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HHS Center for New Media

Podcast: Using texting to reach your audience

You’re listening to the HHS Center for New Media podcast, where new and innovative media projects are introduced, shared, and discussed. 

In 2009, Congress signed the Tobacco Control Act, giving the Food and Drug Administration the authority to control tobacco products.

The Center for Tobacco Products, CTP, was created to oversee implementation of the act, and has worked to educate retailers and the public about the new regulations. 

“Mobile is the future.  People have it with them.  It’s personal.  It’s portable.”

Sanjay Koyani is the Senior Communication Advisor at CTP.

“You can look at information at even point of purchase to help you make the right kind of decisions which is really critical.  It’s not waiting to go back to your computer, turn it on, and then hopefully recall what you were looking for.”

The CTP Break the Chain campaign was launched this June, allowing mobile users to subscribe to receive text messages about the new tobacco regulations.

Ann Aikin is the Director of Digital Media at CTP and is working to push mobile interaction with the public.  

“We created web graphics and we put them on websites.  CDC has a mobile program, so we sent out a text message on that, telling people if they wanted to subscribe to ours they could.”

“We started the mobile subscription and we gave it a month to really do a lot of heavy marketing.” 

CTP was also explicit about what users were getting with the mobile subscription. 

“We were very specific with them.  When you sign up, this is what you are going to get.”

First month users got three text messages, and one per month after that.  To increase engagement with their subscribers, CTP also included quizzes in text messages.    

“People respond very quickly.  It’s almost in real time that you get some engagement with people, because they do have that device with them.”

Those who responded correctly to the quizzes would be randomly selected to be recognized on CTP’s website. 

“That included a YouTube video feature as well as a podcast where we could really recognize why they were interested in the Break the Chain campaign, why they subscribed to mobile, and what the new Tobacco Control Act meant to them.”

Today, the Break the Chain campaign has over one thousand subscribers, and that number continues to grow.  CTP is now combining mobile tools with customer feedback to improve their services, moving forward.

“We’re also gonna ask of number of questions about the messages themselves.  So we can really learn how to craft really great text messages.”

“It’s a number of these new open government tactics merged together to really empower and engage these folks, and so far, we’ve really seen positive stuff with a very focused topic.”

You’ve been listening to the HHS Center for New Media podcast, where new and innovative media projects are introduced, shared, and discussed.  If you have a project, media tool, or idea that you want to share with other HHS employees, please contact newmedia@hhs.gov.

Thanks for listening.  I’m Nicholas Garlow.