6 RCS campaign ideas to brighten your holiday marketing

Beyond the festivities and cheer, the holidays are the prime time for businesses to connect with their audiences in meaningful ways. But with today’s savvy customers, traditional marketing approaches may fall short.

Enter RCS (Rich Communication Services), a dynamic messaging protocol that’s revolutionizing the way brands engage with their audiences. RCS lets brands build more engaging content and provide a better messaging experience for those with RCS-enabled devices, leading to higher cart values, more conversions, and better engagement than any other type of mobile messaging channel. In a 2024 survey we conducted with nearly 1,200 consumers on their holiday shopping preferences, 51.2% said they would likely engage with interactive messages sent to their phones – a clear indicator of RCS’s potential.  

And with growing support for RCS on both Apple and Android devices, it’s no wonder why so many businesses are adopting it.  

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 can help make 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.