How Does SMS Help?

SMS is fast and reliable compared to emails and can be transmitted to customers and contacts as long as the receiver is within reception range.  Additionally, there is flexibility within what can be accomplished with that SMS messaging.

• • Sending messages in bulk – reach hundreds of contacts with a single campaign
  • Organizing groups of contacts – whether they’re team members or fans, parents or children, contacts can be easily categorized and sorted into lists
  • Customizing sender ID – the sender ID can be changed so that recipients better know who is sending the announcement
  • Different types of SMS – messages can be individually adjusted to better represent reminders or marketing and scheduled to launch at specific times
  • Message templates – make it easier to just send messages by having the message already pre-built
  • Analytics – know who got the message, who opened it, and other details that can help make a difference for the next time a campaign is sent

All of this is managed from a web application to keep these messages separate from personal SMS.  Services can also allow users to send images and videos to improve promotional messaging and add some visual flavor to marketing.  Used correctly, this can improve how coaches manage their teams cohesively and quickly.

How to Use It

There are a variety of situations where SMS messaging can benefit sports teams and coaches.  While it does depend on the user’s creativity, these are the more common methods of deploying marketing and alerts.

Confirmation Messaging

In situations where someone is signing up for an event, it’s a good idea to send a text to verify that the contact is now on a list for updates regarding that specific event.  Usually, this sort of message will come packaged with dates, addresses, details, and maybe a URL leading back to a calendar or an option to mark it on the user’s calendar.

Reminders

With any sort of arrangement, customers already have enough going on in their lives that might cause them to forget about what they have decidedly arranged for themselves.  Along with some opt-in functionality for receiving reminders as well as parameters for how long before a given event starts, this leaves plenty of input for this sort of functionality to the user as well as the coach.  This ties in nicely with practice sessions, tournaments, pickup times, and checklists.

Last Minute Changes

Mistakes can happen and a coach may need to send out a message to team members regarding anything from schedule changes to cancellations.  Since SMS messages don’t have a spam folder, this is an alert that no one on the team will be missing.

Payment Notices

Whether it be requesting payments for uniforms or subscription fees, people like having a direct pipeline to an online payment system instead of having to mail in cash or a check.  This way, users get their money sooner and can continue managing the club without waiting around for money to arrive.

Help Requests

For sports teams that are more child-oriented, it doesn’t hurt to recruit some additional parents to help the team – whether it’s procuring practice equipment or aiding at tournaments, etc.

Congratulations

Celebrations are in order and the team’s morale could afford a boost.  Send the team a congratulatory text with maybe a personalized bit for the team MVP.

How We Work

CloudContactAI’s toolsets cover all these functions and more for sports centers.  One of our biggest clients at CCAI is Let’s Play Soccer (LPS), which runs a couple of dozen in-door soccer facilities across ten states and a company heavily dependent on frequent contact for informing customers about events, onboarding, and more.  After Covid first hit and in-person contact became a significant risk factor, LPS struggled with email campaigns, barely able to reach out much less get a response.  Through our services, LPS managed to increase its response rate to 40% from a meager 3% with an immediately noticeable increase in customer interaction.  If you are interested in how we continued to support LPS over the course of the Pandemic, our full story can be found here.