaigns
Preparation is key to a successful back-to-school SMS campaign. Here are some steps to get started:
Segment Your Audience: Identify different customer segments such as parents, college students, and teachers. Tailor your messages to address the unique needs of each group.
Build Your Subscriber List: Use website pop-ups, email campaigns, and social media promotions to encourage customers to opt-in to your SMS list well before the back-to-school rush.
Plan Your Offers: Develop exclusive deals, discounts, and limited-time offers that will appeal to your target audience. Consider bundling products for added value.
Design Your Messages: Craft engaging, concise, and clear messages that highlight the benefits of your offers. Use attention-grabbing language and strong calls to action.
Set Up Automation: Schedule your SMS campaigns in advance to ensure timely delivery. Automate follow-up messages to remind customers of your offers.
Top Back-to-School Sale SMS Tips
Here are some tips to make your back-to-school SMS campaigns more effective:
Personalization: Use first names and tailor content based on previous purchase history to make your messages more relevant.
Urgency and Scarcity: Highlight limited-time offers and low stock to create a sense of urgency.
Clear Call to Action: Ensure each SMS has a direct and compelling call to action, such as “Shop Now” or “Claim Your Discount.”
Rich Media: Use MMS to include images, videos, or GIFs that showcase your products in use.
Timing: Send messages at optimal times when your audience is most likely to engage, such as evenings or weekends.
Compliance: Ensure your campaigns comply with SMS marketing regulations, such as obtaining consent and providing opt-out options.
Why Accurate Attribution is Important
Accurate attribution is crucial for understanding the effectiveness of your back-to-school SMS campaigns. Here’s why:
Measure ROAS: By tracking which campaigns drive sales, you can calculate your return on ad spend (ROAS) and make informed decisions on where to allocate your budget.
Optimize Campaigns: Attribution data helps identify which messages, offers, and audience segments are most effective, allowing you to refine your strategy.
Avoid Wasted Spend: Understanding the true impact of your SMS campaigns prevents you from investing in tactics that don’t deliver a good ROI.
Even though this post is mostly about a specific sales period, you should always be tailoring your campaigns to impact the future. First-party data leading to accurate attribution is the best way to inform your decisions for long-term ROI growth.
How to Get the Best First-Party Data
Collecting high-quality first-party data is essential for effective SMS marketing. Here’s how to gather the best data:
Incentivize Sign-Ups: Offer discounts or exclusive content in exchange for customers opting in to your SMS list.
Engage on Multiple Channels: Use your website, social media, and email newsletters to encourage subscribers to share their phone numbers.
Surveys and Feedback: Periodically send surveys to your SMS list to gather valuable insights into customer preferences and behaviors.
Integrate CRM: Sync your SMS platform with your customer relationship management (CRM) system to ensure you’re working with the most accurate and comprehensive data.
Most importantly, if you don’t have proprietary technology like Emotive’s first-party pixel, it’s important to partner with a team that does. Infer from that sentence what you will.
Why a Marketing Partner Can Help You Sell More
Partnering with an experienced SMS marketing agency like Emotive can amplify the success of your back-to-school campaigns. Here’s why:
Expertise: A marketing partner brings expertise in crafting effective SMS strategies tailored to your business needs.
Advanced Tools: They have access to advanced tools for segmentation, automation, and analytics that can enhance your campaigns.
Resource Efficiency: Outsourcing your SMS marketing allows your team to focus on core business activities while the agency handles the complexities of campaign management.
Continuous Improvement: A good partner continuously analyzes performance data to optimize your campaigns and drive better results.
When it comes down to it, you should be focusing on creating your best product and growing your team. Leave the marketing to the pros and make money while you do it.
Craft Compelling SMS Campaigns with Emotive
Achieving high-ROAS SMS marketing for back-to-school campaigns doesn’t have to be a pipe dream. The insights and strategies discussed here can help you create impactful SMS campaigns that drive traffic, boost sales, and improve customer engagement.
Combine that with Emotive’s proprietary first-party pixel and our experienced team of seasoned marketers, and it’s a recipe for success.
Stop guessing at your marketing strategy, and start a new era of growth.
We’ll even give you $100 to demo our platform.
That’s how confident we are ↓