Text messaging has become more than just a convenient way to send your friends a quick message. Now, organizations are being encouraged to incorporate text messaging into their digital communications strategies. Yes, that’s right, your company needs texting too. Texting is not just for teenagers anymore.
GovDelivery’s recent infographic lays out a few reasons why every organization can benefit from utilizing text messaging. The infographic shows how text messaging helps reach a larger, more diverse, and on-the-go audience.
In the past two years, text messages sent through GovDelivery’s network have nearly doubled, from 96 million to 170 million. And according to the Pew Research Center, 90 percent of American adults own a cell phone and only 58 percent have an actual smartphone. And that 42 percent audience gap can be reached by text messaging.
If you already thought people were obsessed with their cell phones before, these statistics may push your beliefs over the edge. People look at their phones approximately 150 times a day, 97 percent of texts are read within the first 15 minutes of them being sent, 80 percent of people under age 34 use text messaging the most for personal written communication, and 109.5 is the median number of texts per day for Americans age 18-24.
Text messaging allows organizations to reach a diverse audience. People who have lower levels of income send more text messages per day than people with a higher income. Also, people of different ethnicities have different texting rates. African Americans send more text messages than Hispanics, and they both send more texts than Caucasians.
Overall, text messaging allows your organization to have more opportunities to connect with their audience locally and globally. There are more than 7 billion mobile phones in use around the world. That’s more than 7 billion opportunities for your organization to connect.
Who are you going to connect with using text messages? Learn more about how you can succeed in engaging your community through text messaging by downloading GovDelivery’s Guide, Making Mobile Work For You: How Text Messaging Makes an Impact.