Black Friday SMS Marketing: Ecommerce Template (2023)

The challenges of this year’s holiday season couldn’t be greater.

Nor the stakes, higher.

For DTC brands who’ve seen costs rise, sales plateau, and margins erode, you need every advantage you can get. And, you need those advantages as quickly, as profitably, and as light-on-resources as possible.

That’s what this guide contains. Sort of.

SMS marketing isn’t a magic bullet. It’s not a standalone strategy. In fact — compared to honing your Black Friday promotions and Cyber Monday deals — text message marketing won’t make or break your ecommerce business.

What SMS will do is add incremental revenue to every click, visitor, shopper, and customer your holiday campaigns touch. That is what this guide contains …

One advantage divided into four stages, covering 15 tactical steps in a single checklist.

Each step takes less than 30 minutes; most, around 15 — some, as little as five.
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We’ve also planned it all out in four stages + month-by-month calendars with helpful color guides.

Grab everything and you’ll know when to put what into action for the biggest impact.

Black Friday SMS Marketing for Ecommerce: Template, Checklist & Calendar (2022)

Stage 1: Pre-Holiday Set Up & List Growth

_{ASAP - October 31st}

Enable SMS opt-in at checkout
Set up & convert 2X with direct-to-text
Showcase and sell with your Welcome Flow
Seal the deal with cart abandonment

Stage 2: Before Black Friday Cyber Monday

_{November 1st – November 23rd}

Build your list with a pre-holiday incentive
Entice email subscribers with a landing page
Warm up shoppers and test your offer

Stage 3: During Black Friday Cyber Monday

_{November 22nd – November 27th}

Open early with an SMS exclusive
Launch your 🎁 Black Friday offer
Extend the offer into Cyber Weekend
Launch your 🎁 Cyber Monday offer

Stage 4: After Black Friday Cyber Monday

_{November 28th – Late December}

Celebrate Giving Tuesday with a cause
Send shipping cutoff “warnings”: 72 and 24 hours
Come to the rescue with gift cards + a bonus
Give them one last (post-Christmas) chance

Stage 1: Pre-Holiday Set Up & List Growth

_{ASAP - October 31st}

There’s no wrong time to start building your subscriber list and setting up your SMS strategy. But there is a right time.

Now! Before the largest ecommerce sale period of the year.

Preparation is the key to success. This couldn’t be more true for your SMS marketing because the proper opt-in is vital to having an engaged first-party subscriber list.

So get this stage set up ASAP — and don’t leave them later than October.

Your Checklist for Black Friday SMS Ecommerce

‍1. Enable SMS Opt-In at Checkout

⏰ Time: 5 minutes
📅 Oct. 2nd-3rd

Without enough SMS subscribers, your efforts in setting up campaigns and flows will go to waste.

For quick list growth, start with converting high-intent visitors at checkout. Because these soon-to-be customers are already buying, opt-ins skyrocket.

The best part? This feature is natively available on Shopify Checkout.

Go to your Shopify Settings
Select Checkout and accounts in the left menu
Check the SMS marketing box under Consent for marketing

You can also customize your SMS opt-in text.

It’s a little-known secret. If you click Customize checkbox label, you won’t actually find it. Instead, Shopify buries the option under Themes > Edit languages.

Search for SMS and edit the Accept SMS checkbox label.

Activating SMS at checkout takes less than five minutes. Plus, those valuable sign-ups can immediately (or, with a short time delay) get sent a post-purchase upsell or downsell via SMS automation.

2. Set Up & Convert 2X With Direct-to-Text

⏰ Time: 15 minutes
📅 Oct. 10th-12th

Below-average list growth eats away at your bottom line. Especially when you’re paying for expensive holiday traffic.

A modest lift in opt-ins from 3.5% to 4.75% doesn’t sound like much. However, at 100k visitors per month, that’s an additional 3,750 people you can sell to during Q4. Double your conversion rate … it’s 10,500.

Sadly, most ecommerce stores kill conversions through complexity, confusion, and too many clicks.

Avoid asking for too much information; instead, keep it simple.

Substantial SMS list growth and, therefore, substantial SMS sales over the holidays come from optimizing three types of popups — each designed to meet visitors natively …

Popup Type 1: Desktop Email then SMS

Popup Type 2: Mobile Email then SMS

Popup Type 3: Mobile SMS Only (Direct-To-Text)

To get the most out of your popups…

Set a time delay of 5–10 seconds: Rather than bombard your visitors the moment they arrive, give a few moments to breathe
Offer an incentive: Usually, a discount but anything your prospective customers get excited about will work (giveaways and contests)
Make everything clear and clickable: Ensure it’s easy to understand the offer using big fonts, big input fields, and big buttons
On desktop, ask for email then phone number: A bonus discount for the second opt-in (SMS) keeps the momentum going
On mobile, test SMS-only and use Direct-To-Text subscription: This doubles conversion rates versus requiring both email then SMS

3. Showcase & Sell with Your Welcome Flow

⏰ Time: 30 minutes
📅 Oct. 10th-12th

The opt-in journey doesn’t end when you’ve got a new subscriber. Sending a multi-part Welcome Flow is a non-negotiable next step.

Welcome Flow messages greet your new subscriber and engage them right away. A sequence of 3–5 texts does the job perfectly — each with conditional splits to exclude anyone who’s made a purchase or has an item in their cart:

Immediate
‍
The discount or incentive you promised onsite

Delay duration: 1 day
‍
‍Contact card to improve branding and deliverability

Delay duration: 2–3 days
‍
‍Your best-selling product or collection + discount

Delay duration: 5 days (Optional)
‍
‍Friendly introduction to your brand or founder story

Delay duration: 7 days (As needed)
‍
‍Common objection or an answer to your top FAQ

Remember that SMS isn’t a stand-alone channel. And yet, it does come with its own strategic value. Treat it as such. Avoid creating text message versions of your email marketing campaigns.

4. Seal the Deal with Cart Abandonment

⏰ Time: 10 minutes (each)
📅 Oct. 13th

As your list steadily grows, these automations are what ecommerce dreams are made of. Simple yet powerful, the goal isn’t to merely re-engage your warmest shoppers … but to seal the deal.

They’re also a great way to test your audience’s response to different incentives.

10% discount not working? How about free shipping? No-go on shipping? Try a free sample, address common objections, add a special guarantee, offer buy-one to get-one (BOGO), or roll out gift with purchase (GWP).

Figure out what motivates them to buy, balanced with what works for your business, and you’ll know exactly what deals to offer during BFCM.

Overpaying for your Shopify SMS platform and don’t trust the “results”? You’re not alone.

Welcome to the only text-marketing app that grows your business for you.Add incremental revenue to every click, visitor, shopper, and customer this holiday season with Recart’s fully managed SMS program.

You’ll get a team of world-class SMS marketing experts and designers to hit Black Friday running … without lifting a finger.

Let us convert more traffic, grow your list, and transform subscribers into paying, loyal customers!

Stage 2: Before Black Friday Cyber Monday

_{November 6th – November 23rd}

You’ve set your foundation.

Subscription at checkout and pop-ups are live. You’ve created a Welcome Flow and unleashed abandoned-cart automations. What’s next?

It’s time to expand other list-growth methods while focusing on pre-holiday promotions. This does two things.

One, it tests the potential of off-site list growth. Two, it tests your audience’s engagement with tactical campaigns and incentives (all that delicious data in preparation to crush BFCM).

Grab all the calendars + a one-page, 15-point checklist here

5. Build Your List with a Pre-Holiday Incentive

⏰ Time: 30 minutes
📅 Nov. 6th–24th

Most shoppers won’t buy in the lead-up to the holidays. They know the discounts are coming. What do you do?

You hint at your sale — amping up intrigue and mystery. Or, you go the opposite direction, you tell them exactly what the promotion’s going to be. Plus, you drive home that the best of the best will go fast. In short …

Get your window-shoppers’ sales juices going by previewing your deal in your welcome popup.

Focus on building anticipation. And stress clearly that they should sign-up to be the first to know as well as get SMS exclusives no one else will have access to!

Bonus 🎁 Off-Site SMS List Building

SMS Keyword for Text-In Subscriptions

Keyword opt-in can be a powerful subscription tool and we see it used successfully in three major ways.

When it’s difficult to capture phone numbers digitally: Like brick-and-mortar in-store ads or out-of-home (OOO)
A nudge on social media: Especially giveaways and influencer content when links aren’t available
In social ads: These help with conversions as it doesn’t require clicking away from the ad and creates an atmosphere of intimacy

Keywords take five minutes to set up and can be up to 20 characters — so don’t be shy to create new keywords for different promotions.

SMS Subscription Links for Social Stories and Posts

Get your deals in front of more people! This is a great method if you’ve got an active and eager social media following. SMS subscription from Instagram Stories and other social platforms create an easy opt-in, requiring only two actions from a mobile phone:

Tapping the link creates a pre-filled text message
Clicking the send button opts them in

6. Entice Email Subscribers via a Landing Page

⏰ Time: 10 minutes (each)
📅 Nov. 9th, 16th & 21st

Odds are, you’re already sitting on a decent email-subscriber base. Well, it’s time to get them over to SMS.

Why? Because SMS is so direct and customers are picky about what they opt into, text marketing helps your business stand out in a sea of holiday-email spam.

Push email-only subscribers to SMS by including CTAs in two regular newsletters — around the 9th and 16th — and one stand-alone email campaign — on the 21st or right before Black Friday.

These CTAs should all drive to a landing page highlighting the benefits of SMS messages such as early access, sneak peeks, or updates on low stock.

On your landing page, consider featuring:

Dates and times of the event
Discounts or incentives to expect
Products and bundles that will be on sale
Wishlist items to snatch up before they’re gone

7. Warm Up Shoppers & Test Your Offer

⏰ Time: 15 minutes
📅 Nov. 14th or 21st

Warm-up campaigns familiarize your audience with SMS marketing.

And bring results.

They are also a great way to test engagement and segment your audience — which means campaign personalization (which means 1.5x-2x more sales).

Use AI SMS to make this process faster and more efficient. Automating segmentation, optimizing send times, and transforming a single campaign into multiple text in just a few clicks.

By the time BFCM arrives, you’ll know exactly what works for each customer!

Elements to test when setting up your campaigns and audience segments:

Copy and tone
Calls-to-action (CTAs)
Text only (SMS)
Images & gifs (MMS)
Incentive types
Discount values
Day and time
New products
Product categories

Stage 3: During Black Friday Cyber Monday

_{November 22nd – November 27th}

Two days of BFCM does not equal two campaigns. As you’ve seen above, this period is basically a season in itself. What’s more, Friday and Monday are just the tippy top of the revenue hill climb.

Warm-ups that run weeks or days before, tend to be more generic.

When the main event descends, shoot straight! Clear beats clever: Buy this product at this price for this limited-time period.

Download the full Black Friday SMS calendar and checklist

8. Open Early with an SMS Exclusive

⏰ Time: 10 minutes
📅 Nov. 22nd or 23rd

Get your audience excited with an early access text marketing campaign. These not-so-sneaky promotions are show stoppers.

The day before Black Friday has people ready to buy and anxiously waiting for the clock to strike. That’s where you come in with a pre-madness, highly-exclusive drop.

It can even be as big and exciting as your Black Friday deals because you want people to shop right away.

Align your popup, Welcome Flow, and onsite offer

Remember to turn off your evergreen pop-ups and Welcome Flows during BFCM weekend.

Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. The flood of special offers and confusion of the holiday online shopping season can overwhelm even the most experienced bargain hunter.

Consistency demands providing the same content and information across all your touchpoints.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a pop-up or Welcome Flow. You should. As long as they match your other campaigns and offers.

9. Launch Your 🎁 Black Friday Offer

⏰ Time: 10 minutes (each)
📅 Nov. 24th

Campaign 1: Start

The moment your deal kicks off, your text should hit. But don’t expect to be the only message your customers receive. How can you stand out?

Start strong and open with your main discount or offer and include some limited deals — so your customers know they must act fast.

Campaign 2: Mid-Day

A gentle reminder that Black Friday is already halfway done. This text message is a great opportunity to stress scarcity and urgency.

For example, you can let your customers know that half of your stock is sold out, that specific products or collections are almost gone, or that time is ticking away with a simple countdown clock.

Campaign 3: Final-Hour

The last call. A chance to let your customers know time is going, going … about to be gone — and so are your products. How can you give the last hour a much-needed boost?

Try a few creative angles …

End-of-day (deep discount) flash sale
Limited-quantities available
Black Friday exclusive products
Selected products or bundles
Rotating gifts with purchase

Drive 1.5x-2x more SMS sales with AI campaigns

Personalized texts out perform bulk sends. That’s why Recart’s AI transforms a single campaign goal into multiple texts.

With targeted copy + creative
Automatically segmented by lifecycle
Personalized to drive engagement + purchases

All based on brand guidelines, custom personas, and your subscribers’ past behavior — including the time of day they click + buy.

10. Extend the Offer into Cyber Weekend

⏰ Time: 10 minutes
📅 Nov. 25th–26th

People are still eager to shop. So let them!

But be careful with what you offer between Black Friday and Cyber Monday. You want to keep some exclusivity for the actual sale days as well as a little mystery of what’s to come.

You can achieve this with:

“Last-of” Black Friday stock
Smaller though rotating discounts and free gifts
Extended Black Friday-specific offers like mini-sets or bundles

When sending, always use purchase-exclusion lists.

While it can feel counterintuitive to exclude anyone from your promotions, doing so reduces the risk of spam and improves customer satisfaction.

‍Also, keep pushing on your abandoners.

With so many active shoppers, there’s no better time for Cart Abandonment Flows. Update your messaging and discounts. Set your delays for shorter periods than year-round flows so customers don’t miss out on BFCM deals.

Align your popup, Welcome Flow, and onsite offer

While making Black Friday and Cyber Monday feel unique, you’ve also got to stay consistent. Align all popups, opt-ins, deals, and specials with each other in a way that feels cohesive.