Even if you’ve aced your homework and prepared for the holiday season in advance, it’s easy for things to fall through the cracks. There’s always something left to do. Between checking inventory levels and fixing deliverability issues, you also need to put your marketing campaigns in order.
Don’t dread this, though! We have a solution for you that will let you sit back on the couch this Christmas and sip hot cocoa (or something stronger, we don’t judge) while your eCommerce business is paying for the presents by itself.
Just as Santa needs his little helpers, any successful holiday strategy relies heavily on automations. Leverage these powerful SMS & email flows to quickly turn new website visitors into loyal customers and make them come back again and again to your store this Christmas.
1. Customer Winback Flow
What better time to rekindle an old love than right before the holidays? Let's start by warming up the relationship with your inactive customers.
Enable a Christmas-themed Winback SMS & email flow and target all customers who haven’t placed a purchase in your store in the last 30 days or more. Once activated, it will send timely emails and/or text messages with discounts. Entice shoppers to come back to your store with holly-jolly offers that will ring their bells and get them to start singing! And spending.
Remember, not all customers are the same. Split your subscribers based on the number of orders and the total amount spent to distinguish your loyal and high-value customers from occasional shoppers. This will help you tailor both your messaging and the size and type of discount.
The first message could target your loyal customers: the ones who’ve made more than five purchases and have spent more than $200 in your store. With a jolly call-to-action and a generous 30% discount, we will try to get them to come back in time to buy their Christmas presents.
Don't forget your high-value customers, who spend a lot but do not necessarily make frequent purchases. Boost their loyalty with a cheerful message and a $20 bonus.
Your lower-value customers are still important, and not re-targeting them around the holidays would mean leaving money on the table. Since they aren’t as active in your store, simply send a less generous discount that will still remind them about you. Again – make your text appealing and exciting to put them in a Christmassy shopping mood.
Winback flows are a powerful tool in the hands of marketers who want to focus on retention, especially now, with the current sky-high customer acquisition costs. Remember, it costs 5x more to acquire a brand new customer than to retain one you already have.
2. Welcome Flow
During major holidays, stores usually get an influx of new visitors lurking around for good deals. Use this opportunity to supercharge your subscriber collection with powerful and engaging tools such as pop-ups, floating buttons, or footer forms. And when new subscribers join your SMS & email marketing programs, you must be a good host and make an excellent first impression.
This is where our Welcome flow kicks in and when the magic happens. Use it to send a heartwarming “Welcome to the family” message with an attractive discount. Emphasize that your offer is tailor-made. It will make subscribers feel valued and confident they’ve made the right choice by opting in and will help you convert them to customers in just a click. On autopilot.
If a subscriber ends up purchasing from your store, make sure to express your gratitude and notify them with a timely and personalized text message that their order is on its way. If not, send a second reminder but this time around, play with their fear of missing out and let them know the offer is time-sensitive.
3. Abandoned Checkout Flow
Did you know that every day 3 out of 4 visitors add products to their carts but leave your store without making a purchase? These devastating stats show why recovering abandoned carts should be the #1 task of every store owner out there.
This holiday season, make sure you’ll get zero carts left behind by activating an all-powerful Abandoned checkout SMS & email flow. It will send a timely text message to customers 30 minutes after they’ve left your store, urging them to return and finish their order.
If no purchase is made in the next 4 hours, the flow will follow up with an email reminding shoppers of the products they left behind. And again, if the customer still hasn't made a purchase, they will get a second email, serving as one final push to get them to complete their order.
You can choose to add various incentives at every step of the abandoned checkout flow or rely on strong FOMO to influence purchase decisions.
It’s simple and works like a charm – abandoned checkout flows help merchants bring high-intent shoppers back to their store and thus – recover over 33% of all churned orders. Furthermore, an omnichannel approach using both SMS and email will ensure your message gets seen and allow shoppers to interact with your brand on a channel of their choice.
4. Post-purchase Flow
To make sure your Christmas sleigh is turbocharged and ready for the upcoming shopping frenzy, we have another great addition to your marketing arsenal – the Post-purchase cross-sell/upsell flow. Use it to approach shoppers via SMS and email right after they've purchased from your store and offer complementary products they might be interested in.
Let's say someone just ordered a laptop – send them a timely SMS or email promoting laptop bags or screen cleaning wipes. This could be particularly useful for informing customers about items that go well together or tend to sell out fast and pushing the sales of a particular item or collection more aggressively.
Again, feel free to add a small discount to make your offer even more appealing.
Remember, it’s not just about a one-time purchase. As the saying goes – a happy customer is a repeat customer. Activating a Post-purchase flow will not only show your customers that you want to meet all their needs but will also help drive extra sales and revenue to your store this Christmas.
5. Loyalty Flow
Talking about happy customers...
The upcoming holiday season is the perfect opportunity to reward your most-valued shoppers with extra special care and attention. Use our advanced SMS & email flows to remind your VIPs to shop for more points and unlock a discount, congratulate customers for reaching a new VIP tier, or notify them how many points they currently have and how to redeem those for prizes.
Don't forget to add special holiday perks to bring Christmas cheer to your top-spending shoppers and make them feel even more pampered and appreciated. It could be anything from a VIP gift card, early access to your new collection, or free expedited shipping.
With 14+ data points, the Yotpo SMSBump's loyalty flows will help you send ultra-personalized messages and nurture long-lasting customer relationships.
Ho-Ho-Go!
Not sure where to start?
Don't worry. You have all these flows (and some more!) already pre-set in your Yotpo SMSBump account. Simply activate them, tweak the copy to best fit your brand voice, and let them do all the work for you and drive sales 24/7.
All this while you enjoy some free time and spend the upcoming holidays with your friends and family.
Happy texting!