How the NEA keeps members engaged with varied content
The five SMS principles the NEA applies to increase the lifetime value of their members.
3 min read | Illustration by Sidnei Silva
SMS leads such amazing results that organizations will often get caught up wanting to repeat a winning formula as often as possible. This tends to backfire by causing a mass exodus of annoyed subscribers. As a mature and wide-reaching organization, the team at the NEA was proactive in addressing this challenge early-on by adopting a strategy that would keep their audience and SMS subscribers engaged, and receptive to future communications.
The National Education Association had seen early success in establishing an engaged SMS subscriber list. The challenge was to keep growing this list while keeping existing subscribers receptive to the NEA’s priorities and initatives.
The positive feedback we receive from our community, the thanks we get for the work we do for them, the validation that we help them feel connected to our organization all really helps to keep the team motivated to try new engagement tactics and to continue learning new ways to utilise the platform from Banter.”
— Amy Jordan, Manager of Digital Operations
As an organization that has existed since 1857, the NEA understands that increasing the lifetime value of a donor or community member is far more important than maximizing the one-time revenue capability of any given channel. They did not want to burnout their SMS subscriber list by focusing on text message ROI. Instead, wanted to take a long-term and holistic approach to maximizing the lifetime value of their subscribers.
Five SMS principles straight from the National Education Association’s engagement playbook
01 Generosity
When the government started rolling out student debt relief programs, the NEA quickly developed resources that would support educators in accessing life-changing debt forgiveness through the PSLF (Public Service Loan Forgiveness). SMS became a highly effective channel for connecting subscribers to these resources.
02 Variety
SMS might be your most powerful fundraising tool, but you should definitely use it to share useful information that your subscribers might benefit from and feel excited to share with their community.
A winning SMS strategy includes conversational prompts, questions, announcements and even recommendations on what book to read next.
Hey, it’s Amy! In honor of Banned Books Week, I made a list of banned & challenged books to check out — many from Read Across America! Reply NEXT for a rec.
Next
Check out My Princess Boy by Cheryl Kilodavis.
Reply NEXT for another rec, or tell your friends to text Banned to 48744
03 Holisticness
Meeting people where they are at is essential to connecting with them. Some people might be more active on Facebook and enjoy participating in forums, while others might prefer a more passive way of connecting, such as scrolling through TikTok or listening to podcasts.
Creating a healthy content ecosystem is an important way to demonstrate that your organization is vibrant and that your initiatives are impactful. Of course you don’t need to be present on every platform, just on those that are most important to your audience.
The content you develop for those platforms can become powerful ways to inject variety into your SMS and further immerse your audience in your community.
04 Exclusivity
Atomizing and repurposing content is a super effective way to maximize ROI on your content marketing effort. However, this can disincentivize subscriptions to your most effective channels.
Because SMS is a highly effective way to incite action in your audience, we recommend developing exclusive content and experiences for these subscribers. Digital natives are aware that their attention is valuable, and want to feel like they are getting something in exchange for giving you access to their SMS inbox.
05 Personalization
The more territory your organization covers, the more varied your subscriber base will be. For the NEA, we’re talking about an audience that includes parents, teachers, students and supporters, all of whom have different needs.
Properly segmenting their subscriber base is foundational work for personalizing their messages and creating big engagement moments that bring their community together.
By applying these five SMS principles, the NEA is continuously improving their SMS strategy and incrementally reaching their KPIs by increasing the lifetime value of each subscriber in a healthy and sustainable way.
We’re pleased to see engagement rates at 10%, a low opt-out rate at 0.3%, and continued list growth. The responses we get are generally positive and indicate our community has connected with Amy from the NEA and feels comfortable sharing personal stories, along with taking action when needed.”
— Amy Jordan, Manager of Digital Operations