SMS Campaign Strategies

From MobileActive Wiki

Meta questions:

• do campaigning tactics & strategies apply across borders?
• how does the 'bottom-up' ethos that is permeating web campaigning work in the mobile context?

Definition of a campaign:

The term “campaign” refers to an activity that is intended to fulfill an organizational objective.

Traditionally, the term is used in the phrase “political campaign,” which specifically refers to an effort by an organization to elect a candidate. In an advocacy context, a campaign may be “a campaign to raise funds for fighting cancer” or a “campaign to stop the seal hunt" or "deliver info about reproductive rights to 500 young people."

Challenges:

• Carriers & Operating systems
• No LBS

Tactics:

• recruiting at events
  • Mobile Voter
  • Darfur concert in NYC

• petitioning
  • International Fund for Animal Welfare

• timely and relevant info
  • UK Asthma
  • SexInfo

• advocacy
  • Blue Ocean Institute

• Coordinating Protesters
  • Philippines/Madrid: mob
  • Republican National Convention: smart mob

• Mobilizations
  • Greenpeace

• Fundraising
  • Text2Help
  • political campaigns

• Voice Broadcasts

Strategies

• Frequency & Reach
• Trusted Messengers
• Incentives
• Timliness & Relevance
• Clear Call to action
• Texting as hook
• Integration
• Story development

How it works:

• 2-way texting
• text alerts
• text to voice
• voice broadcast
• smart texting
• sending a ringtone
• sending a photo

How to get started:

• hire a NGO-focused text vendor
• use an application service provider
• Do it Yourself

• • via an aggregator
  • via DIY/Do It Yourself SMS system. eg: FrontlineSMS

When is SMS most successful?

• SMS at speech, rally, concert
  • gather contact info -- what do you do with contact info afterwards?
  • deepen relationship with call or email, hook with text
  • text-to-screen
    • added motivation
  • messenger adds legitimacy, so Bono is better than a random person
    • 1% for unknown MC vs. 25% for celebrity
    • 9% is considered a good response rate
• in advocacy, not as many good examples of successful SMS
• good campaigns
  • Seal Hunt
  • Wichi in Argentina -- already had list
  • Greenpeace Argentina -- Zero Waste
    • stop developers from bulldozing sites
  • UK asthma
  • People for the American Way
• get-out-the-vote
  • were prepared the day before in case of failure

Viral Spread

• events like Philippines not driven by texting, driven by circumstances
• need clear call to action and incentive

• hard to replicate viral spread
• what makes messenging compelling enough to make it viral?

Logistics and Costs

• no nonprofit vendor, but we need one!
• in the US some vendors such as Mobile Accord and Mobile Commons
• Single Point (also Mexico, Canada, UK, but expanding?)
• Click-a-tell (global, 10 cents per message?)

• Estimated costs (in the US, varies elsewhere)
  • $2,000 per month to use platform
  • about 5-6 cents per message

Outreach strategies

• billboards haven't worked well
• need a good incentive -- prizes, contests, American idol --"your phone is your remote control for your TV"
• text-to-screen -- It's OUR Healthcare!

Fundraising

• carriers take 40-50% in US
• waived fees for things like Katrina
• John Edwards -- have to people text in and then leads to phone call, then can get credit card number