Remember the uncertainty that surrounded pool openings a few months ago?  One Mid Cities association used broadcast text messages to alert owners when they opened their pool.  In conjunction with emails on the subject, owners who opted in received text messages.  The association needed to get a significant number of homeowners to sign a Covid-19 waiver before opening the pool on 8/21, so the campaign of sequenced texts started on 8/12.  Board Members collected waivers at the pool pavilion starting on 8/13, rewarding folks who signed up with free Kona Ice. The campaign was a great success!  

For a large association with several communications channels, such as a newsletter, e-mail blasts, social media and a website, broadcast texts are another arrow in the quiver to reach owners who opt for the immediacy of a text message.  One large master planned community of more than 9,000 households went live with Broadcast Texts in March 2020, just as the Covid-19 pandemic was poised to disrupt their scheduled events and amenities.

Their Communications Specialist has sent about 10 texts so far, and she finds the app attention-getting and convenient to use.  She reported some details about their experience:

• “At that time, we completed a comprehensive campaign to alert homeowners to the service. We posted the info on the association website, published an article in the community news magazine, sent opt-in instructions via E-news blast to our 6,000 Constant Contact subscribers, and sent the opt-in email to everyone who had saved their email address in their private online CINC account. That’s over 9000 email addresses.

• After the initial push, we had about 800 people sign up. As of today, we have 1,025, so the number is steadily growing. Ideally, we’d like more to sign up, since that’s only about 11% of our total # of households (9,400 homes).

• One nice feature– the system automatically sends an opt-in text to folks who save their cell number in their private online account.  We are seeing the number of subscribers grow slowly but steadily-I think mainly because of that automatic feature.

• So far, we’ve sent a grand total of ten texts. We’re still trying to figure out how texts fit in our communications strategy, and of course, the disruption of Covid-19 has changed the regular flow of events in our large community. So far, all of our texts have been about our event calendar or our pool schedule.

• Typically, I pair the texts with sending an email blast and posting to our Facebook group, so they are always part of a broader campaign. I have never sent a text that wasn’t paired with our other communication channels.

• I believe the effectiveness of the texts may have caused one issue for us. The first text we sent was about a Recycling event in May. We had a HUGE, UNPRECEDENTED turnout to that event. We typically get between 100-200 cars dropping off items, butut this year, we had over 1,000 people attempt to drop off items. We actually lost count. The turnout was probably due in part to Covid-19 and people cleaning out their closets, but I think that first text prompted the stampede.
• All in all, I believe the texts are a successful component of our broader communications strategy, which contains many channels. In this respect, we may be different than other, smaller associations.”

Please contact CMA at jsloan@cmamanagement.com to learn more about how our communications services can improve connections in your community. Contact your Association Manager to subscribe to the Broadcast Text service.

Pam Grundy

Executive Vice President of Onsite Operations, AMS®, CMCA®

If you found this article helpful, you may also find other topics relevant to your HOA on this blog at Community. Well-Served.