Parents and kids aren’t the only ones looking forward to the back-to-school (B2S) shopping season: digital retail stores are too. Third only to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, B2S shopping has been one of the most fruitful seasons on the digital retail calendar for the last several years. This year is no exception. The National Retail Federation estimates that this year, the B2S season will rack in just north of $80 billion from consumers. What’s more, nearly half of these consumers are expected to make their purchases online.
*Screenshot from NRF.
With widespread predictions forecasting that 2019 will see record-breaking spending during the B2S shopping season, ideally, online businesses should start promoting from as early as June and July in order to maximize their sales potential.
That said, a late start is a start, nonetheless. Although massive sales opportunities like Amazon Prime Day may have come and gone, you can still take advantage of the B2S season and haul in sales even after summer has come to a close.
Here, you’ll get a comprehensive overview of consumer trends as they relate to B2S purchases. You’ll also learn how to pin-point the promotional campaigns that will work best to boost your sales efforts, particularly via SMS and push notification templates like Tobi or Firepush that can be seamlessly incorporated in your marketing campaign.
Developing Your B2S Marketing Calendar
While reports do hail Amazon Prime Day as the “unofficial lead-in to the back-to-school shopping season”, the B2S season really gets underway during the month of August and the first week of September.
When designing your B2S marketing strategy, it’s important to create a plan that takes into account significant dates around which your marketing and sales efforts are most likely to bring you the most rewards.
A prime example would be Labor Day. Stats from Adobe Digital Insights show that digital sales exceeded $2 billion on Labor Day alone, making it the first holiday outside of the Christmas season to surpass the $2 billion mark. Centering your campaigns around Labor Day is a sure-way to pull in massive revenue during the B2S shopping season
In addition to Labor Day, here are some dates that are forecast to experience a high number of shoppers during peak periods of the B2S season. These dates were obtained from data presented by RetailMeNot.
Understanding B2S Consumer Trends
A huge part of developing a solid B2S marketing strategy hinges on how well you take into account B2S consumer trends. To get a better understanding of them, let’s examine 2018 stats shared by Shopify.
Online revenue from B2S shopping reached $58.1 billion in 2018.
- Weekends are the periods where Shopify Stores continue to record their highest sales during the B2S shopping season. Actually, the sales are at their highest on the Labor Day weekend.
- Shopify has reported that mobile sales have grown passed desktop-generated sales. Now, mobile sales have recorded a growth rate of nearly 60% YoY in comparison to desktop sales which have grown by just an estimated 30% YoY.
- Mobile sales amounted to 66.5% of the total number of sales recorded on the Shopify Platform, with only 33.5% being accounted for sales done using desktops.
*Screenshot from Shopify.
Choosing the Right B2S Marketing Campaigns For You
A B2S marketing campaign is not a one size fits all campaign. Not every campaign will bring you the desired results that you’re looking for to boost your sales.
A solid and effective campaign must include the following:
- Storewide discounts
- Tiered-rewards
- Exclusive codes for both online and in-store shopping
- Money-off codes for in-store shopping
Though not necessary, there are additional promotional strategies that you can include. These are:
- Fast and free shipping
- Reduced prices on sale items
- Added discounts on clearance items
Be sure to strategically weave these promos into your marketing campaigns to see growth and rewards on your efforts.
What You Should Focus On In Your Marketing Campaigns
Based on previous consumer trends, mobile sales are recording the most growth.
In order to reap the rewards of online shopping, you need to beef up on your mobile marketing efforts. This can be achieved by enabling any messages that you transmit to your customers to be accessed via mobile devices.
In the process, you shouldn’t neglect other marketing channels. For this reason, adopting an omnichannel marketing approach would be a sure-way to ensure that you reach your target audience across media channels that they use regularly.
There are several apps available that can help you with your omnichannel marketing: Firepush is one of them. Firepush allows you to simultaneously forward promotional messages to your consumers across several channels.
These promo messages can be sent via Messenger, email, and web push notifications.
You can also consider using the Tobi app to achieve the same result. This omnichannel marketing app enables promo messages to be sent out via Messenger, SMS, and email.
SMS and web push notification templates
Looking for some ideas on what your promotional messages should look like? Here are some templates that we’ve come up with that are bound to make your consumers take notice. Feel free to modify them for whichever campaign you’re focusing on. Also, try inserting emojis in your messages. They do make your business look a lot more personable.
Back-to-school SMS campaign templates
#1
[Your company name here]. Back-to-school essentials - save BIG with 15% OFF! Click here [redirectToURL]. Use code: D5A10. Unsubscribe here [unsubscribeURL].
#2
[Your company name here]. Everything you need to make back-to-school shopping a breeze. Shop NOW at [redirectToURL] for free shipping! Unsubscribe here [unsubscribeURL].
#3
[Your company name here]. Get 15% off all school items! View here [redirectToURL] Bring on back-to-school! Unsubscribe here. [unsubscribeURL].
Top takeaways
All in all, there’s a wealth of opportunity waiting for you during this B2S shopping season. Don’t think that because we’re months into the season that you’ll be at a loss - the real part of the season is just starting.
Be sure to center your marketing and sales campaigns around key dates like Labor Day as well as weekends through the month of August.
Be sure to create promotions that add value to your consumer and that are most likely to foster engagement.
With the help of omnichannel marketing apps like Firepush and Tobi, you’ll never be at a loss to reach your consumers just when you need them. Also, don’t forget to check out our SMS and messaging templates above - they’ll set you on the right path to boosting your sales.
