New Tools for Communication-Get your Message Top of Mind!
With more than 5,000 media messages presented to most of our donors and volunteers every day, we have lots of competition to get our messages in front of those we depend on for support. One of the best ways to communicate with members, volunteers and donors is through their mobile phone. Having a way to connect by SMS while still keeping your list “opt-in” allows you to deliver information to your volunteers, members and volunteers in a way that is instant, inexpensive and effective. It is important though that this is the “preferred” method and that people can choose all of the ways they want to communicate with them.
SMS stands for “short message service” or as we often refer to it “text messaging”
SMS allows you to aquire new contacts through “short code” texting. Try the texting “compassionbydesign” to 69302 to see how this works. You will notice the opportunity to “opt-out” is included as a part of this approach. If you offer information that is valuable to a donor or volunteer, such as an update about the services you are offering, a important community need or event updates, then you have just opened a new communication channel to a new donor or community member.
Add to this the now popular SMS voting method made popular by certain musical competitions that received tens of millions of contacts and you can move your donor acquisition approach from traditional forms such as paper mail or other congested or expensive forms to an inexpensive approach that will cost you about .05 cents per new donor. Add a community sponsor that wants to send out coupons and you can expand this opportunity even more.
SMS approaches work well with a number of demographics and are much easier to manage than many of the email and internet adword approaches. If you are working with youth or “early adopters” and young adults, then SMS approaches can work very well. For older citizens get a sponsorship by a local merchant to get best acceptance. This can be set up as a special coupon that acknowledges your organization as a part of the message. Since you include an “opt-out” method as a part of every message, you have the right to continue sending out information about your oragnization in the future.
Consider an SMS approach for these purposes:
- Event and Scheduling Updates
- Youth Groups
- Community Contests and Voting
- School and Sport Groups
- Community News
- Church Updates
- Urgent member information
- Missions support updates
Using a combined management tool that allows you to communicate through email, SMS and social media, your organization can keep members and donors up to date while you effectively manage contact information. Building new donor and support is made possible through SMS number aquisition.
Try this service by texting “compassionbydesign” to 69302 to see how the service works– you will be entered to win a free Grant Teams that Win book. Get a free trial account at http://www.impact-messages.com and read more about how this tool can help you win new donors and connect to your members and supporters.