SMS segmentation to create big moments
How the National Education Association leveraged texting for teacher appreciation week.
3 min read | Illustration by Elizabeth Builes
For Teacher Appreciation Week, the National Education Association wanted to make sure that educators around the country got the recognition they deserve.
The Challenge
After more than a year of remote learning due to COVID-19, educators were feeling disengaged.
The team decided to make SMS one of the pillars of their strategy because of the uniquely
personal nature of the medium. Educators had spent the last few months getting to know “Amy from NEA”, and centering SMS to Teacher Appreciation Week built on, and continued to build, the trust and affection subscribers had developed.
The Solution
Segmenting lists for more personalized content
We worked with NEA to segment their list into educators, parents, educators who were
parents, and more. This allowed us to send different messages to the different groups, gathering messages of thanks from parents and students, inviting educators to exclusive events, and tapping parents’ networks for even more appreciation.
As subscribers opted into the campaign, we asked them to self identify as educators or parents.
Segmentation meant we weren’t asking educators to do the work of appreciating themselves or other educators—they simply got to enjoy the week.
We also wanted to keep tactics and messages varied. This was a week-long campaign, with most subscribers getting about 4 messages, and we knew they couldn’t be the same thing each time or educators would get bored. So we developed a diverse set of tactics, taking advantage of the natural way people use their phones.
Each day was a totally different experience for educators, ranging from getting a phone call from NEA President Becky Pringle to getting endless messages of support and thanks gathered from real students and parents. Educators were able to send in pictures from their phones with ways they were being appreciated in their communities, or join a video call slash private dance party with DJ Spinderella.
And experiences were varied for non-educators too—different social media asks, tell-a-friend invitations, and more concrete ways to support teachers around the country.
The campaign also had to be interactive, leaning into the virtual personality subscribers were talking to. We wanted to make sure educators knew there were real people behind this, that their efforts really were appreciated.
A robotic program, without a real person behind it wouldn’t have been a credible messenger of recognition nor an effective evangelist for educators. All of this kept interest in messages high, avoided burnout, and built on the relationship with “Amy” that subscribers had developed.
The results
Educators were overwhelmed with messages of support and love
All of this made Teacher Appreciation Week a huge success for NEA and their SMS program. Nearly 40% of subscribers were brand new to their list, and about 85% of those were educators. NEA was also able to maintain a less than 1% opt out rate for the entire campaign, despite sending up to 5 messages in one week.
Individual tactics also proved wildly successful. Almost 20% of educators got a call from NEA President Becky Pringle, and 36% of non-educators clicked a link to join NEA’s community ally program in support of public schools. Thanks in part to this text, the community ally program grew by nearly 8%.
70% of non-educators provided messages of support, thanks and love to be sent to educators. We sent an average of 2.5 messages of thanks to each educator, with 30% of educators requesting 6 or more!
We had been searching for a way to create space for an authentic connection between educators and their supporters for Teacher Appreciation Week for years. Banter Messaging steppedin with creative ideas,technical support, and the strategic assistance we needed to create a truly special and effective program.”
— Annie Rosenthal, Senior Digital Strategist