As more and more people leave behind traditional advertising channels every year—such as broadcast television or traditional radio—brands and marketers must find modern solutions to stay in touch with customers. For many of us, SMS messaging is the quickest and most reliable method of communication. In fact, 97% of Americans use a texting app daily. Because brands and political strategists lean so much on SMS messages in their marketing strategies, they must understand how text message marketing works and the difference between SMS platforms built for enterprise companies versus those built for political campaigns. Keep scrolling for a guide to both.
What Is Text Message Marketing?
Text message marketing is a way for companies, non-profits, and political organizations to connect directly with subscribers. Using either SMS (Short Messaging Service) or MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) messages, this powerful marketing and communication tool has revolutionized how supporters and customers stay connected to their favorite brands, candidates, and causes.
For companies, these messages offer a direct communication line for sending coupons and deals to customers. When it comes to non-profit groups or political campaigns, mass text messages work perfectly for raising money and support, sending out reminders and updates for upcoming events and deadlines.
The world of SMS marketing is not one-size-fits-all, however. If you are looking to start a texting campaign and find ways to make your marketing budget go further, you have to be using the best tools for the job. The best system for enterprise-level brands is not optimized for political candidates—and vice versa. By understanding and utilizing the best systems for each texting application, you can get the best possible return on your investment.
What Is an Enterprise SMS Platform?
When we use the term “enterprise” here, we’re referring to companies with hundreds or thousands of employees. These corporations usually work with much larger budgets than small or medium-sized brands. Enterprise-level companies, especially when marketing to customers, need powerful tools designed for mass communication and reach. Text message marketing is a powerful tool for brands to use, helping them connect with customers and promote products and sales directly. SMS messages have a 99% open rate, making them a highly effective way to keep customers engaged and updated on your brand.
When your company is working with a large customer base, sending individual or manual text messages is not an option. Enterprise SMS platforms are ideal at this level. With automated systems in place, your company can send out mass messages to subscribers. For example, platforms like Salesforce sync customer data and consent from online forms and websites. Once opted-in customers are in the system, brands can send them alerts, sale reminders, and coupons.
For large businesses, dedicated SMS software like this is vital. An enterprise SMS platform may also be a good option if you’re building a text message marketing strategy for a political campaign. However, there are systems built specifically for political organizations. These political SMS platforms offer additional features and functionality for campaigns, ensuring better results than a general mass texting platform. Choosing the right platform is a crucial first step for any group or individual.
Let’s take a look at the benefits of using a dedicated political messaging system.
What Is a Political SMS Platform?
In recent years, SMS messaging has become a core component of good political strategy. With direct texting, campaigns can maintain closer contact with voters than ever before, especially compared to emails that get lost in inboxes or TV ads for a broad audience. Text messaging allows political campaigns to send policy updates, voting reminders, fundraising links, and other valuable information. We’ve seen political texting’s popularity increase massively over the last few election cycles. In fact, almost 2 billion election-related texts went out in November 2020 alone.
As technology and software progress, it’s important for candidates to work with the best SMS platforms to optimize their use of time and resources. There are some critical priorities for campaigns working with SMS marketing companies. The system must be able to handle a huge amount of subscribers and send out millions of texts at once. A blanket SMS system without actionable metrics or customization would also come up woefully short, particularly in a drawn-out race. An industry-leading SMS platform like Tatango can help here.
Tatango’s Political SMS Platform
Tatango’s texting platform stands up well to the needs of a political campaign. Candidates need to trust that messages will go out quickly and securely. If a voting reminder or event update arrives late, that message is irrelevant, and the time and resources invested in creating the message are wasted. With Tatango’s software, campaigns can send the most text messages of any other SMS provider—over 6 million texts every hour. They can also schedule the delivery of SMS messages ahead of time and segment voters into groups by location, affiliation, time zone. This customization and scaling possible with Tatango’s software allow campaigns to fine-tune strategies for different regions to address local ordinances and organize meetups.
Tatango’s political SMS platform features multiple layers of security to protect subscribers’ data and personal information. Security measures such as two-factor authentication, password-protected secure sending, and automated logouts help ensure your SMS messaging campaign stays safe and protected.
Political Fundraising and Donations
Raising support and funds is key to every political campaign. A candidate can build sustainable grassroots support and funding through SMS message marketing. Tatango has smooth integrations with all major political fundraising tools, making it possible to add one-click donation links in text messages, removing common barriers and complications for supporters who want to donate money. Campaigns want to make fundraising as easy as possible for subscribers, and Tatango has prioritized this need.
Selecting an SMS Platform
Taking this first step toward creating an SMS messaging campaign can feel overwhelming. But Tatango can help set you up for success by walking you through the strengths and weaknesses of different texting platforms and strategies so you can make an informed decision. Contact our team of experts to find out more and get started.
