Black Friday is only a week away and retailers are amping up their promotional efforts to advertise their respective sales. As always, competition is fierce during this time of year because every store wants to start the holiday shopping season on the right foot. As the day gets closer, it's important for companies to connect with their customers by sending engaging, informative content.

Text message marketing doesn't necessarily have to be restricted to information about new products. Businesses can keep recipients up to date on upcoming events, and Black Friday is an ideal situation to apply this practice. Every year, the traditional kickoff to the holiday shopping season gets bigger and bigger and, once November starts, shoppers start looking into their favorite retailers and formulating their shopping strategies. Companies need to capitalize on this fact by reaching out to their potential customers.

An article in Business 2 Community lists the best strategies retailers should implement to maximize their profits on Black Friday. Joshua Malin, the author of the article, suggests text message marketing due to its many advantages.

"Don't limit this to just time and date," Malin writes. "Include some insider insights, photos and advice to give each message unique value. Text message marketing – because of its short, sweet nature – is perfect for something like a countdown."

A countdown is certainly effective, but there is a lot of pertinent information about the event that can be communicated via SMS messaging. Retailers can use text messages to tell customers what time the doors open. If a new item is being added to the list of Black Friday specials, send a text to let people know about it. There are so many ways businesses can interact with consumers as they gear up for the biggest shopping day of the year.

To ensure that these messages are cogent and evoke a high level of readership, companies should work with an SMS services provider. Swift SMS Gateway offers the tools needed to launch effective text message campaigns.