Copyright: rawpixel / 123RF Stock Photo
When a weather event or other emergency happens, text alert systems provide a fast way to ensure important messages are heard. Emergency text alerts catch your attention, providing essential notification for natural disasters, extreme weather, outages, school and business closures/hour changes, neighborhood evacuations and more. With smartphone usage on the rise, mass notification text messaging for alerts is both easy and effective.

Smartphone Usage Increase Creates Need for Text Alert Systems

In 2010, approximately 62 million Americans used smartphones. By the end of 2016, that number is estimated to jump as high as 207.2 million. The Pew Research Center reports 64-percent of American adults currently own a smartphone.

The Trends in Consumer Mobility report (2015) from Bank of America revealed that 71-percent of the respondents sleep with or next to their mobile phones and 35-percent reach for their phone first before any other activity in the morning. 89-percent of the survey respondents stated they check their smartphones multiple times daily.

With more smartphone users habitually reaching for the phone when waking and continuing to monitor their phones throughout the day, a text alert system is the optimum method for reaching a large percentage of the population when an emergency or other important event happens.

Text Messaging Offers Immediacy

The immediacy of an emergency text alert has the power to save lives, especially when warning people about incoming tornadoes, wildfires and other extreme weather. An unexpected shift in the weather and a tornado's en route for your neighborhood. Text alerts also eliminate the need to scramble for the television remote or tune into local radio when bad weather hits. The forecast at 10 p.m. was for a mere two inches of snow over night, but by 6 a.m., more than eight inches have fallen and roads are treacherous if not impassable. With the smartphone as the first connection to the world upon waking, it's immediately known via the alert that the kids' school is closed and that local authorities have warned against travel due to road conditions.

Text Alert Systems Reach People Anywhere, Any Time

Emergency situations and weather events happen any time, day or night. During any type of disaster, crisis situation or extreme weather event, it's critical to have an alert system to reach people in any location. The average person keeps their cell phone on or near them 24/7. This is one of the main reasons text alert systems work—they reach people anywhere, any time.

When a tornado hits, use a Trumpia text alert system to locate employees and initiate safety protocols or engage the system to connect with every member of your church congregation when services are canceled due to hazardous road conditions.

Maximize Reach to Whole Audience

During any disaster or emergency, mass notification text messaging quickly reaches the whole target audience to ensure the message is heard. Send a text message alert to every member of a college campus as well as parents that sign up for the alert when a crisis situation occurs. This can be the quickest way to keep students safe during a lock-down because everyone can be reached at once.

As one of the leading providers of SMS communications, Trumpia is trusted by schools, major universities and Fortune 500 companies across the nation to provide text message alerts during any crisis situation. While, SMS communications are the fastest way to reach any audience, it's possible to maximize reach by incorporating other modes such as email, Facebook and Twitter posts as well as voice alerts.

Easy to Implement

Trumpia makes it easy to customize and implement a text alert system for any school, university, business, church or even community. Use the Yes/No Response alert for real-time updates during any emergency or disaster situation. It's simple, allowing a basic text that reads "Are you OK" to which the receiver responds "yes" or "no." The Trumpia system tracks how many "yes" and how many "no" responses while identifying each respondent.

This system easily customizes so a specific message may be sent depending on the "yes" or "no" response. For example, if the response is "yes," then the SMS message may return emergency protocol information. For "no" responses, the return message may be "Where are you? Send pic of current location and condition."

Ways to Use Mass Notification Text Messaging

Mass Notification Text Messaging has multiple uses. Some of the most common ways it's used include:

• Church and school alert systems for closures and early dismissals
  
  
• Emergency lock-down notifications for schools, universities, hospitals and other public campuses
  
  
• Amber/silver alerts to help find missing people
  
  
• Event venue changes or cancellations (ideal for outdoor sporting events like youth soccer or baseball tournaments)
  
  
• Neighborhood evacuations
  
  
• Extreme weather alerts and natural disaster notifications
  
  

Using mass notification text messaging allows businesses to alert customers to store hour changes or closing due to any type of emergency or urgent situation. From industrial accidents to a water main break, school closing or weather warning, text alert systems via Trumpia get the word out quickly and efficiently. For more information, download our complimentary Mobile Marketing Success Kit.

Download the Mobile Marketing Success Kit

Get Your Copy Today