Beyond the festivities and cheer, the holidays are the prime time for businesses to connect with their audiences in meaningful ways. While traditional marketing approaches have their place, they might not capture the attention of today’s savvy consumers.
Enter RCS (Rich Communication Services), a dynamic messaging protocol for Android devices that has revolutionized the way brands engage with their audiences. RCS lets brands build more engaging content and provide a better experience for those with RCS-enabled devices, leading to higher cart values, more conversions, and better engagement than any other type of mobile messaging. That must be why more businesses are adopting RCS, which has grown over 40% in the past 12 months.
So, what are you waiting for?
This holiday season, it's time to go beyond the ordinary and explore how RCS can take your holiday marketing campaigns to new heights.
In this blog, you’ll learn how six global brands have created hyper-personalized, effective RCS campaigns to create memorable and impactful experiences – and how you can use those same techniques to make your holiday marketing campaigns truly shine.
1. Personalized gift guides
RCS is at the forefront of modern messaging technology, making personalized gift guides more engaging and effective than ever. With RCS, you can curate a tailored shopping experience for each customer, right within their phone’s native messaging app.
Imagine doing this around the holiday season by creating a rich image carousel so users can browse through product images, descriptions, and prices. They could then click through buttons to explore different gift options for their friends and family, making their experience easier and more enjoyable. You could even send them personalized gift recommendations based on their browsing or individual purchase history.
Want to see what this might look like in real life?
ATOL used conversational RCS to make personalized recommendations and invite customers to their stores.
ATOL, a chain of opticians in France, used conversational RCS to guide their customers through purchasing new eyeglasses and book in-person appointments at their stores.
For their campaign, ATOL asked people to answer four questions that would determine a personalized offer. Their customers could also visualize their selection digitally after going through the guide. The brand used A/B testing to test the effectiveness of this campaign and saw incredible results. Their RCS campaign had a 5x higher click rate than Rich SMS, a 99% increase in conversion rate (to make an in-store appointment) than Rich SMS.
“The interactive experience of RCS worked very well, ...[and] allowed us to reach an audience that, on paper, seemed difficult to convince. The conversational nature of RCS allows us to bring more value to the consumer through advice and therefore benefits the brand image.” - Stéphanie Chevallier, Project Manager at ATOL
2. Holiday event planning
Ready to add some jingle to your mingle this holiday season? RCS is an exceptional tool to help you seamlessly embed images, videos, and interactive buttons right into holiday invitations.
If you’re hosting your own holiday event and want to ensure your invitations are exciting and engaging, look no further than RCS. As the event draws closer, you can use RCS to send real-time updates, event agendas, and even behind-the-scenes videos. RCS also offers suggested reply buttons so your guests can quickly RSVP.
But RCS is not only good for sending event invitations – it’s also great to inspire your audience for their own holiday events. For example, retailers could use RCS to help their customers choose a holiday outfit, financial service organizations could help with holiday budgeting tips, supermarkets could guide through the event shipping list, and food retailers could assist with menu planning.
This is what frozen food retailer Picard did to inspire their customers’ holiday gatherings. Picard built a conversational experience tailored to holiday menu creation, taking into account things like dietary preferences, budget, and desire to cook.
Watch the video to learn Picard used RCS to deliver a personalized, white-glove customer experience during the holiday season.
Picard’s success during the year-end holiday period further highlights the power of RCS. The campaign saw a click-through rate 3x higher than that of Rich SMS, and 10% more website redirections than Rich SMS.
“[RCS] helps us understand our customers’ preferences and offer them products or dishes that meet their desires. This channel makes it easy for our customers to understand our value proposition and has great marketing activation potential for brands." - Charlotte LEBRUN, CRM manager at Picard
3. Exclusive gift previews
The beauty of RCS lies in its ability to make each interaction memorable. As the holiday season approaches, use RCS to showcase your products and evoke the joy of gift giving.
With RCS, you can curate personalized recommendations for upcoming gifts and features. You can send timely information on sales and promotions and direct recipients straight to your website or another landing page. You can even have subscribers choose what they want and have them order it right from your message!
Cdiscount’s clear, simple rich messages helped grab their customers’ attention immediately.
Cdiscount, the third largest French e-commerce website, used RCS to target customers with holiday offers and deals. Their messages included captivating images, CTAs, video, and guided responses, so their messages came to life right in their customers’ inboxes.
Thanks to their RCS campaign, Cdiscount saw a 4% increase in revenue and 9% average basket size as compared to previous campaigns.
Now that’s a gift that keeps on giving!
4. Countdown to deals
Picture this: Black Friday is right around the corner, and your customers aren’t nearly finished with holiday shopping. How can you stand out as their favorite brand with all the competition for their attention?
Here’s an idea: use RCS to count down days before the big holiday. As the clock ticks, you can leverage the capabilities of RCS to send engaging messages that inform them about a promotion and send them videos showcasing deal highlights.
That’s exactly what Micromania-Zing, a major video game retail company, did to support its customers with their Christmas purchases. Their omnichannel strategy was called “Operation Crazy Christmas,” and included email newsletters, Rich SMS, and RCS.
A few days before Christmas, Micromania-Zing used RCS messages to target customers who’d not yet purchased gifts. The objective? Gain visibility and boost traffic in-store and on their website. The results? An 86% increase in read rate as compared to their email newsletter, and a 120% increase in web redirections versus Rich SMS.
Micromania-Zing used engaging, conversational RCS messages to drive sales ahead of the Christmas holiday.
5. Location-based promotions
RCS can help you use customer location data to give more precise delivery information or offer specific discounts based on the user’s location. If you have a physical store location, you can use captivating offers to incentivize consumers to come into your store for in-person shopping. For example, a retailer could use RCS to illustrate Black Friday or Cyber Monday deals at a specific store, or a bank could incentivize its members to visit a nearby branch during the holiday season.
Curious to see how location-based promotions look? A great example of how to use them can be found in one of the largest car manufacturers in the world, Nissan.
Nissan uses RCS to have two-way conversations with prospects and customers to incentivize them to test drive cars.
Nissan had seen decreasing engagement from its customers via traditional communication channels. So, wanting people to come into dealerships to test-drive new cars, Nissan decided to put mobile RCS messaging at the heart of its customer relations strategy.
With RCS, Nissan can send tailored messages to prospects and customers with information about upcoming service appointments or let them know when they have new cars available to test drive.
So, whether you have physical stores or just want to drive sales this holiday season, RCS can be a great tool to target and engage people based on their preferences.
6. Re-engagement campaigns
Re-engagement campaigns are a key part of customer engagement, and the holiday season is a great time for brands to reconnect with their audience. Customer activity is heightened during this period, so launching a re-engagement campaign in the lead up to this major shopping period is a great way to stay top-of-mind with your audience.
Re-engaging customers isn’t easy, less so during busy periods like the holidays, so using RCS to re-engage inactive customers is a fantastic option to stand out. That’s what Macif, an insurance agency with close to five million policyholders, did.
Macif used RCS to achieve fast, effective results for their conversational marketing efforts.
Since RCS is used in the user’s native messaging inbox, Macif could have a more conversational style of communication with people who knew them, but just weren’t actively engaged with their brand.
This campaign was remarkably effective: When compared to previous campaigns that used Rich SMS, the click-through-rate for RCS increased by 100%, and when compared to results seen in previous email campaigns, engagement and click-through levels tripled!
Used before the holiday season, a re-engagement campaign like this one is the perfect way to get your audience ready for your festive content and deals.
Why you should use RCS in your holiday marketing campaigns
The holidays are a time when competition for consumer attention is at its peak. With RCS, you can grab their focus with messages that captivate, inform, and inspire them like never before.
Still not convinced? Here are a reasons marketers love RCS.
Elevated click-through and read rates
Google’s data suggests that people are 35x more likely to read RCS messages than emails. It was designed with conversations in mind, so two-way conversations are very common. And with the ability to integrate multimedia elements like images, videos, and interactive buttons, RCS users are more engaged.
Improved customer engagement and user experience
RCS is proven to increase customer engagement using compelling, branded conversations. Compared to SMS, RCS users are more likely to interact and convert to paying customers.
What does that mean for your brand? More engaged customers are more likely to make repeat purchases and spend more on each transaction. Their loyalty results in increased customer lifetime value, meaning they’re less likely to switch to competitors. Plus, they’re more likely to give genuine endorsements of your products to their friends and family – a win-win for your brand!
Build trust with verified, branded sender IDs
RCS stands apart because your marketing messages will have your brand’s name as the sender. Only businesses with verified sender identities can use business RCS messaging, meaning trust is built into its core, and you can have meaningful two-way conversations with your target audience from the get-go.
People are hesitant to click on links in texts anymore due to concerns of fraud. When your subscribers get colorful, content-rich messages without external links directly in their mobile phone inboxes, they’re assured that they’re interacting with a credible, reputable brand. And, if you do send links, your customers can be sure they’re legitimate because safety and trust are built into RCS.
Get started with your holiday RCS strategy
RCS isn’t just about messaging; It’s about storytelling. RCS technology can help elevate your stories to new heights during the holidays, building creative messages that could range from personalized gift guides that resonate to fun and engaging holiday countdowns.
Loved these campaign examples and want to try them out? Download our comprehensive RCS guide which will walk you through how to make the case to bring RCS into your organization.
Happy holidays, and happy strategizing!
