Adding Text Messaging to Your Marketing Strategy

Stacey Sottung OnCampusText

Let’s talk specifically about adults ages 18 – 24. People in this age range look at their phone nearly 200x per day, which is approximately every 7 minutes, and send and receive nearly 4,000 texts per month. Ten years ago, that number was 2,500 per month. If you are trying to market a student event, the fastest and most efficient way to communicate with your student body is to text them. There are times when people take a break from social media, but it is very rare that someone takes a break from looking at their texts. Texting is the primary way that students communicate with each other, so why would you use a different method to communicate with them? Data also suggests that a 15 year old girl is currently sending and receiving 5,800 texts per month, so communicating in this manner is not going away. It’s increasing rapidly.

What are a few ways you could incorporate text messages into your strategy?

First, create a text list. Available software programs make this as easy as writing an email. Your students text a keyword (for example, CAB, HAWKS, APB) to a short code and they are automatically opted in to your list. When starting out, use your other marketing channels to spend some time driving your student body to “Text EAGLES to 71444” for example. You will include this info on your flyers, as text in your IG stories, on the bottom of campuswide emails, etc. You can also run fun contests to encourage students to opt-in, and we touch more on that later.

Once you have students on your list and you are ready to start texting, there are a few rules of thumb you should follow. First, make sure what you are sending is timely and relevant. An hour before your campus event, send out a reminder text. If you are bringing an entertainer to campus, include the link to their YouTube channel in the text for extra engagement. A great idea with sending texts is to be consistent. If you are sending a “What’s up this weekend” text every Wednesday at 8pm, your students will begin to expect it and even look forward to it. When you see attendance for those events increase, you know that you can attribute that to your text list. I encourage you to have fun with these texts. Add in a GIF occasionally. It not only adds a visual element but gives you the opportunity to be personal and establish a voice. A tiny bit of sass goes a long way and will build a relationship with those on your list. When they know, like, and trust you they will pay more attention to what you have to say.

How many times in a programming board meeting have you talked about what the student body wants to see on campus? Wouldn’t it be magical if you could send out a poll and it would show up in their texts? It can! The technology exists that you could send out a question to your list and give them multiple choice answers and they would reply via text. You get almost instantaneous feedback on whatever you are asking, whether it is asking what movie to bring to campus next month or the genre of your next major concert. When a student who voted in a poll sees that they had a say in what comes to campus, that continues to build their trust.

There is nothing like a contest with a shiny prize to get people excited about something. Some of the ways our school partners use mobile technology to run contests are:

Talent Meet & Greets – Run a contest giving away the chance to meet an artist coming to campus. The only way your student body has a chance to be picked is by being on your text list.

Free Stuff – We know that everyone likes free stuff, whether it be a campus hoodie, a gift card, or a parking permit. Choose what makes your campus excited, and raffle one away. The only way they can win is by being on your text list. Another way to do this is sending a text that advertises an event and says “show this text for a free t-shirt”. Your students get free stuff, and your text list grows.

When is the best time to get students opted-in to a text list? Without a doubt, the answer here is at Orientation. It is very likely that almost every student will have the same phone number at Orientation that they do at Graduation. Partnering with Orientation Leaders to encourage their first-year students to opt-in to your list is key. It’s also a great time to run a contest like I talked about above. Once you have them on your list, you can keep them informed for 4 years! That’s a dream!

By including text messaging into your marketing strategy, you establish a direct line with your student body. Stop fighting barriers like social media algorithms or the white noise of cluttered campus bulletin boards. Get your message on the most intimate screen your student has --- their cell phone.

Are you in a leadership position? Do you have a message? Is it very important? Of course it is, but when no one is listening the value of the message is lost. Effective Communication needed. Sure, we’ve heard it all before. It’s a commonly used phrase. Check out many of the job descriptions. That’s right you’ve read it, “good communication skills” needed. You probably even have it listed on your resume, “excellent communication skills”. What do we even suggest by that? That we speak well or are a good presenter? While that is awesome, let’s delve even further into what effective communication really means. Effective is being successful in what you’re trying to accomplish, and communication is simply sharing information. Easy. We’re successful in sharing information. Then why is it so hard to be understood and make it meaningful? Being that’s the tricky part, let’s see if we can break it down even further and get the communication process flowing.

The initial part of the problem would be the words. Less than 10% of what you say is part of the listening process. While we’re saying the words, people are looking more at our expressions and body language, which means what we’re expressing has to show in how we’re expressing it. The other part is overload. Most people are communicating with others throughout the day but only approximately 50% are really listening. This could be due to feeling overwhelmed at times, especially relating to work situations, and that’s an uphill battle. So now what? What do you do to get your coworkers, students, staff or others to not only hear, but really listen to what we are trying to convey? I hear you! I get it! I acknowledge you! These are three ways to improve our communication skills.

I hear you! Many times in communicating with others, we are so busy waiting to respond that we miss the entire message. We hear something initially and are ready to share without focusing on the rest of what is being said.