When’s the best time to send a text message? Yes. More than timing, you need to hit send. We’ll explore the nuances of timing and cadence for text message marketing, but more than anything you just need to send it.
Too many nonprofit organizations get hung up on details and suffer from analysis paralysis. In trying to find the optimal time, they miss the moment. Perfection can lead to inaction.
Yes, we’ll cover optimal sending times, but we’ll also talk about cadence, perfect being the enemy of good, sending more, nuances with high volume, and gratitude. It’s everything you need to know to master short message service (SMS) text message marketing.
10 Tips for Text Message Timing and Cadence
So we’ve got 10 tips to help you master the timing and cadence of SMS text messages:
1. Proper Ratio
You need to start with a proper ratio of messages. Every text message you send cannot be a donation request. That’s a guaranteed way to boost your opt outs.
It doesn’t matter what day or time you send a message—if they’re all asks, you’ll be ignored.
Pay attention to the cadence of your messaging and make sure you’re doing more than asking. Aim for a three-to-one ratio—so you send three messages about something else before sending one asking for a donation. You might share information or offer encouragement or show the results of your work. Then you can ask donors to step up.
2. Optimal Time of Day
So what’s the best time of day to send a text message? Our favorite time of day is 1:03 p.m. It’s an ideal time to catch people after lunch.
The reality is it’s about thinking through when people are likely to look at their phone and respond. First thing in the morning they’re probably focused on getting started at work. You don’t want to wait until after work and interrupt them at dinner.
There are some legal rules that limit times you can send—you don’t want to wake anyone up.
But results will vary. If your audience is mostly college students, evenings might be better than mornings. Know your audience.
3. Optimal Day of the Week
So what’s the best day of the week to send a text message? Our favorite day is Thursday. Wednesday can be good too. We see slightly lower performance on Tuesday, and then Friday and Monday.
But again, results will vary. And the reality is day-to-day timing accounts for a 2-3% difference in results. Rather than sweating over the perfect day of the week, just send it.
4. Timezones Matter
Don’t forget about timezones, especially for national or international campaigns. Just in the continental United States, there’s a three-hour difference between the East Coast and the West Coast. So your 7 p.m. after supper message on the East Coast is hitting the Midwest at supper time and the West Coast at 4 p.m.
If you’re a local nonprofit and most of your audience is local, then you likely don’t need to worry. But larger nonprofits and anyone with a broad reach will need to pay attention to timezones.
5. Now Rather Than Later
More important than day of the week or time of day, you want to engage people now rather than later. Too often nonprofits worry about offending people and they trickle out content over six months.
But people are signing up because they’re interested right now. Strike while the iron is hot. Connect and engage with those people right now while their curiosity is piqued and they’re more likely to respond. Don’t wait months while they lose interest and forget even signing up in the first place.
6. Something Rather Than Nothing
Too many nonprofits struggle with perfecting everything about their text messages that they never get around to sending anything. It's better to send imperfect messages than none at all. It’s better to send a text message at a less than ideal time than to send nothing.
Just hit send.
You’ll learn as you go. You’ll see what works and what doesn’t, you’ll make adjustments, and you’ll get better. Practice makes perfect. But you can’t learn and grow if you’re not doing anything.
7. Human Rather Than Programmed
As you think about timing and cadence, be human and authentic. Think about what you would want to get. Think about the text messages you receive. Which ones do you read right away? When are you most likely to ignore texts? When you do look at them, which texts get a response?
Put yourself in the shoes of your recipient. Know your audience. Come up with a text message campaign that’s natural. Authenticity resonates.
8. More Rather Than Less
Here’s a surprising tip: send more, not less. Many nonprofits worry so much about overdoing it that they underdo it.
In all our experience advising clients and customers, we’ve never told someone they’re sending too much.
The reality is you’re not sending enough.
We always talk about the standard marketing practice that it takes seven touches before someone responds. And that assumes someone is actually seeing those seven messages. In today’s hyperactive, over-scheduled world, people are not seeing your marketing messages. You’re getting lost in the noise.
That means you need to get creative. You need to try multiple approaches. But it also means you need to send more messages. You can only make the shots you take, so take more shots.
9. High Volume
Timing rules get interesting if you’re sending a high volume of text messages. We’re talking in the tens of thousands of texts. If that’s your nonprofit, then you need to be aware of some of the nuances around high volume.
For example, those 10,000 messages will not be delivered at the exact same time. It might take several hours to get them all sent. The precision of your timing gets harder. If you send a high volume in the evening, some of those messages might be delayed until the next day to avoid sending them too late and running into compliance issues.
At Rally, we know these nuances inside and out. Reach out and we’ll help you do it right.
10. It’s Always a Good Time to Be Grateful
Here’s an important reminder about timing: It’s always time to say thank you. You can never go wrong with gratitude.
When someone donates, say thank you as quickly as you can. And you can’t say thank you too much. So follow up with a thank you.
We have an automatic Thank You Time Machine system to send those thank yous on the one-year anniversary of a donation. That’s a great time to say thank you!
Humanity Trumps Timing
It’s fun to nerd out over the data. Thursday at 1:03 p.m. is a great time to send a text message. But better than precise timing is just doing it. Hit send.
Tell relatable stories that feature real humans. Give us something to care about. Invite us to make a difference. An authentic message about real humans will trump perfect timing any day.
So sure, aim for the best time. Look at your stats and see if you can spot days or times that work better for your nonprofit organization. But above all, send those human-centered messages that connect and resonate. That will make all the difference in the world.
Check out a recent episode of our Your Rally Point podcast, “Timing is Good, Hitting Send is Better,” for more on text message cadence and timing.
Rally Can Help
Whether you’re struggling with text message timing or just figuring out what to say, we can help.
- Tools: We offer integrations with your preferred fundraising platform, customer relationship management (CRM) system, donation form, and more. We offer mass texting, two-way texting, MMS, and more. Our functionality and workflows can boost donor engagement, encourage peer fundraising, increase recurring donations, and in general make your mobile fundraising more effective.
- Support: We care about customer experience. We’ve got multiple options for help including FAQs, templates, and webinars. Plus, we’re happy to get on a phone call and talk through any issues. We even offer pre-written text message templates to make it easy. Check out our case studies to see how other nonprofits rave about our support and user-friendly system.
- Not sure: If you’re still not sure about SMS text messaging, we’re happy to show you a demo, walk through strategy, and take a voice call to talk pricing options.
Get started: Sign up now to start using Rally and hit send on those text messages.
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