Customer Spotlight
City Year Corps, a non-profit organization with 16 communities across the country, unites young people from diverse economic, racial, and geographical backgrounds. Applicants have a range of programs to choose from, including full-time community service to after school engagements for high-risk youth.
Objective:
With application volume increasing each year, City Year was searching for a quick and efficient way to speed up the application process. In addition to being extremely time consuming, they noticed that phone calls and emails did not “speak to their demographic” as they had in the past. With more and more teens relying on cell phones as their primary means of communication, they realized text messaging would be the perfect way to stay in touch with their core demographic. City Year tested this by sending individual SMS messages from their personal cell phones and found instant success; however, it was clear that they needed a way to reach all prospective students at once.
Solution:
City Year implemented a Club Texting-powered system for their applicants to opt-in using the keyword CYNY. They choose to target three important groups:
- New applicants are notified of important deadlines and information via text message, allowing City Year to reach hundreds of applicants within minutes.
- Current students receive real-time announcements about cancellations or changes to their meetings and events.
- City Year Alumni will be able to stay involved with what’s going on within their programs.
Outcome:
Club Texting has allowed City Year to reach more applicants than ever before in an effective and timely fashion. By notifying applicants of deadlines, this system has helped City Year not only reach their goal but surpass it.
City Year New York is piloting the Club Texting system with plans to implement the program nationwide in the near future.
Tip Of The Month 
Still looking for ways to generate new signups? Here is one great low-cost alternative, courtesy of Jaysen Clark of The Social & Belvedere in Houston.
As an incentive to your employees, you can run a contest where the employee who gets the most new people to subscribe to your texting list wins a special prize. Here's how you can keep track of this:
Club Texting sets up an additional feature to your account where the system sends customer replies directly to your email address. Let’s say your keyword is XYZ. When a customer sends a text to 25827, they simply put "XYZ + message" and that entire message will be sent to you. Your employees can tell their customers "Help me to win this contest by joining our new text messaging list for special announcements and offers. Just text XYZ plus my name to the number 25827!" This will immediately send you an email saying that a new customer has subscribed thanks to a specific employee, and you can easily keep track of the votes. This also works for customer comments and questions…for example: “XYZ John is such a hard worker; he really deserves that promotion next month!!”
Have a safe and happy holiday season from your friends at Club Texting!
Mobile Marketing Industry News
More Than One-Third Of U.S. Pre-Teens Have A Mobile Phone
PRE-TEENS IN THE U.S. ARE more connected than ever before, thanks to the widespread use of mobile phones. The Nielsen Co. released the findings of an in-depth study on the mobile media and cross-media behavior of U.S. "tweens" (ages 8-12). The report estimates that: 35% of tweens own a mobile phone, 20% of tweens have used text messaging, and 21% of tweens have used ring & answer tones.
AT&T confirms 3G iPhone due next year
A long-anticipated 3G version of the iPhone is guaranteed for 2008, AT&T's head has told a meeting of the Churchill Club in Santa Clara, California. "You'll have it next year," said CEO Randall Stephenson.
High Customer Recall Rates For Mobile Ads
In a study from the first quarter of this year by Telephia, 41 percent of mobile video consumers responded in some way to a mobile advertisement, while recall rates across the various platforms of mobile advertising ranged from 20 to 55 percent, with mobile video enjoying the highest recall rates.
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December
2007 Newsletter
