How to use mass texting to communicate during live events
Mass texting platforms provide a great way to communicate with attendees on the day of a big event.
Technology from companies like Subtext simplifies the process so that producers can schedule communications and answer individual questions sent by text from a dashboard.
The uber-successful online financial blog Morning Brew uses Subtext to contact attendees on the day of their yearly Marketing Summit, The Brief.
The Morning Brew events team collects the phone numbers during the ticket sales process, which are uploaded into Subtext’s CSV upload feature.
Attendees then receive a welcome text and an explanation that text will be a primary “communication tool throughout the event.”
The Morning Brew team now relies on mass text on the event day to share the schedule; give session reminders, wifi passwords & prompts for attendees to submit questions to speakers; notify attendees about agenda changes; and create on-the-spots communications such as secret giveaways, contests, surveys, and timing updates.
The Morning Brew team monitors responses on the dashboard, and can answer individual questions on a tablet that can be set up on the registration table, or anywhere.
The practice took a lot of the drama out of the day-of-event management: A minor wifi issue early in the day was promptly met with a text to attendees about the issue and that it would soon be fixed.
Dillon Dyer, Senior Marketing Manager at Morning Brew, concluded in a use case that “Subtext was a game-changer at our in-person event, The Brief: Marketing Brew Summit. With almost 500 attendees on-site, it allowed us to communicate with everyone in a timely manner.”
Another event successfully using texting is the IronMan Triathlon, hosted by the World Triathlon corporation. During this event, almost 100,000 athletes compete in 55 countries.
