How to handle email and SMS marketing during the summer?
The widespread thought that we are doomed to face a drop in performance and to send less communications due to the summer holidays is a “myth” to dispel.
Summertime could be an interesting food for thought. As a matter of fact, in the summer people tend to have more free time at their disposal and therefore they pay more attention to offers and promotions, especially when they are about to leave for the holidays. As a result, this factor could turn into the key to success of your marketing strategy.
Sending communications during the summer
What are the pros and cons of sending communications during summertime?
As mentioned above, the great majority of clients turns out to be less responsive due to business closures and holidays. This, however, is not necessarily a downside of marketing communication.
The summer months can still be exploited to catch the eye of the audience and to make a good conversion, both because the client’s inbox is not so stuffed with messages and also because the user will have more free time to scroll and read them.
It is vital to remember that the relationship with the community should and must be nurtured also during the summertime, in this way your audience will not feel abandoned in their time of need, or just when they finally have enough time to dedicate themselves to a brand they love. For this reason, to keep a communication which is suitable for business and client’s needs will be a very sound strategy.
A crucial trait to monitor is the performance of the communications, concerning both emails and SMS, in order to evaluate which would be the best media to convey your messages. In all probability, during the holidays most of the audience will have limited access to their mailbox, therefore making it necessary to shift the communication to the SMS, also considering the unvarying use of the smartphone at any moment. With that being said, we can consider limiting the number of emails, but without completely eliminating them. For all these reasons it’s important to grasp the audience’s behavior to fully understand how to act so you don’t get caught flatfooted!
Tips to create the perfect Summer Communication
After making sure of our community’s preferred device, which during summertime is confirmed to be the mobile phone, it is now important to set the email design accordingly. To ensure the best display, the content of the message should be mobile friendly: clear, to the point and concise.
To drop in some related pictures, engaging copies, colorful and impactful countdowns and headers could be the capstone to draw your client’s attention.
Moreover, hinting to the summer, to the seaside and to the sunny days could be crucial in starting a fruitful interaction with your community. You will find it quite handy to use these phrases and examples to call positive sensations to your public’s mind, such as freedom, carefreeness and craving for discovery.
Speaking of SMS, they reach everywhere and allows a better performance compared to emails, mostly because is much easier to reach for the client at any time, even without an internet connection. In addition, what should not be overlooked when planning a functional communication strategy is that the rate of SMS reading is much higher in summer, considering the uninterrupted use of the smartphone.
Landing pages are also good tools to have on hand, because they allow the client to click and discover more details about a certain offer. This strategy can also be integrated with the SMS, sending a first communication to arouse the client’s curiosity and ending up with the CTA. In this case, the button will lead the client to the landing page and eventually to perform the action that we want them to do. By doing so we can add more value to the proposed offer trough the landing page, thanks to a graphic and more creative frame that is not possible to obtain via SMS.
The content of the messages could vary from advertising an ad hoc contest for the summer to proposing exclusive offers, making your clients feel special and gifting them with elite summer coupons.
Don’t lose the chance to share valuable information with your users! Find the most fitting medium, the proper device and the right moment to do so and inform your clients with all your special offers, don’t let them feel left behind!