CALLHUB GUIDES
Events Guide
Event management strategies and tips using peer to peer texting
EVENTS GUIDE
Introduction
Movements are built on numbers. The success of your rallies, marches, protests, and fundraisers rely on people arriving en masse to show their support. Getting people out their doors and to your events takes a lot more than a mass invite, it requires them to connect with your cause on a personal level. But nurturing personal connections with each individual becomes difficult when you have thousands of people on your contact list. All too often organizers resort to the quick fix of a template email or a broadcasted message to send out the invite. While many people do pay attention, you are missing out on a much bigger audience who have learned to ignore automated messages.
Peer to Peer Texting is built to enable personalized conversations at scale. Your campaign volunteers seamlessly manage thousands of individual conversations over peer-to-peer or p2p texts, getting people interested and collecting RSVPs for your event. Your event attendees now have a direct channel of communication with a campaign volunteer, who can be reached for any event updates, route instructions, or any other form of support.
With invites going out as a personal message from a volunteer, your contacts are more inclined to respond and engage in conversations.
Go through our Starter Kit to get a better idea of how Peer to Peer Texting facilitates personalized conversations at scale.
GOTV GUIDE
How it works
How event invitations work using Peer to Peer Texting
Step 1
Gather your troops
Using Peer to Peer Texting by CallHub for an event invite campaign is straightforward and simple. Sign up an admin account for p2p texting. Depending on the number of people you wish to text and invite for your rally, party, or fundraiser, recruit as many needed volunteers for your event RSVP campaign. The advantage with CallHub is that you can reuse existing phone banking volunteers for your peer to peer campaign.
Step 2
Effective 160 chars
These volunteers you’ve recruited are to engage in one-to-one text message conversations with the people assigned to them by CallHub. All they have to do is keep hitting ‘Send’ till all the initial texts are sent out. Once the texts are sent, the agents start conversations with the people who respond. The manager or the volunteers themselves can save frequently used replies for faster conversations. A Peer to peer texting campaign typically gets between 10 to 30% response rate depending on your audience and message.
Step 3
Tag, survey, and report
A campaign is not just about sending your messages but also about tracking and measuring for success. Import an event from your CRM and attach it as a survey to the campaign. Volunteers can RSVP a person to an event depending on their response. This RSVP syncs with your CRM, and you can follow up with them through an email. Assign a tag for all contacts assigned to the campaign. Tags syncs with your CRM too. On CallHub, you can export every conversation, track volunteer progress and reassign conversations that go cold on the volunteers end.
For a detailed guide on how these features work, go through our Starter Guide for Peer to Peer Texting.
GOTV GUIDE
Best Practices
Important points to keep in mind to help you make the most out of Peer to Peer Texting
Run a multi-channel effort
Event management relies on effectively managing communication between multiple channels. Texting, phone calls, email, and contact management software all need to work in sync to connect with a supporter and get them to your event. Use app integrations to connect your Peer to Peer Texting campaign to CRM tools like NationBuilder, NGP VAN, or Action Network. All data from texting campaigns instantly flow into your CRM. If a contact RSVPs for your event via Peer to Peer Texting, you can have NationBuilder send them a follow-up email right then with additional details.
Segment you volunteers
If you have events across locations, use the Teams feature to segment your text banking volunteers. Create separate teams for each location. Assign a team to a location and prepare location specific texting scripts and guidelines for every team.
Have light-hearted conversations
Peer to Peer Texting makes it easy to manage conversations with a large groups of people. While the tool takes care of management, your volunteers should focus on having heart to heart conversations with everyone they text. The goal here is not just to collect event invites, but to get people interested in your overall cause. That way, you don’t just get an event attendee, but also a potential long-term supporter.
Provide reminders
Send out your first event invite about two weeks before the event to make sure people can mark a day off on their calendar. As the event draws near, send out reminders to everyone who responded positively.
Hi {first_name, this is {agent_name} again with Hope Society. Will I see you at the rally tmrw?
Since you’ve already established a personal connection through the initial Peer to Peer Texting campaign, you can even segment your attendees in CallHub and send out a broadcast text with the reminder. Event attendees will still see that texts come from the same number as before.
Hi {first_name}, just wanted to remind you again about the rally tmrw.Follow-up
It’s inevitable that all your texts will not reach everyone at the best possible times. For all those who text back saying they’re busy, make sure to follow up at a later time. For those who are interested but cannot make it to the current event, follow up with them for the next event. This is easily done by marking the information in a survey during your Peer to Peer Texting campaign. People to be followed up with can be easily filtered and segmented for future outreach.
Mark RSVP
With volunteers having conversations with hundreds of supporters, it’s difficult to keep track of different types of responses. First off, you have the people who commit to attend, then people who are interested but cannot make it, people who are uninterested, and those that need a follow-up. Add an RSVP survey to your Peer to Peer Texting campaign to keep track of exactly how many people respond positively. You can segment those contacts for future outreach or send the information back to your CRM.
Convey the need to participate
Your first text should end with a prompt to respond. “Will you come?”, “Can you make it?” or any other prompt can get the conversation started. By simply texting people with the details of your event, you risk them treating your text as an impersonal broadcast.
Use local numbers
Invites to a local event coming from an out of state number can appear suspicious. Make sure you use a number i.e your Caller ID, that matches the location your contacts. If you are texting people across locations, send out text messages from multiple numbers to match each location. Any contact you text will see a caller ID on their phone from their home state.
Introduce yourself
Introduce yourself and your organization in the initial text. Texts from unknown numbers puts people on their guard. But starting the conversation off by identifying yourself nurtures trust with your contacts. Merge tags in Peer to Peer Texting make it easy for your text bankers to greet a contact by name and also introduce themselves.
Pre-saved replies
Pre-saved replies and automatic data entry allow for quick responses.
Hi {first_name}, this is {agent_name} with Hope Society.
automatically becomes
Hi John, this is Melinda with Hope Society.
Include a link for ticketed events
For ticketed events, you have to make the transition from conversing through text messages to actually purchasing a ticket as seamless as possible. Once a contact shows interest in attending your event, include a shortened link to your ticket page in the follow-up text. Make the ticket page mobile friendly to ensure a smooth experience.
EVENTS GUIDE
Templates
Sample template texts to get you started
Paid event
Hey {first_name}, this is {agent_name} from the John Smith for City Council campaign.
We’re holding a fundraising dinner and meetup next Thursday, 6pm in Baker Street.
Tickets are $100 a pop. Can you come?
Yes, I'd love to.
Great 🙌. How many tickets should I put you down for?
Just the one for me.
Done 👍. Here’s your link to make your payment bit.ly/2kGhKAT.
Establish a local presence
A short code or even an out of state number puts people on their guard. To make it easier for your volunteers to get conversations started, create a local caller ID for your text bankers. Your volunteers can be spread across the country, but contacts will still see a local caller ID on their screen when a text arrives.
Free event
Hey {first_name}, this is {agent_name} from Hope Society. We’re holding a rally next Saturday at 3pm
to support the Clean Energy act ✊. There’ll be snacks and drinks 🍕. Want to come?
Sure. Where's it going to be held?
Great 🙌 It’s at 221B Baker Street in Marylebone, from 3 to 6pm. You can visit the link for more details bit.ly/2kGhKAT. See you there 👋
You will ✌️Get started with Peer to Peer Texting campaign
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