Text messaging has completely changed the way people communicate. Between 2019 and 2021, the average American’s daily smartphone screen time grew by almost 50% and text messages have a 95% open rate. More importantly, more households have mobile phones than have cable TV, landlines, or even internet access.
Moreover, in a climate that is increasingly demanding contactless interaction because of COVID-19, text messaging has become an increasingly critical part of the landscape of human communication.
The 2020 election cycle corresponded with the peak crisis levels of the pandemic, which essentially halted most of the traditional events and door-to-door canvassing that is usually done in political campaigning. Campaigns were forced to find other ways to connect with potential voters. P2P texting became that medium.
Let’s do a deep dive into P2P messaging and how it can be a game-changer in your campaign.
Intro to P2P Texting
Peer-to-peer (P2P) texting is a technology that allows a person to efficiently and legally send texts to huge numbers of people in a way that allows them to respond and have ongoing conversations.
P2P texting is without a doubt the easiest and most cost-effective way for a campaign to connect with its supporters. This access can be used to provide voting instructions, solicit feedback from voters, raise campaign funds, and even mobilize your supporters.
Benefits of P2P Texting for Political Campaigns
Below, we have outlined some of the key benefits of P2P texting for political campaigns.
P2P texting is compliant with U.S. laws
There are Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations that restrict when and how a campaign can use automated text message blasts (A2P texting), but with P2P texting, these same regulations don’t apply.
Specifically, organizations can legally send SMS and MMS messages to voters in a manner that is 100% compliant with all current FCC regulations. For more details, read about the Legal and Regulatory Considerations Around Texting.
Politics can be a dirty game. Running afoul of the FCC can result in hefty fines that will hamstring your campaign. P2P texting with a platform that values compliance will keep you on the right side of the line.
Proven effectiveness
Statistics show that campaigns experienced a 30% increase in revenue by leveraging text messaging for fundraising. Also, P2P texting helped drive a 2-3% increase in voter turnout.
Another study showed that registered voters who receive text messages from campaigns tend to vote 8% more consistently than those who don’t receive campaign text messages.
Extremely high open rates compared to other mediums
Email is still an excellent way to reach people, but emails only have a 15-30% open rate. Phone calls are even worse. Thanks to caller ID, people can screen their calls, and calls from unknown numbers are answered at less than a 10% rate. Specifically, only 20% of people surveyed say that they answer unexpected phone calls, according to a 2016 study by Text Request.
Contrast those numbers with the 95-98% open rate of text messages.
With these dismal statistics for phone calls and emails, it’s no wonder that P2P texting is the future for political campaigning.
Higher click-through rate and interaction
A 2021 study found that links in text messages have a 36% average click-through rate, whereas emails only have a 3.4% click-through rate. This smokes the click-through rates of other marketing channels like Facebook (0.90%) and Google Adwords (1.91%), and at a fraction of the cost.
Meaningful conversations
P2P texting allows campaign workers to have real conversations with the people they reach. Because messages can be personalized, campaign staff members and volunteers can have meaningful conversations with the people with whom they connect.
Customizable and personalized messages
With P2P texting, you can personalize messages to address users by name and even cross-reference voters with their polling locations.
Texting by the Numbers
This transition to contact-less communication has extended into the way political campaigns reach out to voters and connect with supporters. Campaigns are increasingly using peer-to-peer texting to connect with their supporters and affect voter turnout.
Here are some statistics:
- Text messages have a 95-98% open rate. No other medium comes close.
- 90% of consumers prefer communicating through text messages for reminders, alerts, and back and forth communication.
- 68% of people between the ages of 18-24 check their phones twice as often as other age groups.
- American voters check their mobile devices on average 96 times every day. This averages out to about once during every 10 minutes.
- 76% of millennials say they like to have the ability to check their messages on their own time schedule, and they prefer texting for this reason.
- Since 2016, American adults have chosen texting as their preferred method of communication.
- 52.5 million Americans can be reached only by text messaging or traditional advertising because they don’t have an internet connection.
There’s no question, we’re all totally hooked on our phones. As a campaign strategist, why would you try to connect with your voters any other way?
Republicans vs. Democrats
In the early part of the 2020 election cycle, campaigns affiliated with Republican candidates sent more than six times the number of P2P texts as Democratic campaigns. However, by the end of the campaign cycle, Democrats began to close the gap.
In the month of October 2020, more than 5.2 billion text messages were sent by campaigns. In total, 18.5 billion texts were sent by US political campaigns in 2020. For a tool that was hardly used at all before 2016, this represents a massive shift in strategy that could only be driven by impressive results.
What Makes P2P Texting So Powerful for Political Campaigns?
With the statistics we have shared, it’s easy to see how effective and powerful P2P texting can be for political campaigns.
Fundraising
Campaigns report a 30% increase in revenue with the use of P2P texting. That statistic alone is enough to motivate campaign managers to get on the P2P texting bandwagon.
With P2P texting, you can directly ask your supporters for donations by providing a link to the fundraising portal for your party or candidate.
Voter turnout
Registered voters who receive text messages from campaigns vote 8% more consistently than voters who don’t receive text messages.
Advocacy
By contacting voters directly, you can raise awareness about your campaign’s causes and ask for support for your candidate’s platform and positions.
Benefits of Using MudShare’s P2P Texting Platform
When you work with MudShare as your P2P texting partner, you enjoy a wide range of benefits:
- Mastery of legal requirements: MudShare’s compliance team stays ahead of regulatory changes, and we help our clients ensure they’re on the right side of those regulations.
- Proven track record for scale and deliverability: We’ve sent hundreds of millions of messages. Our relationships with mobile carriers go back over a decade, and our deliverability is top-notch.
- Customer service: We take incredible care of our clients. If they ever run into a problem, they know they can always reach us directly.
- Easiest 10DLC registration process: We’ve streamlined the 10DLC carrier registration process down to just a few extra fields in your account. It couldn’t be easier.
