With the newlywed Duke and Duchess of Sussex asking for charitable donations as their wedding gifts, charity has been on the forefront of our minds recently.
With time as a precious commodity for both charity workers and their supporters, could the convenience of SMS boost efficiency and donations?
Time is Money
With many charities depending on the support of both paid employees and volunteers, time is incredibly precious to the charitable sector. With more always to be done, opting to use SMS to encourage donations allows workers to focus on the abundance of other tasks at hand. Rather than call 50 supporters individually, one click of a button could send out 50 text messages.
Convenience is King
Using business SMS as a means of contacting your charity’s supporters also has the benefit of added customer convenience. Phone calls can be incredibly disruptive for many people – from the inability to take phone calls at work, to simply being busy at that precise moment in time. Using SMS means that users can receive and digest the information sent and quickly and easily action immediately without it taking an impact on their daily activates. There have been studies to prove this: the Humane Society found that charity donors who received SMS, as well as emails, were 77% more likely to donate than those who had only received an email.
The Mobile Society
Based on research from our white paper, it’s not uncommon for the majority of people to keep their smartphones by their side for more than 16 hours. It’s also been found that mobiles are often the first and last thing people engage with at the start and end of every day. With this information in mind, for a new or one-off donor, it’s much quicker and easier to send a Keyword to a Short Number and donate than dial and call. For example, with a TV charity appeal advert, one may have missed the long number to dial by the end of the ad – leaving SMS Short Numbers and Keywords as the go-to option for making charitable donations.
Personalising the SMS experience
SMS also allows charities to send appreciation to their donors, which is far more personal than writing a general statement on a social media platform. For charities that involve adopting animals for example, SMS creates the perfect opportunity for giving progress updates. In an article from Marketing Tech, it’s reported that 80% of consumers are more likely to comply with businesses if they’re offered personalised experiences. This statistic provides insight into how the public wish to be communicated with when it comes to businesses. A first-time donor may be more inclined to donate to charities that provide a personalised touch as opposed to a generic appeal for a donation.
Standing Out with SMS
When it comes to sending communications via email and post, there are a wealth of obstacles to be faced in terms of messages being received by the end user. For example, an email inbox is likely to overflow with communications from businesses with the potential for important emails to land in the ‘junk’ folder. Letters can be problematic without any secure knowledge of whether they’ll be opened or put straight into the recycling. In contrast, an SMS inbox is less infiltrated, leaving any incoming SMS to stand out. Notifications for text messages won’t disappear until they’re opened, leaving a strong guarantee for a message to be received – our research also tells us that 98% will most likely be read by the end of the day.
Using SMS as a channel to deliver communications has the potential to save your organisation time, be more convenient for potential donors and help your charity to stand out. If you’d like to find out more about what our services have to offer, please do get in touch! Or, view our SMS for public sector business or SMS for community groups pages.
