The Brady Campaign found that a text message call to action was 25-30 times more effective at driving phone calls to Congress than email and social media.

Challenge

How do you maximize your constituents’ voices and find the most effective medium to drive calls to Congress?

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence is a nonprofit organization seeking to pass, enforce, and protect sensible gun laws and public policy that address gun violence at the federal and state levels. Recently, they wanted to make sure several senators who met with the corporate gun lobby in their offices heard from gun violence prevention supporters all over the country that same day.

The Brady Campaign only had one day to get supporters to make as many calls as possible, so they needed to find a way to maximize responsive engagement to achieve the best return on their investment.

Solution

Activate all your promotional channels and compare the success rate of each tactic

The Brady Campaign decided to use multiple channels to direct calls to targeted senators. By using unique call-in numbers for each channel, they were able to track which channel was the most effective at driving action.

They promoted different call-in numbers for their SMS list, their email list, and on several shareable graphics on social media for each of three key senators. Using the Upland Mobile Messaging platform, the Brady Campaign was able to directly compare each of the channels based on response rates and number of calls made to each senator.

Results

A text message call to action generated 25-30 times better results than social media and email

The Brady Campaign’s text message call to action not only had the highest action rate, but it also drove more total calls than their significantly larger email list. Overall, the mobile list performed 25-30 times better than email and social and drove more than half the number of calls for every Senator targeted!

The Brady Campaign proved that text messaging is still the most effective way to drive calls quickly and see incredible results. By activating all three media channels, they were able to make sure their targeted senators heard from thousands of constituents in a single day while gaining valuable insights on which channel would be the most effective in their action plans going forward.

Using all methods of communication, we were able to generate thousands of calls into these target senators’ offices. We now know that our texting will be much more successful so we are constantly trying to grow that list.”
– Matt Handverger, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.