Holiday marketing for grocery stores: A text message plan

Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's are among a grocery store's biggest weeks, and a few well-timed texts can help make the season a success.

This post covers when shoppers do their holiday buying, what to text for each holiday, a week-by-week calendar that ties it together, and how to build the opt-in list you need before you send a single text.

When do grocery shoppers do their holiday buying?

Most Thanksgiving grocery buying happens in the last two weeks. In a November 2024 report, 82% of the sales increase during the Thanksgiving season came in the week of Thanksgiving and the week before. Thanksgiving also produced a $2.4 billion sales lift in 2023, second only to Christmas.

Because so much of the buying happens late, your window to get shoppers' attention is short. If you want them to plan around a pre-order deadline or a pickup time, they need to hear about it before those last two weeks begin. That's why the plan below starts about three weeks out.

What should a grocery store text before Thanksgiving?

For Thanksgiving, a grocery store should text its order cutoff first, then pickup times, then store hours. The cutoff gives shoppers a deadline to order a turkey, ham, or full dinner, and the pickup and hours texts tell them exactly when to come in to get it.

The three texts to send, and when

Each of these texts has one job, and every one helps your store's holiday season run smoothly.

1. Order cutoff. Send it about three weeks before Thanksgiving. This year that's the first week of November, with the last day to order on Thursday, November 12. Follow up with a quick reminder the next week so nobody misses the date.
2. Pickup times. Send pickup times and the pie and side list to the shoppers who placed orders during the week before Thanksgiving.
3. Store hours. Send your hours, what's in stock, and a last call during Thanksgiving week.

Best practices for Thanksgiving texts

A few habits help those three texts work harder.

Send the cutoff early. An early deadline gives a text time to work, and one text can move fast. During the Fourth of July, Marczyk Fine Foods had 1 cherry pie on order. They sent one text and had 36 pre-orders 36 hours after it. Same idea, different holiday: give your kitchen enough lead time to fill the orders a text can bring in.

Price your dinner bundle with a benchmark in mind. A classic Thanksgiving dinner for 10 cost $55.18 on average nationwide in 2025. If your dinner costs less than that, tell your customers in the text.

Plan for replies, too. Half of first replies to a Text-Em-All broadcast arrive within 18 minutes, so shoppers will ask questions soon after the text goes out. Plan to answer them yourself or set up an auto-reply that tells them where to reach someone.

How text helped one grocer sell 5x more pork chops

One of our customers, Morton's Gourmet, shows what a single text can do. The store ran a three-day pork chop special, Tuesday through Thursday, at $12.99 per pound, $5 off. On Wednesday, it texted 3,900 loyalty customers and sold 214 pounds, up from 41.7 pounds the day before.

Here's how the three days went.

The text cost $375. On Wednesday and Thursday last year, the store sold 48 pounds of pork chops. On those same two days this year, it sold 362.5 pounds. Thursday had no extra outreach and still sold 148.5 pounds, which suggests the text's effect carried into the third day.

The impact likely went beyond the pork chops. A day with 214 pounds sold means more shoppers came through the door, and the store believes those shoppers also bought other groceries while they were there.

What should a grocery store text for Christmas and New Year's?

For Christmas, text a dinner order deadline, then pickup times and hours. For New Year's, text party platters and last-minute items. The Thanksgiving pattern carries over: announce the deadline, remind shoppers, then send logistics.

Christmas dinner orders

Christmas falls on a Friday this year, so a Monday, December 14 deadline gives your meat, bakery, and deli teams more than a week to plan. Announce it the week of December 7, remind shoppers on the deadline day, and follow up the week of December 21 with a text about pickup times and hours.

New Year's Eve and the week after

New Year's Eve falls on a Thursday this year, so one text in the week of December 28 can cover platters, shrimp, and desserts along with your hours. After the holidays, the first week of January is a good time for a restocking text about the staples people ran out of.

Does a holiday text pay for itself?

Morton's Gourmet tested a prepared-meal text in July. It offered 15% off to 721 loyalty customers, and 14 of them redeemed it, about 2% of the list. They spent $1,033.43 in store.

They kept the test small so the results were easy to track. The text cost $61.29 and the discounts came to $49.09, so the store put in about $110. That leaves about $923 in trackable sales beyond what the promotion cost (sales minus promotion cost, not profit).

A week-by-week text calendar for Thanksgiving through New Year's

Here's the whole plan in one place: 10 texts, one a week, from three weeks before Thanksgiving through the first week of January. Each text has one job, such as a deadline, a pickup time, or store hours. 

Your shoppers may celebrate other holidays too, such as Hanukkah, Passover, Eid, or Lunar New Year, so ask your meat, bakery, and deli teams what customers ask for and add those weeks to the table. For more ideas, see our SMS holiday marketing ideas and our guide to setting up effective holiday SMS campaigns.

If you'd like a head start on the wording, the free Retail Text Calendar has a year of ready-to-send retail texts you can edit, copy, print, or download.

How many texts is too many during the holidays?

Plan one text a week through the holidays and add a second only for a hard deadline, like a last call on the day orders close. That's the rhythm of the calendar above.

Opt-outs are rare overall. In Text-Em-All's data for the year to July 2026, 84% of broadcasts to 100 or more people had no opt-outs, and the median opt-out rate was zero.

Offers need extra care, though. In Text-Em-All's data, close to half of sales and discount texts to 100 or more people had at least one opt-out. In your calendar, the texts most likely to read like offers are the November 30 leftovers text, the December 28 platters text, and the January 4 restock text. Trim them from you plan if your list is small or you're worried about oversending.

Start building your text list now

Everything above depends on opt-ins, and the first text goes out the week of November 2. Start collecting opt-ins now, because you need them before you can send promotional texts, and texting people who haven't opted in is illegal. If you're starting from zero, the fastest routes are a checkbox on your Thanksgiving order form and asking at pickup, since those shoppers are already planning a holiday meal with you.

The simplest way to build your list is to ask wherever shoppers are already standing in front of you. Give them a reason to say yes, such as a discount for signing up for texts. Here are the places to start:

• Have your cashiers ask shoppers at checkout if they'd like to opt in to texts.
• Put a QR code at your register lanes.
• Put a QR code at the deli counter and the cart corrals.
• Add a QR code to your weekly ad.
• Add a text opt-in checkbox to your Thanksgiving order form, with a plain line about what you'll send.
• Ask loyalty program members to opt in when they join or check out.
• Ask shoppers to opt in when they pick up an order.

For more information on how to gain opt-ins, read our guide to SMS opt-in compliance for retail stores. It covers seven approved ways to collect opt-ins, what to say in the first text after someone signs up, and the common mistakes to avoid. If your store runs on ECRS, take a look at our ECRS integration too.

Common questions about grocery holiday texting

How much more do grocery stores sell around the holidays?

Thanksgiving produced a $2.4 billion sales lift in 2023, second only to Christmas. Your own sales from the same weeks last year are the best number to plan from, and the free Retail Text Calendar can help you plan your texts around them.

When should a grocery store send its Thanksgiving order text?

A grocery store should send its Thanksgiving order text about three weeks before the holiday. In a November 2024 report, 82% of the season's sales increase came in the week of Thanksgiving and the week before, so a cutoff sent in the last two weeks arrives after most of the buying has started.

Do shoppers have to opt in to get a grocery store's texts?

Yes, shoppers have to opt in first. Send promotional texts only to people who agreed to receive them, and tell them what you'll send and how often. Our retail opt-in guide covers the wording, and a checkbox on your Thanksgiving order form is one easy place to ask.

Can customers reply to a grocery store's holiday text?

Yes, customers can reply. Replies come back to your Text-Em-All inbox, where everyone on your account sees both sides of every conversation. Half of first replies to a broadcast arrive within 18 minutes, so plan to have someone watching the inbox the week before Thanksgiving.

What does it cost to text a grocery store's customers?

Credits start at 9¢ each, or monthly plans start at $19. One credit sends one text of up to 160 characters to one person, and a longer text uses more than one credit. Check your list size before finalizing the calendar, since 10 weekly texts to a large list add up.

Plan your holiday texts

Are you ready to plan your holiday texts? Morton's Gourmet turned one $375 text into 214 pounds of pork chops in a day, and your calendar can hold a few moments like that too. Open the Retail Text Calendar, set your store, and add the Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's texts you want to send.