Best Practices for the Use of Targeted Cell Phone Campaigns for College Recruiting – Part VIII of IX

This is the eighth entry in a nine part series on how corporate recruiters should use cell phone text messaging (SMS) as part of their college recruiting strategy. To read the entire series, either start with Part I or download our free recruiting white paper on the same topic.
Execution and Reporting
Before sending out any text messages, consider when to send. Remember, with text messaging, real time communications can take place. A good question to ask yourself is how long you want to wait for your candidates to respond. If you’re text messaging a specific candidate, then immediate response might be desired, but for a general campaign deployed to several candidates, immediate response can become problematic.

The best time to send out targeted text messages is generally on the weekends. Students typically don’t have classes so they have more time to go through and read any messages coming in. It also means they have time to click on links or respond to calls to action.
Tracking results would be ideal in terms of helping you stay on the right track when sending out text messages. Unfortunately, because this medium is used primarily for branding purposes, results aren’t easily measured.
Still, almost all of the messages generated will be delivered and read. So, create your own list of SMS contacts and include links to your Web site. For colleges, inserting a link that will take students to an online edition of the school newspaper is a great way to introduce them to the school and its overall culture.
It might also be a good idea to incorporate feedback opportunities into each message. Students like to see that their opinions are valued. If thoughtful students are being targeted, then their opinions should matter. So give them a chance to respond to your messages by directing them to your Web site to take a small survey, answer a questionnaire or by allowing them the opportunity to submit questions of their own, which should be answered within one or two days. Be forewarned that students rarely call, email or respond for more information with text messages. It’s much simpler and more effective to take advantage of the increase in Internet availability provided on cell phones. Soon text messaging campaigns will be as commonplace as emailing and the smart marketers are preparing for it today.