As Client Success Managers, we’re often asked, “What is MMS?” and “Why would I want to use it?”. Let’s get into it.
What is MMS?
Let’s lay some foundational context. SMS (Short Messaging Service) is what a lot of organizations and businesses who leverage text messaging platforms are pretty familiar with at this point. SMS allows you to send up to ~160 characters of text copy to your audience. MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service), on the other hand, provides you the ability to include media like photos, images, GIFs, and infographics in your text message outreach to your base.
Why MMS?
A picture is worth a thousand words. With MMS, you can send up to 500 characters including images. The image in MMS is more efficient in capturing the audience’s attention, allowing you to tell the stories with multiple dimensions.
MMS Done Well
At Hustle, we are lucky to work with some of the best brands, brightest contributors, and most innovative programs. Below are a few examples of MMS messages being used for a variety of use cases like branded Giving Days, Event invitations, Marketing outreaches, and more.
Bowdoin College: Student Affaris Outreach
One Colorado: Event Invitation
Vanderbilt University: Day of Giving, Incentive/Prize Confirmation
Pacific Research and Evaluation: Research & Survey Outreach
How to Calculate ROI
So you’ve decided to send an MMS message to your contact base. Here are some ways you can calculate ROI:
- End your text in a clear question. Yes/No’s, Positive/Negative responses will help you understand your engagement metrics.
- When providing a contact with a URL link, try one of the following:
- Leverage Hustle’s share a link template that helps you track URL clicks. This way you can achieve an omnichannel outreach and understand which of your contacts interact with you over text versus email or social media.
- Provide a vanity URL that you’re only providing through your texting channel Within Hustle’s platform, if you’re not leveraging one of our integrations, make sure you include a unique ID with your contacts records from your CRM when importing your list. This will help you leverage Hustle data when doing analysis across platforms.
- Not to bury the lead here, but create a control group! Set the parameters of what you’re attempting to test and ensure you have a group of contact members that will not receive your MMS outreach.
Tips
- When your text is starting to look more like an email, it may be the perfect time to leverage MMS! Incorporate a visual infographic that explains the bulk of your outreach, while the text copy is short, concise and holds your call to action.
- When thinking about the media to incorporate in MMS, ensure the graphic size is 600kb or smaller. We also recommend that the ratio size is 3:2 or 2:3 — it’s just more visually appealing!
- Think about the emotional impact of the image you’re including. If you’re a nonprofit that has a healthcare focus, your contact base is likely highly educated or has faced the issue your nonprofit is working tirelessly to address. Remember that great images provoke strong emotions.
- You can use MMS to break down a difficult concept into some bitesize visual bullets.
There are many innovative ways to communicate and relay information. As simple as it may be, there is a huge benefit to incorporating powerful imagery in your texting communication. We can’t wait to see how you leverage MMS.
To learn more about MMS with Hustle you can reach out to your current Client Success Manager or reach out to [email protected]
