Use Two Way Texting to Have Personalized Conversations
Sending out mass texts is great, but two-way texting is even better. You probably have received a text from your favorite store, informing you of a great sale or giving you a 20% off coupon when you shop online. Or perhaps a text from a restaurant you go to often reminding you that you have a free appetizer reward that is expiring soon.
These kinds of texts are great, straightforward, and simple. Not a lot of need for back to back communication. However, when it comes to political campaigns, in most cases you should expect people to have some questions. This means your volunteers or agents sending our texts need to be able to respond in a personalized manner. With the previously mentioned store texts, you cannot respond to those. The most you can do is “opt-out” of receiving messages from them.
With two-way communication, you are allowed to give voters a real and personalized experience. It shows you care, and it will be well-worth the investment. Think about when you have a conversation with someone that you know, a friend or family member, using two-way texting is just like that. You can have a real conversation with voters just like you would with anyone else.
Two Is Better Than One
Most people would probably have to agree that two is better than one. This is why two-way communication is the way to go, especially for important matters that might require a more in-depth or detailed response. Think about it this way, if a voter is genuinely interested in volunteering for your organization, do you want them to get frustrated with an automated system? Probably not. You want to give them a real person that they can communicate with, someone that can guide them and give them the next steps that are needed in the process.
When it comes to politics, you want readily available people on standby to answer any and all questions. Questions like: When do I have to vote by? How can I vote? What is your campaign’s stand on healthcare? By using Robocent text marketing, your voters will be connected with real people, every time.
When you use two-way texting, you not only allow your campaign the ability to individually respond to each voter, but you also give your campaign a platform that helps manage and track all outgoing and incoming texts. It doesn’t get better than this. Not to mention, this is an extremely organized way to manage your campaign.
It’s as simple as uploading a contact list or using one of our approved contact lists, sending out your messages, and waiting for the replies to come in.
Two-Way Texting Has Many Purposes
The number of things you can do with two-way texting is limitless. You can
- Ask for donations
- Inform and educate voters
- Direct voters to your website
- Find volunteers
- Invite voters to your event/request them to RSVP
A lot of sales based companies have this motto–“it is a numbers game.” That is, in your case, the more texts you send out, the higher your chances of getting replies and reaching voters. Thus, increasing voter turnout, and the likelihood of voters voting for you. What that means for you, is that the more texts, the more voters reached, the more voters reached the higher chance your campaign will receive donations and find volunteers, etc.
The Benefits of Two-Way Texting
When you use peer-to-peer two-way texting, the best part is that your campaign can contact those who haven’t opted-in for your campaign texts. This allows you to still reach voters while adhering to text message regulations. How so? This is because there are real people on the other end of that message, not some automated system. Talk about a win, win.
One of the most important aspects of two-way texting is the ability to provide voters with a more personal connection. Oftentimes, people can tell when it is just an automated machine that is responding to them, and that can be frustrating for some. Don’t let your voters go uninformed, connect with them today!
When you use two-way texting, your voters get responses right away. If you want to have an engaging and meaningful conversation, having a consistent conversation is key. Two-way communication via text allows this kind of consistency. Read more about Why P2P Texting is a Powerful Tool for Political Campaigns.
It has been found that 97% of consumers reject calls from unknown numbers. What does this mean for two-way texting? This is just one of the many reasons why texting is the number one way to have a personalized conversation with voters. Not only is it convenient, but it is not disruptive and allows for flexibility for the receiver. The fact is, that with caller ID, and the younger generations, most individuals send unknown callers straight to voicemail. This is not good for marketing and political campaigns because this means that your campaign might not be reaching the most people. Two-way texting allows for maximization.
Personalized Communication
Having personalized conversations with voters is important. This kind of communication is a technique that many customer service based businesses use. Political campaigns are customer service based businesses as well. Any time you are trying to get something from a consumer, you are in a customer service business. If you are trying to get support from voters, donations, or recruit individuals for volunteering then you are in a customer service based business.
This is important to remember, especially when you are trying to reach out to voters in an effort to get them to do something for your campaign. If a voter doesn’t feel a connection or they feel that your campaign doesn’t care about them as a person then they are less likely to interact and respond.
In terms of customer service, it is proven that the more companies spend in customer service based efforts, that is real people instead of automated systems, the higher their sales will be. This same concept can be applied to your campaign plan. It will set you apart from the rest of the campaigns and volunteers that are in the voters SMS inbox. In reality, if your campaign is sending out messages then you can bet that other campaigns, even opponents, are sending out messages. This means your two-way texting and communication methods have to be on top. Better customer service methods will set your campaign apart from the rest.
Follow Up
Following up is important. It is important for almost any business that provides some sort of service or product for consumers. Online stores send automated follow up emails and messages when you leave an item in the cart and don’t check out. You may have received one of these “Oh no, you left something in your cart. Make sure to check out before it sells out!” This is a great example of a follow up message. Not only does it remind the consumer, but it makes them think about that item again and reevaluate whether or not they should purchase it. It also creates a sense of urgency.
Political campaigns can use these kinds of follow up messages as well, and two-way texting allows volunteers and agents to send out these follow up messages. Perhaps an agent sends out a message asking a voter to RSVP for a given event or conference, but the voter doesn’t reply. This is where a follow up message might come into place. Something like, “Don’t forget to RSVP for next week's event! Let us know you are coming by clicking the link below.” After this, if they still don’t respond, then at least you made a follow up method.
Following up can also be used once a voter does RSVP, you can send out a message thanking them for the reservation. You can also send a follow up message the day before the event as a sort of reminder for the voter.
Another use for following up through two-way texting is when a voter says to check back in with them. An example might be if a voter gets a text asking them to volunteer, and they respond with something like, “Maybe at a later time.” Well, this gives your campaign the opportunity to save that person's contact information, and make a note to follow up with them at a later time. The great thing about SMS platforms for political campaigns, is that everything you send and receive gets saved to that voters file, so you can always pick up where another agent or volunteer left off.
Hopefully you see there is plenty you can do with two-way texting. All of these follow-up methods show examples of having personalized conversations with voters, and increase the likelihood of voters connecting with your volunteers or campaign representatives.
Learn how two-way texting can increase the personalized conversations your campaign is having with voters. Don’t leave your voters hanging with automated responses, get set up on our SMS platform today,