Guide to Sending SMS and Messages to Your Community — What Works and What Doesn't

You sent a message to the group. 80 members. But by 9pm only 12 had opened it. By morning only 30 had seen it. After 48 hours, more than half the community still hadn't seen it at all. Why? Most Gabbaim have no idea there's a whole science to "how to communicate with your community" — when to send, which channel, how long, and with what call to action. In this guide, we'll go over everything you need to know.

3 Communication Channels — When to Use Each One

The first mistake most Gabbaim make: sending everything through the same channel. But every channel serves a different purpose, and every audience has a different preference.

SMS — Urgency + High Reach

In the industry, it's common to see SMS read by most people within a few hours of being sent. It's the best channel for urgent matters — a change in prayer time, an emergency, an urgent memorial notice. But SMS costs money (pricing is per message segment of up to 160 characters, not per individual character — a longer message is counted as several segments), so it needs to be used sparingly. Use SMS no more than 2-3 times a week, and keep each segment under 160 characters.

WhatsApp — Conversation + Engagement

WhatsApp is the community's everyday channel. Everyone's there, everyone sees it, and you can also get responses. WhatsApp is well suited for daily content — the weekly Parasha, activities, meal invitations, photos from events. The downside: not everyone you send to actually opens the group. Many people mute it.

Email — Long-Form Content + Record-Keeping

Email isn't read quickly, but it's kept. Use email for official content — meeting summaries, annual reports, formal invitations to large events, donation receipts. It's also the one channel that works well for the older generation who aren't comfortable using WhatsApp.

5 Writing Rules for a Message That Gets Read

A long, messy message with no call to action doesn't get read. Here are the rules:

1. A striking opening line — The first line needs to sum up everything. "Change: Mincha today at 7:30pm instead of 7:00pm." Not "Hello dear community."
2. Clear details — Who, what, when, where. If any of these four is missing, go back to the draft.
3. A single call to action — Ask for just one thing. "Please let us know if you're coming." Not three requests in one message.
4. Long = less read — Past 100 words, people stop reading. If it's long, split it into two separate messages.
5. Check before you send — A mistake in the time, a typo, or a wrong phone number erases your credibility for a month.

Timing — When Your Community Actually Sees the Message

Send time affects the open rate almost as much as the content itself. The best hours in Israel:

• Morning (8:00-9:30am) — The best time for important messages. People are on their way to work, checking their phones.
• Midday (12:30-1:30pm) — Lunch break, high open rates.
• Afternoon (4:00-5:00pm) — Before the workday ends, people are killing time on their phones.
• Evening (8:00-9:30pm) — People are home, early evening. After 9:30pm, the chance of it being opened already drops.

What not to do:

• Not before 8:00am — Annoying and impolite.
• Not after 9:30pm — Disruptive for families with children.
• Not on Shabbat — Schedule the message in advance to go out on Motzei Shabbat or Sunday.
• A reminder the day before an event — Not 3 days, not 2 days: one day before, in the evening, gets maximum impact.

Audience Segmentation — Not Everyone Wants Everything

The recurring mistake: sending every message to the entire group. Your community breaks down into several segments, and each segment should get different messages:

• Active members — Get everything. Prayers, events, class offerings, activities.
• More distant members — Get only holidays, important memorials, and major events. Not everything.
• Donors — Get separate campaigns, progress updates on fundraising goals, and sometimes exclusive content.
• Young adults (ages 18-35) — Get the events tailored to them, their classes, and not everything else.
• Older members (65+) — Get messages mainly by SMS and phone, since they're less active on WhatsApp.

Good segmentation doubles the open rate. People who only get messages relevant to them actually read them.

Metrics Worth Tracking

If you're not measuring, you don't know what's working. Track at least these 3 basic numbers:

• Open rate — How many people opened the message. Based on our experience, a healthy range is roughly SMS 85%+, email 30-40%, WhatsApp 60-70% — it depends heavily on the size and character of the community.
• Click-through rate — If the message linked somewhere, how many clicked. A typical healthy range: 5-15%.
• Response rate — If you asked for a reply (like "please confirm attendance"), how many answered. A typical healthy range: 20-40%.

If your numbers are lower, it's a sign you need to change the timing, the wording, or the channel. Any professional communication platform shows these numbers automatically. The community app also lets you send push notifications directly to the phone, with no dependency on WhatsApp. Effective messaging is part of overall community engagement.

Good communication isn't a channel. It's a system — the right channels, the right timing, short and clear wording, segmentation that respects the audience, and measurement that shows you where you stand. A Gabbai who spends a week setting up this system, plus an hour a week maintaining it, saves themselves dozens of hours of chaos in the first year, and ends up with a far more engaged community. The investment pays off from day one.