Development Seed Blog

Targeting SMS Messages to Your Audience

It’s wicked hot in DC this week. We’re in the middle of a heat wave, one so intense that even big thunderstorms aren’t helping to cool things off (in fact, yesterday the steam rising off the streets after a storm made the humidity worse). So I wasn’t surprised when I got this text message yesterday, although I was confused:

I get “heat emergency,” but what does the rest of that mean? What’s Washington’s heat emergency plan, where are the cooling centers, and what the heck is DCHSEMA? I’m used to crazy acronyms being tossed around here - we’re a city that’s known for them - but even Google let me down on this one. A search for DCHSEMA only turned up three hits, two of which were PDFs. One led me to determine that HSEMA is the Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency.

Which brings me to my real question. Who is this message really for? It would make sense if it was for a police officer, who likely knows what the city’s heat emergency plan is and could direct people to cooling centers. But I got this message because I signed up for alerts on local emergencies, a service the DC government provides for residents.

This makes me stop and think about how although organizations are investing in new communication tools, many still aren’t really getting the medium or investing in the message itself. Sending out text messages to alert people to emergencies has become necessary. But this message was off target, and I’m willing to bet that it didn't help the people who received and wasn’t very successful for DCHSEMA.