Hey Fans, Podcasts hosts, Journalists, and whoever else looking to text about Sports!
Here are a few best practices to keep in mind for launch. 🏈
⏱️ Frequency: Show up for your audience!!
Subscribers stick around when hosts continue the dialogue. Just like a good social strategy, the most successful on Subtext maintain a consistent and regular schedule, showing their audience that they are there to engage and talk shop when it comes to the team and sport they are covering.
- 3-5 texts a week is a sweet spot, with more for exciting news or important updates to share.
- Share all your thoughts! Sports hosts tend to find better retention and engagement when there is a continued back and forth with the audience.
- Weekday texts typically see higher engagement than weekends with best times to text usually landing around noon (12pm-3pm EST).
💡 Content Ideas: Take a minute to think through your launch timeline and see what possible ways you can provide value to your audience.
- Some texts should be exclusive to SMS subscribers. See how Ross Jackson from Locked On Saints creates exclusivity within his subscribing audience.
- Shout out fans who made calls/ had takes that came to fruition in the form of a team’s play or front office moves.
- Encourage questions and hot takes to be shared with the campaign! These are great to spin out other segments and pieces of content for your podcast or to talk about in videos for other social platforms.
- Promote exclusive events and meet ups. Fans love to meet up with podcast hosts at tailgates or in person at the game. This is a great way to build loyalty and foster a strong sense of community.
- Engaging fans via questions, polls, or live Q&As
- Encourage fans to share/repost links and content to bring more awareness to your channel
✔️ Subscriber Acquisition: There are tons of ways to promote your channel and get your followers subscribed to your texts!
Here are the basics to start:
- Text to sign-up: The easiest way! Subscribers can text anything into your marketing number to start the sign-up process OR we can even set up a dedicated keyword to make the process automatic.
- Sign-up URL: Every channel has their own landing page where fans can complete the sign-up process. We recommend linking these on your social bios and even dropping in posts as well. You can find this link under the “Campaign” tab of your dashboard.
- Embed Code: These codes live directly on your website, allowing readers who already visit to sign-up directly on your page. The codes can also be found under the “Campaign” tab of your dashboard.
- Launch Articles: An article on your site entirely dedicated to announcing your campaign’s launch is the easiest way to engage any loyal readers that should be made aware of your SMS campaign. We have found that campaigns who launch with a dedicated, well written launch article covering the campaign and what readers can expect from it, perform way better than those who go without.
- SMS links: SMS links can be included in your IG stories, Reels, Tiktok’s, etc. When tapped from a mobile device, SMS links will open the subscriber’s primary messaging app, with the number of the channel pre-loaded. All the susbcriber needs to do is hit ‘send’ to begin the sign-up process and VOILA. Let us know if you’d like one created for you!
- QR Codes: Scannable QR codes that work just like our SMS links, opening the fan’s primary messaging app, with the number of the channel pre-loaded. These codes can be used for external promotions and marketing for seamless and quick sign-ups.
- The Podcast Call out: Call out the Subtext campaign over your podcast and any other piece of content you publish regularly. Your most loyal and engaged readers/followers will see this and join up, giving you access to your most engaged segment of your entire community.
Inspiration Time ✨
Take a look at some of the following examples for inspiration 👀
USA Today Olympic Coverage Case Study
Promotional Examples
NJ.Com
Locked On Sports
