Communicate More Effectively with Your Team Using Text Messaging for Sports Coaches

Text messaging for sports coaches is the perfect vehicle to ensure clear communication with both players and parents. On the whole, text messaging is an extremely effective communication method. Did you know that 98% of all texts are opened and read within 3 minutes? Additionally, the response rate for texts is a whopping 45%, 39% more than an email marketing message.

As you can see, for many industries, text messaging the way to go. You may be thinking though, do these numbers really apply to the sports arena? And the answer is yes, they definitely apply.

Sports coaching is one of the few industries underutilized when it comes to communicating effectively using text messaging. Whether you need to contact the whole team, parents, athletes, both, or simply an individual athlete, text messaging is the way to go.

You can text message anything. Text message practice reminders, photos from the game, links to picture day order forms, and the list goes on.

Text messaging is not only quick and efficient, but when you use a text marketing platform, like TextSanity, to handle your text messaging efforts, it’s private, secure, and hassle-free. Simplify your administrative duties to free up your time for the best part of being a sports coach – actually coaching.

The following text marketing tools outlined are only a few TextSanity offers.

Mass text messaging

This is one of the most useful tools for sports coaches. Mass text messaging, sometimes referred to as broadcasting, is perfect for communicating with your whole team at once. Here you can send and schedule mass texts in seconds to any segment of your contacts.

Schedule messages to parents or athletes days, weeks, even months in advance. In fact, after you know the practice schedule for the year, set up automatic text message reminders to athletes and parents. Scheduled messages can be edited anytime before they’re actually sent, so if something changes with the schedule, simply update it in the broadcast calendar.

Plus, you can send just a single message at just the right moment to an athlete. This is ideal for personal reminders.

Text message keywords

Keywords are ideal recruitment tools. Potential athletes and their parents text a keyword to your TextSanity phone number. Once they interact with the keyword, they receive customizable responses you set up.

Along with the convenience and customizability of text message keywords, they are also great because they automatically collect the names and valid phone numbers of anyone who interacts with the keyword. No more paper lists to keep track of!

Plus, you can easily set up keywords to respond with links, attachments, and even images. This means that you can be easier on the environment and cut down on your own work printing out paper copies.

Automatically send links to your website, an application, order forms to team jerseys, shoes, and even payment options. Add all the information you normally give to potential athletes and parents.

Text message webforms

Webforms opt-in athletes and parents to your text messaging lists online. These are great to put on your website, forums, or even social media sites. They automatically add parents and athletes to your text message list so that you can seamlessly message them.

Text message tags

One of the little known parts of text messaging is tags. These are small, but critical pieces of information you use to separate your text message contact database and know who to send mass text messages to. Everyone who engages with you via text message is listed on your contact database.

Tags are essentially the way you keep track of athletes and parents. You need to ensure that who you are communicating with via text message is exactly who you want to be communicating with. And tagging contacts as they come in is quite simple.

All you need to do is set the tags up when you create a text message keyword campaign or put a webform together. Then, when athletes or parents engage with them, they are automatically tagged. Tags can be anything. For example, tag parents who engage with your text message keyword campaign for recruitment under RECRUITMENT PARENTS. It’s as simple as that.

Tags are simply a way of remembering where a contact came from. And by doing so you enable yourself to send mass text messages effortlessly. Mass text messages rely on tags. Instead of having to sort through all your contacts and put each individually on your mass text message, tags add contacts as a group. They make your life better.

Text message inbox

The last tool that you need to know about to communicate more effectively with parents and athletes is the text message inbox. The text message inbox can be used to send text messages right from your computer.

Ever been in the middle of a group text message disaster? The inbox along with mass text messages helps you to avoid these. When you send a mass text message and someone replies, it is only sent to you. You can then respond individually in the text message inbox.

Text messaging for sports coaches

In the end, communicating more effectively with your team is the goal. Text messaging is the way to do that. As you’ve seen above, text messaging tools enable you to help athletes and parents to fill out team member profiles, RSVP to sports banquet night, or decide on a theme for senior night through text message, and so much more. There are so many uses for text messaging. Go ahead and check out TextSanity today!