Birmingham City Council has selected an autonomous web-based SMS solution from Text Messaging Centre (TMC) to provide local residents with the option to enter a street-naming competition via SMS.
An important part of Birmingham City Council’s mission is to communicate effectively with the public and ensure local community involvement in local projects. Tammy Palmer, Communications Officer for Transportation and Street Services at Birmingham City Council, explains:
“We run a number of campaigns throughout the year to enable the local community to have an active involvement in the development of Birmingham. Our most recent campaign was to provide citizens with the opportunity to suggest street names for a new development within the city. The selected names will then be allocated to contractors and provides residents with the opportunity to contribute to local landmarks.
“We quickly realised that we needed to offer new ways of communicating with the public in order to get the levels of response that we wanted to achieve for the new project. From personal experience of entering competitions via SMS, I knew this was a successful medium that was popular with many people. As such I began to look into how we could provide the same facility for Birmingham City Council’s street naming competition.”
By using SMS , the Council was able to dispense with moreexpensive direct mail and leaflet drops. In order to raise awareness of the campaign and the new text facility, the competion Shortcode was included on posters around the city, with a message explaining how residents could submit their entries via SMS.”
Due to the instantaneous nature of SMS, residents could text into the competition wherever they saw the poster. TMC’s desktop interface enables the Council to review entries on a day-by-day or even hour-by-hour basis, in order to track the number of entries.
“Most people enter competitions when they are either bored, waiting around or have some spare time on their hands,” says Palmer. “SMS offers people the ability to enter quickly and effectively with minimal effort. Through offering this medium we have seen a greater level of participation in the competition and it has been commended as one of the most successful campaigns in terms of number of entrants at the council to date.”
“SMS offers many organisations and businesses the opportunity to communicate effectively with their target audience, and I am extremely pleased that Birmingham City Council is achieving such great results from SMS,” says TMC Managing Director, Peter Tanner.
An important part of Birmingham City Council’s mission is to communicate effectively with the public and ensure local community involvement in local projects. Tammy Palmer, Communications Officer for Transportation and Street Services at Birmingham City Council, explains:
“We run a number of campaigns throughout the year to enable the local community to have an active involvement in the development of Birmingham. Our most recent campaign was to provide citizens with the opportunity to suggest street names for a new development within the city. The selected names will then be allocated to contractors and provides residents with the opportunity to contribute to local landmarks.
“We quickly realised that we needed to offer new ways of communicating with the public in order to get the levels of response that we wanted to achieve for the new project. From personal experience of entering competitions via SMS, I knew this was a successful medium that was popular with many people. As such I began to look into how we could provide the same facility for Birmingham City Council’s street naming competition.”
By using SMS , the Council was able to dispense with moreexpensive direct mail and leaflet drops. In order to raise awareness of the campaign and the new text facility, the competion Shortcode was included on posters around the city, with a message explaining how residents could submit their entries via SMS.”
Due to the instantaneous nature of SMS, residents could text into the competition wherever they saw the poster. TMC’s desktop interface enables the Council to review entries on a day-by-day or even hour-by-hour basis, in order to track the number of entries.
“Most people enter competitions when they are either bored, waiting around or have some spare time on their hands,” says Palmer. “SMS offers people the ability to enter quickly and effectively with minimal effort. Through offering this medium we have seen a greater level of participation in the competition and it has been commended as one of the most successful campaigns in terms of number of entrants at the council to date.”
“SMS offers many organisations and businesses the opportunity to communicate effectively with their target audience, and I am extremely pleased that Birmingham City Council is achieving such great results from SMS,” says TMC Managing Director, Peter Tanner.
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