In the lead up to the end of the financial year we were asked by many charities when the best time was to send a last-minute SMS to donate. The main concern expressed by charities was that 30 June  this year fell on a weekend - Saturday. Fundraisers were concerned that this may result in a poor performance compared to sending during the week.

Historically, we have seen that the last two days of June perform best when sending an SMS to donate. BUT… these last two days have also fallen on a weekday in recent years.

As a result, we performed split testing between Friday June 29th and Saturday June 30th to see if the last day of tax being on a weekend really did have a negative impact.

Did 30 June falling on a weekend have a negative impact on SMS performance?

The good news is that it definitely did NOT!

Both Friday the 29th and Saturday the 30th achieved great results with an average return on investment (ROI) of 4.8x across our charity partners.

What was also interesting is that our split testing revealed that Saturday the 30th actually performed better with a 20% higher ROI than Friday. Each SMS sent was exactly the same copy, linking to the same donation page (both had pre-filling) and both were sent at 10am on each day.

So 30 June falling on a weekend definitely didn’t have a negative effect. During weekends no one is really checking their computers and emails, people still have their phones on them and are still receptive to text messages with 98% of SMSes being read and 90% of those being read in the first 3 minutes.

Given 30 June was the last opportunity to donate for tax, we believe many supporters found this to be a helpful reminder given the urgency to act rather than an annoying disturbance to their weekend.

Using pre-filled links also meant donating was quick and easy. Something people could do in a few minutes while still being out and about.

Fun Fact: One of the best performing SMS campaigns for Sydney Children’s Hospital Foundation is their annual Gold Telethon which is held on the Queen’s birthday long weekend. They send an SMS both morning and afternoon on the public holiday and achieve great success every time! This further shows us you should be afraid to run your campaign over the weekend, or even a long weekend. 

So what does this mean for tax fundraising in 2019?

30 June falls on a Sunday next year, meaning the last two days of the end of the financial year are on a weekend in 2019.

Now we know SMS fundraising still has great results on a weekend, ensuring you have a last minute SMS scheduled for this weekend is crucial! Emails will not get the same read and response rate over the weekend so sending a text message will be a key platform when trying to make use of the urgency to donate in the last two days of tax.

If your organisation is worried about an inability to support donors over the weekend we recommend you send a last minute SMS on Friday the 28th so you still maximise your results.