Do you want to increase how many people you can reach? Of course you do! SMS texting is a great way to do it because it’s the most popular form of communication, and the one most likely to be viewed by recipients.

Did you know that the average American sends about 41.5 text messages a day and that SMS campaigns have a 99% clickthrough rate? That is 7x’s that of the average nonprofit email. An SMS campaign may also be best for international campaigns to reach people with limited Internet bandwidth.

Over the past year, we’ve been working with the Global Teacher Prize, known as the “Nobel Prize of teaching,” to build their online infrastructure and reach out to teachers and communities around the world. The prize invites them to nominate or apply for the $1 million award. During the first year’s search for a teacher worthy of such an award, Fission Strategy provided campaign support, website and social content design, and outreach strategy and implementation. To convert nominees to applicants, one central component of this strategy was our mobile texting campaign.

SMS IS THE WAY TO GO!

Why was this an important part of our strategy? Oftentimes SMS is the quickest way to connect with your audience, even more direct than social media. According to Mobile Commons, texts are also most likely to gain an immediate response when compared to other apps, emails, and voicemail. When looking at international performance, mobile is growing in its use for content sharing at faster rates than social media platforms such as Twitter. In fact, across many different countries, views of Twitter timelines declined while, as Forbes points out, “usage of mobile messaging apps exploded between the end of 2012 and the end of 2013.”

As teacher nominations came in from all over the world and in several different languages, we knew that in order to reach all teachers in all regions, we would need to employ a robust mobile component to our outreach strategy. Texting in batches by region of the world allowed us to connect with nominees at the right time of day and reach those with varying levels of Internet access and social media use. We texted nominees for the prize to keep them up to date on application deadlines and answered their questions so that regardless of their online connectivity status, any teacher would have an opportunity to apply for this prize.

SET UP THE DATA FOR SUCCESS

It is important to be sure that your campaign’s mobile phone field in a web form is clear and easily guides people to enter their information correctly (with dashes, spaces, and the number of numbers), especially when you are texting people from different regions of the country or world. Users may enter mobile phone information inconsistently (including misplaced or missing country codes, for example). Our primary method for getting these numbers was through online sign-ups, but getting numbers from in-person events is also effective (in which case you should still specify if you need a country code).

It is also helpful to segment your audience lists based on language and time zone, ensuring that they receive their texts during the day and with a 160 character message that is easily understood, with a clear call to action. We wrote more about “balancing the right messaging” in our article published in NTEN’s September 2014 issue about Online Messaging Across Geographies.

THE RESULT?

What was the result? Through the campaign, the Global Teacher Prize received thousands of nominations and applications — 30% over the original goal and from more than 120 countries — in part because of the success of SMS outreach. In fact, in 2008, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon launched an SMS campaign in order to mobilize the world for world peace. Text messages get opened. Emails often don’t.

Last Year’s Top 10 Finalists Represented 8 Different Countries!

SMS is a great way to include your campaign message into a channel that can reach a wider international audience, but it needs attention to detail! If you have questions, or are interested in taking your campaign to the next level with SMS, or even a new digital strategy, Facebook app, new graphics or a website revamp, we’d be more than happy to help. Just fill out the form below.

Nominations and applications for the 2016 Global Teacher Prize open TODAY. Nominate a teacher that changed your life here: http://globalteacherprize.com.