American researchers conducting a study overseas teamed up with banks to send text messages to consumers to remind them to save. There was a 16% increase in savings account balances by the cohort that got messages pointing out how the bank offered specific incentives for consistent deposits.
However, the messages that pointed out the bad things that could happen if you don’t save money did not affect the amount of money saved.
Could the same concept be transferred to wellness text message reminders?
The number of text messages in the U.S. grew from 75 million to 135.2 million from June 08 to June 09, The New York Times:
No single factor perfectly explains the steep growth in texting. It has little to do with technology, since the number of phones capable of texting grew only 7.3 percent from June to June. But “bucket plans,” whose users buy a deep, cheap “bucket” of text messages rather than paying a per-message fee, have certainly encouraged texting.
