Engage and Convert: How MMS Messaging Drives Holiday Success for Self-Care

Eye-catching and direct, MMS marketing can draw in clients during the most important times of the year

Every year, the holiday season brings on a surge of self-care spending. Whether clients are looking for line-ups, blowouts, or Botox, your marketing efforts are your best bet at convincing them your brand deserves the business. And what better way to market than sending your message straight to the cell phones sitting in 97% of American pockets? Marketers have long known the power of the Short Message Service (SMS) text message, but Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) marketing takes that power to the next level.

MMS marketing provides several benefits that traditional text messages lack. If you want to include GIFs and images in your marketing messages, you need MMS. But those benefits are only the beginning. This guide will walk you through some of the key advantages of MMS marketing and give you a framework for putting them to work for your beauty business.

Why MMS marketing matters

Direct-to-client communication

Modern marketing channels such as social media and connected TV (CTV) give you powerful targeting tools for your ads. As good as they are, they still can’t guarantee you’ll hit your target audience. Email marketing is a little more direct and overall has an outstanding ROI, but the average person only opens around 21.5% of the emails they receive. So what do you do if you absolutely need a client to see a message in a timely fashion?

Easy: You send them an MMS because a whopping 82% of people read every single text they receive. That gives you the best possible chance of getting your marketing in front of your audience, which is especially important when you’re running time-sensitive promotions during the holiday season. 

Engaging visuals

SMS messages are as direct as MMS messages, but they’re limited to numbers and words. That doesn’t give you much opportunity to draw on iconic holiday visuals, and as any social media manager can tell you, visuals drive far more engagement than text alone. One A/B test found that when the same MMS message added a photo, its clickthrough rate (CTR) jumped from 3% to 5% — a 52% increase.

Richer stories

SMS messages are more limiting in terms of character count per segment, which makes it more challenging to craft messages that are both compelling and mesh with your brand voice.. There’s no space for additional information, let alone a brand voice for clients to connect with.

MMS raises that character limit tenfold, up to 1,600 characters. With all that extra space, you can do more than dump your promotional details. You can tell a richer story, giving your clients a sense of what your brand stands for and an opportunity for them to forge an emotional connection with that brand. Just maybe don’t hit that 1,600 limit — in marketing, short is always sweet.

Building your MMS marketing strategy

Set ambitious but realistic goals

If you want to get somewhere, you need to plan your route. That’s why all good strategies start with good goals. What do you want to accomplish with your MMS marketing? What does success look like for this campaign? How does MMS marketing fit into your overall strategy?

For example, you might use your MMS marketing to bring lapsed clients back for the holidays, or you might try to encourage your regulars to come in ahead of the rush.

When you decide which aspect of your brand you want your MMS marketing to address, you can set objectives and key results. To take the regulars example, how many more regulars would you need to see to call this campaign a success? Setting out targets beforehand can help you measure your strategy’s effectiveness and improve it over time.

Segment your audience

A client's age, habits, and income can affect what kinds of marketing materials they respond to. Some book appointments long in advance, while others book at the last minute. Some always come in for the same service, while others like to explore your menu offerings.

Each set of clients likely has its own formula for marketing success. By breaking your audience into these different segments, you can design bespoke marketing for each. When you appeal to each segment’s specific needs, you raise the chances that the MMS messages you send will have the exact combination of words and images that convince them to book.

Reinforce your brand imagery

Lots of factors affect whether or not a client chooses your business over another, from price to convenience. But dig deeper into that client relationship, and you'll find that the clients who stick around longest — the ones who stay loyal, who book time and time again — are those who feel a strong connection to your brand. Your brand is what gives your business personality, and personalities are the basis of any lasting human connection.

With MMS marketing, you can bring your brand to life in the palm of your clients' hands. A marketing blast with your branded imagery on it helps to build familiarity with your clients, making it that much easier for them to recall it later. As that familiarity continues to grow, clients often become more comfortable engaging with your MMS campaigns. When they do, they'll gain more and more reasons to trust your brand, connecting with it for the long haul. That means more loyalty, a longer client life cycle, and more re-engagement. 

Schedule your messages in advance

MMS marketing is a balancing act. Too few messages and you risk missing out on potential bookings. Too many — even useful ones — and clients can start to feel like they’re being spammed. Research shows that most consumers want to receive texts from businesses once every other week (46%). Another 36% prefer weekly messages.

To ensure your marketing messages arrive at the right cadence, you need to think about when clients are most likely to respond. You want your MMS marketing to make you top-of-mind in the lead-up to the holidays, as that will give your clients a head-start on booking. You may also want to follow-up during the holidays to pick up any last-second bookings and after to bring in customers with gift cards to spend. Finally, consider tailoring your MMS marketing to push slower days, as that can help you balance the load of a packed holiday period.

With all of that in mind, look at the calendar and select the precise dates and times you want your marketing to fly out to your clients’ phones. Then you can design your assets and copy well in advance, leaving you free to focus on the flood of business the holidays bring in.

Direct, engaging, and familiar — these are the three pillars of MMS marketing. By leaning into these strengths, you can position your business to capitalize on the holiday season without getting lost in the rush.