Table of Contents:
Introduction
Scripts in Impactive are the messages that you send to your contact lists, volunteers, friends or family. Script building is integrated into many actions in the Impactive digital action suite. Writing scripts streamlines and expedites the message sending and reply process for actions like: Peer to Peer, Broadcast, Friend to Friend, and Canvassing. (Phone banking has scripting as well, but because it's more in-depth it's described in its own page here.)
This article will review:
Initial Scripts
Follow-up Response Scripts
Dynamic Variables
A/B Testing with Scripts
Auto-Tagging Responses
Initial Scripts
An Initial Script is an opening message you're communicating in your script. You want it to be succinct, compelling, and to have a clear ask to get involved.
In Peer-to-Peer texting actions, Impactive's scripting functionality allows you to write multiple initial messages. By having multiple initial scripts, you will automatically be running an A/B test with one script selected at random to be used by your volunteers when texting.
When writing out multiple initial messages in Friend to Friend actions, you have the option of writing different messages for each form of outreach your volunteer will be using to reach out to friends.
This makes the message more familiar to the recipient and will yield your campaign higher open rates.
For example, you could write a different message for outreach by text, social media, or phone calls.
Dynamic Variables
Impactive's scripting functionality allows you to write personalized initial messages by inserting dynamic variables. Examples of inserting dynamic variables into the initial message include updating the script for each contact so that it includes their first name, last name, or state. Adding dynamic variables to your scripts makes the message more familiar to the recipient and will yield your campaign higher open rates.
To add a dynamic variable to your script, open the Initial Message Script editor, then select the dynamic variable from the appropriate dropdown that you wish to add to your script.
Here’s what the message looks like when sent to the recipient:
Admins will encounter warnings when their script variables are formatted incorrectly or contain an uneven number of parentheses when using script previews.
Follow-up Scripts
Using Impactive's script-building features, you can easily create response scripts that will make following up to replies easy and efficient.
By creating a response script, your volunteers won't have to write a reply to a common question on their own: instead, they can just choose a pre-written reply and click send! You can create as many replies as needed.
Scripts are broken into two sections: initials and responses. Initial Scripts are the first message a contact will receive. You might write multiple initials to test which one is the most effective. Response Scripts are written in anticipation of your contacts replying to your initial message. You or your message senders will choose which response script is appropriate to send back to a contact after they respond to your initial.
By writing out multiple initial messages, you'll have the ability to A/B test which initial performs best. All your volunteers have to do is click send.
Taking the time to write out follow-up replies is also important. Your volunteers won't have to make up a reply to a common question on their own: instead, they can just choose a reply you've already written and click send!
You can tag and sort responses to your messages easily by integrating tags and custom fields into your script. You can set up a tag to be automatically applied when a volunteer sends a specific response message. Or you can ask volunteers to fill out a report after each conversation.
Preview
Admins can now preview activity scripts for their Peer-to-Peer Texting activities with the new ‘Preview’ function for initial and response scripts. After crafting their script, admins can view the messages their contacts will receive before sending them out. Preview allows admins to see an estimate segmented breakdown of their texts and ensures that any dynamic variables are formatted correctly.
Auto Tagging Responses
If you'd like a voter to be automatically tagged with an activist code or result code, you can set up an auto tag such that any contact who receives a specific response script will automatically be tagged. Impactive has auto-tagging functionality built into response scripts so that your volunteers don't have to manually file a report after every response message they send. Note that this feature is only available within Peer to Peer Texting actions.
Here's how to set up Auto-Tagging Responses:
Click on “Add another response script”.
Enter a Name for the response, and a Script Message. For example, for an affirmative response to an initial text recruiting for an event, you might write: "Attending: Yes" as the Script Name and "Great - so glad you can attend! The event starts at 7:30pm on Saturday" as the Script Message.
To include a tag or custom field that will automatically be applied when your volunteer sends this response, click the “Advanced Options” drop-down menu.
Check either “Tag the contact” and/or “Update custom field of the contact” depending on which you'd like to use.
Within the box that appears, select the appropriate tag(s) and/or custom field(s) you'd like to be automatically applied.
Once you've applied these settings to your action, your contacts will automatically have a tag or custom field value applied to them each time the corresponding response is sent. If the VAN Integration is set up, that data will be sent to VAN. This will save you and your volunteers a ton of time - no need to fill out manual reports!
