“When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen,” Ernest Hemingway said. That can be as true in mobile messaging campaigns as it is in interpersonal relationships. Sometimes it can be incredibly valuable to step back and listen to your subscribers, to find out what they really think about your mobile outreach.
An Upland Mobile Messaging campaign makes it incredibly easy to learn about your subscribers’ opinions. Our built-in survey function lets you ask your users questions, then immediately see the results. Unlike a web survey that monopolizes a user’s attention at their desk, a text message survey can be done from anywhere – while people are on the go, for example – and doesn’t have to be completed all at once.
How Public Radio International Used a Text Message Survey to Poll Their Audience
Recently, our customer Public Radio International decided to get feedback from some of their listeners. PRI has a long-running text message “GeoQuiz” that drives tune-in to the radio show The World. Every Wednesday, PRI texts out a geography question. For example:
Name the island where the biggest hoard of iron age coins has ever been found in W. Europe. Hint: It’s one of the Channel Islands.
Users can text back their responses, then tune in to that week’s radio show to learn the answer.
PRI wanted to find out more information about how their text message subscribers were enjoying the quiz campaign. Were the questions too hard? Not tough enough? Were there other changes they could make to improve the program?
I spoke to Morgan Church, Director of Digital Media at PRI, to ask him why they undertook the survey. “We wanted to understand how people were using the texting game,” he said.
Church found that a significant portion of those polled responded to their survey. “We were happy about the response,” he said. “From a sample of 100 that we had pulled from our overall subscriber base, we had just over 25% opt-in to answer the survey questions.”
As to whether or not the GeoQuiz questions were too difficult, the survey found that the majority of people (70%) thought they were just the right level of difficulty. There was, however, a significant minority (around 25%) that found them too hard.
PRI is planning a follow-up survey to get a better sense of whether the quiz questions actually drive audience tune-in to the radio show. That, of course, is the GeoQuiz’s ultimate goal.
To sign up for the GeoQuiz, text GEOQUIZ to 69866. And if you’re still wondering which of the Channel Islands played host to Western Europe’s biggest hoard of iron age coins – it was Jersey.
Interested in launching a survey of your own? Contact your Upland Mobile Messaging account manager or contact us.