Outbound Messaging
- Introduction
- What Types of Messages Are Organizations Sending?
- Fundraising Messaging
- Advocacy Messaging
- Unsubscribe Rates
Among the organizations we studied, the benchmark messaging volume was 1.6 messages per month.
As with email messaging and other mediums used to communicate with constituents, the pace at which a given organization should message its list depends on its relationship with subscribers. It is also a commonly held belief that a subscriber’s volume tolerance is lower in text messaging than in email messaging – a belief that seems to be supported by the higher unsubscribe rates in text programs as compared with email. It is worth noting that, unlike email, there are financial implications for the end user for heavy text messaging volume. This is because many subscribers have to pay to receive text messages, and because many platforms charge clients by messaging volume.
What Types of Messages Are Organizations Sending?
Organizations can use text messaging for a wide variety of purposes in addition to advocacy and fundraising. These other types of messaging may be purely informational, direct supporters to the website, or prompt text responses from subscribers about issues not directly related to advocacy. We classified each of the text messages sent by our partner organizations as one of the following five types:
- Fundraising messages usually solicit donations by asking subscribers to respond to a text with a special donation keyword (such as "PLEDGE" or "GIVE"). However, some fundraising messages ask people to give via phone by calling a special number that can be tracked by the organization. Note that fundraising solicitations can only be sent to subscribers who have knowingly opted in to receive fundraising communications (see more under "Fundraising Messaging").
- Advocacy messages ask subscribers to sign a petition or call a given decision-maker/advocacy target by either replying to the message with the text "CALL" or calling a special phone number that tracks all calls. Advocacy response rates are measurable.
- Informational messages let subscribers know about an issue, event or other breaking news relevant to an organization, but do not require subscribers to reply to the message. Among our study sample, these messages were broad and often gave legislative updates, encouraged subscribers to vote, asked subscribers to tune into radio or television programs, or notified subscribers of organizational events.
- Go-to-Web messages ask subscribers to visit a given web page. This category includes everything from messages inviting subscribers to check out a new homepage or microsite, to take an advocacy action, or participate in a web survey. Website visits are generally not trackable unless the URL is only used for a particular text promotion.
- Text Reply messages ask subscribers to respond to a text message, but are not fundraising or advocacy appeals. Some texts asked subscribers to text in slogan ideas or thoughts about political debates. Others asked subscribers to text to request information about a topic. For example, in October 2008, NARAL asked subscribers to text "ISSUE Palin" to get information about Sarah Palin's anti-choice decisions, and in December 2009, HRC asked subscribers to text in "SHOP" with a store name to find out whether that company supports the LGBT community. Given our criteria (see "Methodology"), we did not have enough data to calculate a response rate for text reply messages.
Fundraising Messaging
The massive volume of text donations that flowed to relief organizations in the wake of the Haiti earthquake demonstrated what makes mobile fundraising so powerful: it allows people to give quickly and easily from almost any location. In the case of the crisis in Haiti, this meant that charitable giving could extend to a younger demographic already acclimated to making small purchases via their mobile phones.
Despite the great success of mobile fundraising during the Haiti relief efforts, fundraising via text messaging is still something of a work in progress. As the technology currently exists, anyone can make a gift of either $5 or $10 to an organization by texting a keyword to a donation short code maintained through several umbrella organizations (such as the Mobile Giving Foundation and mGive Foundation). These umbrellas vet participating nonprofits and provide, for a fee, the use of their donation short code (which was generously waived for Haiti relief efforts). The donation amount is then added to the supporter's telephone bill, and the donation amount passed on to the nonprofit after the subscriber pays his or her mobile bill.1 Pay-as-you-go users who do not receive a monthly bill typically cannot donate via text.
Organizations are allowed to send direct, "reply-style" solicitations only to those subscribers who have already given via mobile phone or have otherwise intentionally signed up to receive messages from a designated solicitation shortcode. For instance, a message of this type may read, "DEFENDERS UPDATE: Safari Club Intl, a rich trophy hunting group, is fighting us in court so they can hunt Yellowstone Area wolves. Reply WOLF to give $5 to help". To donate, subscribers send a reply with the message "WOLF." They are then sent another text message asking them to confirm their gift by replying "YES."
We did not have sufficient data or means to calculate a benchmark text-to-give fundraising response rate. Because mobile giving platforms do not track donations to specific text messages, donations given passively or in response to non-text calls to donate (such as via web, email, or advertising) can confound response rate calculations. That said, based on data furnished by mGive, conversion rates for the two-step donation process, defined as the number of subscribers who confirmed their donation after replying to the initial message, ranged from 52 to 79 percent.2
It is worth noting that carriers permit organizations to send one "ask message" per month, which only requires that supporters respond with "YES" to make a gift; no separate donation confirmation is necessary.
In order to accept text donations, organizations must use a dedicated shortcode to be used for fundraising purposes only. This shortcode is approved by the mobile carriers and cannot be used to send non-fundraising communications. This regulation can prove cumbersome for organizations with established mobile advocacy programs, as they cannot solicit donations from existing subscribers by asking them to reply to give through the same shortcode that they use for advocacy. Rather, a supporter has to give to the new shortcode. For example, a solicitation can come from (non-fundraising) shortcode 10111 that says "Text GIVE to 10222 to give $5," but cannot say "Reply GIVE to give $5."
In addition to the complicated rules for soliciting funds via text messaging, the $10 donation limit is a far cry from the $71 average donation seen across the nonprofit sector in response to email solicitations.3 This means it would be a potentially risky venture to solicit gifts via text message from active donors who give much more when they donate through other channels.
A potentially viable alternative to the complications of text-to-give solicitation is the text-to-call fundraising solicitation. A text of this type asks subscribers to call an 800 number or reply "CALL" to be connected to a call center that can then take donations of any amount.
In addition to serving as a fundraising medium in itself, text messaging may boost the overall response of existing online constituents. For instance, in December 2008, the Humane Society of the United States texted subscribers using the text-to-call method described above. While this effort did not raise much money directly, a study by Watershed Company showed that subscribers who received messages from both the organization's email and text programs were more likely to make a donation via email. Some other participants in our study have since run similar tests with mixed results. While using text messaging as part of a multi-channel fundraising strategy to boost online response seems to be generally effective, the best strategies to maximize its impact to increase donations – for instance, the optimal timing sequence for sending the text message and email message – are yet to be determined.
Advocacy Messaging
Advocacy text messages are generally of two types: text petition and text-to-call. With text petitions, subscribers are asked to support an organization by responding with a given keyword (e.g. "PLEDGE"). With text-to-call messages, subscribers are asked to call a target by either dialing a specific number or responding to the message with the word "Call." Text-to-call messages are usually fully tracked, since respondents are usually routed through a special VOIP number.
Because it is impossible to track responses to a given message with perfect precision on most platforms, M+R calculated response rate by dividing the total number of responses within 48 hours of a text message's launch by the total number of text messages sent.
Though the petition response rate of 14.6 percent was much higher than the text-to-call response rate, a single call to an advocacy target is much more powerful than a petition signature. Additionally, the text-to-call response rate of 4.7 percent indicates the potential for text messaging in generating calls. The 2009 benchmark call response rate for emails was only 0.82 percent.4
Unsubscribe Rates
Unsubscribe rates were calculated by dividing the total number of opt-outs within 48 hours of text message launch by the total number of text messages sent.5
Unsurprisingly, fundraising messages generated the highest unsubscribe rate, coming in at 0.92 percent. Advocacy and go-to-web messaging had fairly low unsubscribe rates (0.45 and 0.41 percent, respectively), and the aggregate unsubscribe rate for informational messaging was slightly higher, coming in at 0.54 percent.
The benchmark unsubscribe rate for all organizations across messaging types was 0.69 percent.
- During the Haiti earthquake relief efforts, American mobile carriers forwarded donation income immediately.
- Conversion rate statistics furnished by mGive.
- eNonprofit Benchmarks Study, M+R Strategic Services and Nonprofit Technology Network, 2009.
- This metric measured the total number of subscribers who reported back to an organization that they had made a call, since for the most part phone calls are generally not trackable.
- Unlike in the case of email messaging, people's decision to unsubscribe from a text message list cannot be tracked directly to a particular message. However, rates tended to spike after each text message was launched. This considered, the numbers above should be taken as relative values that indicate trends.