Those Fundraising E-mails May Annoy, But They Work

Annoying, alarmist, pestering political fundraising e-mails are here to stay -- because they work. That's the conclusion from extensive e-mail testing in the 2012 presidential election by Obama's Digital Director Teddy Goff and his team. Looking at more than 400 e-mails, Goff's testing showed conclusively that the more that went out, the more money came back. The growth in the number of unsubscribers was much slower than the growth of cash. In his new book on the 2012 Obama campaign, The Center Holds, journalist Jonathan Alter notes: "Goff concluded that ignoring the human desire not to be annoying may have been the single greatest conceptual breakthrough of the campaign. It turned out to be worth more than $100 million." For more excerpts from Alter's book about Obama's successful e-mail strategies, see the Wired story at http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/06/dont-dismiss-email-a-case-study-from-the-obama-campaign/