Deciding How Many Texts to Send

When texting for Resistance Labs, you can send as many or as few first texts as you like. So what’s a good number?

It’s important not to bite off more than you can chew — never text more contacts than you can handle responding to.

If you’re texting for the first time, it’s good to start with no more than a few hundred texts. You can practice tagging, using canned responses, recording answers, opting out, and referring to the campaign instructions. Once you’ve learned the ropes, you’ll have a better idea of how many messages you can manage.

The 10% Guideline

When starting a new campaign, it’s a good idea to assume a 10% response rate. This means that if you text 200 people, around 20 will respond in some way. Use this as your starting guideline for how many first texts you’re comfortable sending.

In practice, response rates vary depending on things like the type of campaign and the list of contacts that we’re texting. If you’re feeling overwhelmed with responses, hold back on requesting and sending any more first texts until you’ve caught up with replies. But if you’re not getting many replies, feel free to increase the number of first texts you’re sending.

Staff and volunteers will be reviewing your conversations. Volunteers who repeatedly fail to reply to responses or who don’t take the time to respond correctly will be excluded from future campaigns.