It’s another Saturday, so for those who tune in, welcome to a diary discussing the Nuts & Bolts of a Democratic Campaign. If you’ve missed out, you can catch up anytime: Just visit our group or follow Nuts & Bolts Guide. Every week I tackle issues I’ve been asked about, and with the help of other campaign workers and notes, we discuss how to improve and build better campaigns.
Every year, and after every election, campaigns and consultants look back at their methods of contacting voters and assess what is working and what is not working. As time has gone on, one thing has become clear: younger voters, really anyone under 40, is not paying much attention at all to physical U.S. Postal Mail. Too many have developed a habit of just dumping their mail into a box by their door or not watching for mail at all. They have automated their bill payments, enrolled in paperless billing, and leave letters unread for days.
In light of that, more campaigns look to utilize more modern ways of contacting the voter. Your campaign, big or small, might be thinking of using digital campaigns and evaluating your budget. How can you make best use of your funds? We’ll cover that this week.
Direct contact that succeeds
One of the reasons why canvassing is so important is that it establishes direct contact with a voter. Still, a “hit rate” of around 20% to 30% is not uncommon, as candidates and canvassers find people aren’t home or aren’t answering the door. In digital advertising, this guideline is the same: how can we make sure that we are effectively using our resources. Using contact as a standard, many make their first stop on alternate means of contact the use of direct messaging through SMS/TXT. Messaging systems that utilize these contact methods are sometimes supplemented by state or local organizations. As a contact method, campaigns find SMS/TXT effective because it can allow them to quickly transmit information in a way that voters are more likely to check.
Campaigns have been known to send out everything from short “get out the vote” messages to links to a direct map of where the voter’s polling place is located. Most voters have a cell phone, and among younger voters, the adoption rate is at the highest. The use of digital communication through SMS/TXT should absolutely be considered as part of your campaign plan.
Facebook? Spotify? Pandora? YouTube?
Other digital advertising methods exist for any campaign in a variety of price points. Push advertising on Facebook, audio ads on streaming music services, and even video ads as lead-ins for YouTube. All of these methods can be used by a campaign often at a more effective price point than sending mail. While eliminating a mail program from your campaign is probably not something I would recommend, an effective budget will always mix in digital as part of the expenditures. It is far easier to make last-minute “boosted” spending on digital than try to prep a last-minute piece of mail that will impact anyone.
Several of these ads, like videos on YouTube or posts on Facebook can be shared organically. Now, as I’ve noted, I may have my own personal broad issues against the blue monopoly, but I recognize as a campaign tool, it is often a way to organically contact voters.
Managing your digital budget
What I find interesting in talking to people running campaigns around the country is that the smaller the campaign is, the more reliant they are on digital advertising. Campaigns that raise in sparse funds do not have an effective amount of money to build a mail universe that will have any traction. The common belief is if you only have a budget to send two mail pieces, you are better off doing something else.
I tend to buy into this argument. So, if you are budgeting your campaign, you look at how much you are fundraising and spending on mail or canvass costs and then you can estimate your digital advertising budget. This is sometimes the same process that banks use with “Save a Penny” and “Save the Change” programs. If you’ve got remainder funds, scrape some of those funds off into digital advertising to keep that presence going.
Nuts & Bolts will be back after the new year!