What Political Candidates Can Learn from Bulk SMS Marketing

A few years back, one could tell that it was a political season through the ads on TV and massive billboards along the highway. Today, the same is announced with the hopeful ding of a text message.

Political candidates have adopted this mass messaging as a tool for fundraising, connecting with the voters, and making appointments for grassroots engagements.

Evidently, text messaging has become a crucial platform for different types of campaigns. But while it has received an increased use, there is a lot that political candidates can learn from the way businesses utilize SMS marketing to reach out to the customer.

Here are five lessons they can steal for success:

1. Personalization is King

Addressing voters simply by their names isn’t enough in today’s sophisticated world. Audience segmentation and targeted messaging also matter a lot.

Through segmentation, your campaign won’t bother, say, a fundraiser with a similar message they received shortly before they contributed. It allows political candidates to vary messaging across the different segments or audience lists.

2. Volunteers come to You If You speak to them Directly

One-on-one chats in a political campaign are equivalent to medieval door knocking. It fosters an interactive session with voters where you, as a candidate, can answer questions, share their excitement, and relay firsthand concerns.

Your first text, therefore, should be more about announcing yourself. The following text should be a one-on-one chat, letting the voters reach your campaign office directly, allowing you to share more information, recruit volunteers, and connect with the right voters.

3. SMS Texts Encourage Engagement

The easiest way to appeal to your voters is by addressing their needs. If you open your messaging lines to your voters using a text-to-vote strategy, you can engage with your customers by listening to all their woes.

This way, you can learn more about the issues voters care about, their expectations, and how they want to interact with you in the future. You can even use bulk SMS for lighthearted engagement with your voters!

4. Brands Know What Their Audiences Want

A business will typically use bulk SMS to announce promos and offers, give product updates, and inform customers of any changes, to name a few. They do this to keep their clients engaged throughout the campaign and on multiple levels.

Politicians can draw from this example and convey meaningful and relevant messages to their voters. Businesses use this strategy to learn whether customers are seeking validation or exclusive offers and whether they are optimistic or pessimistic, among other things.

By identifying such psychological aspects of voters, you can use such learnings to develop a campaign strategy that genuinely connects with them.

5. Text Marketing Provides a Clear CTA

Emails for political campaigns simply won’t work – businesses know that some emails can easily get spammed or ignored. To enhance engagement and effectiveness is through bulk SMS.

And with this communication channel, you can seamlessly add a call to action (CTA) to entice voters to take the next steps – whether it is to read your campaign manifesto, donate, volunteer, watch a campaign video, or more.

But remember to keep it short and straight to the point, as readers will quickly lose attention and discard your text message.

Whether for national or local politics, political campaigns can sit back, relax, and learn from a business that has perfected the art of SMS marketing – and Celcom Africa is ready to walk the journey with you.

Celcom Africa offers a free demo so you can test the waters and send out a few texts risk-free. Join thousands of businesses and politicians using this text messaging service for a successful political campaign.