SMS Broadcast Best Practices

Follow these best practices, to optimize your A2P SMS campaigns for greater fundraising success, reach wider audience, and improved donor retention

1. Personalize your messages: Use merge tags to personalize messages by addressing recipients by their first name and utilizing merge tags to dynamically insert relevant information like donation amounts.
   • Address by First Name
   • Request for highest donation amount that a user has ever contributed

2. Time Zone Segmentation: Utilize time zone segment to reach audience within 10am - 2pm window in their respective time zones for optimal engagement
   
   
3. A/B Testing: Experiment with different message copies using A/B testing to identify the most effective onboarding messages for maximum impact.

For clients with substantial subscriber bases, we recommend setting up cohorts of 5% each. This approach allows for a controlled comparison between different message variants, ensuring accurate insights into audience preferences. Subsequently, the message variant that performs the best is deployed to the remaining 90% of the audience, maximizing engagement and results.

Alternatively, for clients with varying audience sizes, we suggest a 50/50 split between message versions A and B. This ensures an equitable testing environment and provides valuable insights that can be applied to future broadcasts, regardless of list size.

By embracing A/B testing tailored to your audience size, you can make informed decisions that drive meaningful results

4. Well-Formatted Text: Present your messages in a visually appealing and easy-to-read format with proper formatting, bold text, and fonts to enhance readability.
   
   
5. Use Targeted Segments: Segment your audience based on various criteria such as donation history, activity level, and engagement to deliver more personalized and relevant messages.
   • Full List
   • Include All-Time Donors
   • Include All-Time Clickers
   • Exclude Recent Donors (who donated in the last 3 days)

Exclude recent donors from your audience when soliciting donations. This approach aligns with the behavior observed among donors, as most individuals do not typically donate within such a short timeframe. By targeting a more receptive audience, you can optimize engagement and enhance the effectiveness of your donation campaigns.

6. Mention shortcode in Social Advertising:

7. Track Performance: Analyze the performance of your broadcasts using the metrics offered on our platform to refine strategies based on actual fundraising outcomes, enabling data-driven decision-making.

In order to use this feature effectively, you will need to utilize unique refcodes and enable click tracking 

8. Include vCard: Enhance the onboarding experience by including a vCard with relevant contact information and links to help with sender identification and drive higher retention. 
   
   
9. Clear Calls to Action (CTAs): Ensure CTAs are prominent, easy to understand, and relevant to the message content to encourage action from recipients.
   
   
10. Incorporate Images for Long Messages: For longer messages spanning more than three segments, it doesn’t hurt to include thought-provoking images to enhance engagement.
    
    
11. Recurring Donations: Encourage recurring donations by configuring your platform to support automated recurring contributions, which have a higher lifetime value.
    
    
12. Occasional Messaging to Donors whose recurring donations have expired: Implement targeted campaigns to donors whose recurring donations have expired. Encourage them to set up recurring donations again. We have set up segments for you to easily identify and reach out to this group.
    
    
13. Grow your SMS list to reach new donors
    • Integrate with CRM (ActionKit, NGP)
    • QR Codes on print materials
    • Signup URLs in social headers
      • Occasional social posts with magic link
    • Build AI-driven chatbot (FB/IG/WhatsApp)
    • SMS sign up in email footers

14. Utilize Opt-Out Text Once a Month: Ensure compliance by sending opt-out reminders at least once a month.

15. Tie Opt-in to an Upcoming Hook : If there's a July 4 message, SCOTUS decision, or campaign announcement coming, leverage that as a trigger for opt-in.