5 tactics to reach families without internet access
Written by Niki juhasz
The year is 2023. Some of us (me, some of us means me) imagined zooming around on tiny personal flying devices by this point.
But the reality is, we have a way to go when it comes to technology. Most pressing on my mind is that thousands of people across the US still don’t have regular internet access. In fact, 2023 data states that one in five households don’t have internet access at home.
Let me repeat that. One in five households don't have internet access at home.
When you get more granular about what this means for our work with children and families, the data continues, saying about 30 percent of public school students live in households without internet connection or devices ideal for distance learning. Finally, one in five American adults are “smartphone-only” internet users.
This means families are missing out on critical communications when we only use digital tactics.
How do we reach families without internet access?
So here’s the thing. This problem isn’t new – we’ve spent years creating campaigns to reach both families with AND without internet access. As a matter of fact, Forthright’s own Katie Test Davis and Emily Swartzlander presented just this week about the topic at the Smart Start Conference!
Through our extensive research, we’ve put together a list of tactics that you can begin to implement – or use to improve your existing strategy – to effectively reach audiences without internet access.
In the worksheet, we’ve included five tactics, the data that support each tactic and best practices to use while implementing each one!
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Here’s a sneak peek of what’s in the free PDF!
According to Pew Research Center, 97 percent of people in America own a cell phone. This makes texting – which reaches audiences both with and without internet access – a great tactic to reach a majority of your audience.
Texts have a 98 percent open rate.
90 percent of all text messages are read within three seconds.
Just a few best practices include:
Make it personal. Start by identifying who you are, so audiences know why they should care about your message. People want to hear from other people, not businesses.
Prioritize. Don’t send too many messages. Unsubscribes increase significantly when you send 10 or more messages per month.
Omit needless words. Be concise without sacrificing clarity. Limit your message to 160 characters or fewer, so it fits into one text message. (Find our guide on writing simply here!)
Make your CTA clear. Include clear next steps or actions your audience can take WITHOUT using the internet. (I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen texts go out with a URL as the only option for next steps.)
Here’s an example of an SMS using best practices:
We’ve included four additional tactics in the resource to help you reach ALL of your audiences.
