Peer-to-peer texting (P2P texting), also known as textbanking, has emerged as a powerful communication tool for organizations seeking to engage their audience effectively. Unlike traditional text blasts or mass messaging, peer-to-peer texting fosters personalized, two-way conversations through direct text exchanges between the organization's representatives and individual recipients.
This approach stands in stark contrast to text blast campaigns, where the same generic message gets broadcasted to a large list of recipients with no opportunity for interaction. Peer-to-peer texting platforms facilitate tailored messaging and real-time dialogue, enabling volunteers or staff to have contextual conversations aligned with each person's interests and concerns. The "peer-to-peer" nature makes the communication feel more authentic and engaging.
Organizations leverage peer-to-peer texting to cut through digital noise and connect with their audiences on a more intimate, immediate channel. With SMS open rates exceeding 90%, a P2P SMS campaign has a far higher likelihood of being seen compared to other outreach methods. The conversational style creates a feedback loop, allowing organizations to gather data-driven insights and refine strategies accordingly.
Peer-to-peer texting facilitates authentic conversations by having real individuals craft and send messages, providing a sense of genuine interaction that helps build trust. The human element nurtures meaningful dialogue, resulting in higher open rates as recipients are inclined to read personal, sincere messages.
Moreover, the interactive, two-way nature fosters engagement through back-and-forth discussions, clarifications, and personalized assistance - making recipients more likely to continue the dialogue.
Compliance is crucial for any text messaging endeavor in the United States. Peer-to-peer texting platforms like Solidarity Tech employ 10DLC (10-digit long code) numbering to improve deliverability and align with carrier policies. The 10DLC regulation system, adopted by major U.S. carriers, governs the use of 10-digit phone numbers for application-to-person messaging to reduce spam and ensure proper consent.
Solidarity Tech seamlessly handles 10DLC registration during signup, ensuring strict adherence to guidelines like prior consent, easy opt-out methods, and no inappropriate content - protecting both the organization and recipients.
This comprehensive guide covers the full process for executing an effective peer-to-peer (P2P) texting campaign using Solidarity Tech's robust texting capabilities.
The first step is clearly defining the goals and objectives for your text outreach campaign. Common uses include:
In addition to being used on organizing and political campaigns, peer-to-peer texting is commonly used for a variety of tasks, like alumni engagement and fundraising for universities and alumni associations. The personal, text-based communication aligns with alumni association best practices by facilitating direct outreach, event promotion, surveying, and donation solicitation
When drafting the initial text message that will go out to your targeted supporters, keep these best practices in mind:
Solidarity Tech provides helpful message "hints" with proven tips on crafting high open rate texts as you draft the initial message.The phone number the initial text comes from will be automatically associated with the user's local chapter, ensuring it's a recognizable local number for supporters.
For multi-lingual outreach, you can draft versions of the initial text message in all languages you need to target. Solidarity Tech will ensure volunteers only text supporters in their preferred language.
If your textbanking campaign involves promoting an event, you'll want to create tailored follow-up template responses based on if supporters RSVP "Yes", "No", or "Maybe" to the initial text.
In addition to RSVP-specific templates, you can create general approved text templates for volunteers to use when continuing conversations, providing information, answering questions, and more.Solidarity Tech's text template interface allows you to draft and save templates for any scenario, ensuring your team stays on-brand and provides consistent messaging.
One of the keys to an effective peer to peer texting campaign is ensuring your messages reach the right supporters at the right time. With Solidarity Tech's powerful filtering tools, you can precisely target specific segments of your contact database.
Define your target audience using any combination of filters like:
Go beyond basic filters by building dynamic rules to define precise audience segments, such as:
Organizers must clearly explain the goals and importance of the P2P text messaging campaigns to effectively recruit volunteers. Emphasize how their personal outreach will drive meaningful action.
Outline the specific policies, time commitments, and responsibilities that volunteers must follow when textbanking, such as:
Train volunteers on the end-to-end process of P2P texting using Solidarity Tech:
When gathering RSVPs through textbanking, it's crucial to be clear about what constitutes a "Yes." Some responses might seem positive but don't necessarily indicate commitment. Here are key points to stress when training volunteers on textbanking RSVPs:
Emojis and Imprecise Responses: A thumbs-up emoji (👍) or a question like "What time is the event?" should not be taken as a "Yes." These responses are not confirmation and should not be marked as such.
Seeking a Firm Commitment: To ensure a clear "Yes," ask for a confident response. A question like, "Can we count on you being there in person?" often helps distinguish between a genuine "Yes" and a "Maybe." Only mark a contact as "Yes" when they clearly confirm attendance.
Identifying Doubtful Responses: If there's any uncertainty or hesitation, treat it as a "Maybe." This conservative approach avoids overestimating attendance and ensures your data reflects true commitment.
By training volunteers to recognize and handle these distinctions, your textbanking campaigns will be more effective in gathering accurate RSVPs and improving event turnout.
It's important to note that once a volunteer opens/reads an incoming text message, it will automatically be marked as "read." If they cannot immediately respond:
This ensures the conversation remains accessible in their "Workflows" tab to respond to later.
Make it clear that sending the initial text is just the beginning. The real work is quickly responding to supporter replies as they come in, potentially over 24-48 hours.Advise volunteers to:
Once you have your volunteers comitted to textbanking, add them to the team of your Solidarity Tech textbank and they'll see the assignment in their Workflows tab in the mobile app.
Volunteers will kick off the live peer to peer texting by sending the initial text message in batches of their choosing from the mobile app:
The more text batches a volunteer sends, the greater their future time commitment will be to manage the response conversations.
As an organizer, you can monitor your team's overall textbanking activity through the dashboard:
If volunteers have an excessive number of unanswered texts, reach out to see if they need support fielding the high reply volume or reassign conversations as needed.
The key to effective peer-to-peer texting is quickly responding to all incoming messages from supporters. Volunteers should:
Set allowable texting hours and windows to ensure your nonprofit text messaging campaign remains compliant with regulations like TCPA.
By executing your textbank with focused effort, consistent monitoring, and automated workflows, you'll maximize two-way engagement while operating efficiently.
After the team members start receiving replies to their textbank messages, it's crucial to analyze the performance data and results to identify areas for improvement on your next campaign.
Check the overall response rate to your initial text message blast. Around 10% is considered a decent response rate.If your rate was lower, you may need to optimize the content, send time, or other variables of that initial message by leveraging Solidarity Tech's "message hints."
Review which volunteers were most reliable and effective at fielding incoming reply messages without leaving excessive texts unread.Provide positive reinforcement to those top performers and have them lead training sessions to share best practices.
If your P2P text campaign involved event promotion, check the RSVP and attendance numbers directly in the dashboard. For advocacy campaigns, analyze metrics like:
Number of petition signatures received
Clicks on call-to-action links
Noted supporter interests and comments
Determine if you achieved your outreach goals based on those metrics.
Send a survey to all P2P texting volunteers to gather their feedback on the process, tools, and areas for improvement.Their firsthand experiences are invaluable for optimizing training, messaging, and overall execution.
Take all the data, feedback, and lessons learned from this campaign and apply them when planning your next textbanking initiative. Consistent optimization is key.
