Campaigns Must Arm to Win the 2016 Digital Race

Campaigns and causes will be competing on a digital battlefield as never before in the 2016 elections. A recent MediaPost.com article by Mike Werch, marketing manager of SocialCode, offered eight key digital strategies to boost message impact, expand voter base and capture donations. Werch advises: 1) target unaffiliated voters by serving digital ads to lookalikes, people with the same interests and behaviors as those in the voter, donor or e-mail subscriber files; 2) recapture donors with digital remarketing (use of Website Custom Audiences) to target people who visit a donation page but fail to donate; 3) apply digital insights across channels, using the creative test results of digital video to hone TV or print ads, for example; 4) improve primary audience response with digital geo-targeting, testing geo-targeted digital video to perfect expensive local TV ads, for example; 5) segment audiences for more digital leverage, using Facebook's rich user data, for example, to deploy ads relevant to targets' demographics, behaviors and interests; 6) do a local-interest digital campaign in an area before hitting the pavement, and follow up with conversion-focused ads to build mailing lists; 7) do digital "get out the vote" campaigning, messaging politically inactive Facebook users who also match political affinity targeting as an example; 8) test 2016's new and improved ad options for political campaigning, such as Facebook's lead ads for mobile sign-ups and conversions with pre-filled forms. For more detail, read http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/264971/how-2016-presidential-candidates-can-win-the-digit.html

Lobbying Pro Shares Advice on Wooing Washington

Getting and keeping the attention of Washington, D.C., decision-makers is a perennial challenge for business lobbies, special interest groups and nonprofit causes, especially as election year distractions increase. Here's some timely advice courtesy of a recent Direct Marketing News magazine article by Senior Editor Al Urbanski, who sought out longtime lobbyist Alex Vogel, former chief counsel to past Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and the current head of political analytics firm VogelHood Research. Vogel laid out some handy rules for winning Capital influence: 1) first know the "ask," the specifics of what you want from political power brokers, right down to the title of a bill and its underlying issues; 2) then know the elected officials you want to court and interface with them early and often via e-mails, phone calls, donations, town hall participation, etc., all the way to campaigning help; 3) don't snub the 22-year-old assistant along the way, advises Vogel, because "that's the person who makes the decision on your issue" in a city run by underpaid assistants who investigate and vet issues and sit by the politician's side in the committee hearing to provide advice; 4) build coalitions with those who are also affected by an issue or legislation to maximize clout; 5) let the national representative or senator take credit in the local community if things go your way, because what elected official doesn't love a photo op with constituents smiling about jobs/health/renewal/community, etc.; 6) don't be shy about sharing your political views along with donations or campaign support because business and politics, and charity and politics, definitely do mix at election time; 7) have an ongoing dialog with Washington decision-makers and influencers because, as Vogel counsels, "If you just think to call when you need something, it's too late." For the complete article, read http://www.dmnews.com/how-to-get-your-way-in-washington/article/408390/

Acquiring Political E-mails for Best Response, Dollars

Political campaigns and nonprofit causes are always seeking to acquire new "good" e-mail addresses to grow and sustain their lists. Campaign marketers should be interested then in a two-part study provided by Jesse Bacon to epolitics.com. Bacon, of PowerThru Consulting, looked at an environmental cause client's data to tease out which e-mails by acquisition route offered the best performance in terms of cost-effective response. He compared three common ways that political and advocacy campaigns acquire e-mails: 1) paid acquisition; 2) online advertising, including social media (in this case study, Bacon focused on Facebook ads); and 3) list exchanges with like-minded groups. He found that e-mails from swaps led performance in terms of open rates, click rates and click-to-open ratios. Paid acquisition came in second, and e-mails from Facebook ads came in last in opens and clicks, although they still performed above industry average and so were a potentially viable way to build an e-mail list because of Facebook's low cost. The next part of his analysis looked at how those same e-mail acquisition groups performed in terms of fundraising dollars over an 18-month period. Here list exchanges really shone, contributing 45% of new members but 66% of all funds raised. Facebook was the bottom performer, accounting for 22% of the new members but only 10% of funds raised. When it comes to donation per member by acquisition source, Bacon found that swaps and acquisitions both performed about the same in terms of the average gift (between $19 and $20), while the Facebook members were less generous, with an average gift just over $15. For more detail, go to http://www.epolitics.com/2014/07/22/email-acquisition-performance-part-2-who-pays-the-bills/

Online Politicking: Versatile Must for 2014 Campaigns

Every savvy candidate and advocacy group in 2014 is going to do some Internet politicking. But do they know how to maximize their online power? "How to Use the Internet to Win in 2014: A Comprehensive Guide to Online Politics for Campaigns and Advocates" offers itself as one guidebook. As summarized by Colin Delany, founder of Epolitics.com, for the Huffington Post, a winning strategy includes both online fundraising, for repeat pushes of those donate buttons, and online recruiting, for donors and volunteers who will become viral emissaries in turn. Campaigns are advised on mobilizing supporters to participate in e-mail efforts, virtual phone banks and digital rallies. Grassroots organizing is given a digital spin, too, with iPads, tablets and other mobile devices used as on-site donation takers (via mobile credit card readers) as well as dispensers of maps, videos and canvass talking points. Digital advertising, meanwhile, can be made more effective with improved analytics and targeting. The Internet is also a great way to quick-test, from A/B subject-line splits to complex positioning. Worried about the high cost of a shotgun mass media effort? Online geographic selection can offer cheaper and more precise targeting. Finally, the Internet is a rapid-response weapon in case of attacks and unfavorable coverage. For more, go to the blog post at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/colin-delany/the-internet-in-politics-_b_4420094.html

The Dead Can't Vote, But They Can Donate

The dead can't vote, but they can give to political parties and candidates. In fact, 32 people listed on federal campaign records as "deceased" contributed more than $586,000 to Congressional and Presidential candidates and political parties since Jan. 1, 2009, according to a recent USA Today analysis of Federal Election Commission filings. Federal campaign rules allow individuals to make candidates and political committees the beneficiaries of their estates, just as they can leave money to charities. In first place among recipients of gifts from the grave is the Democratic National Committee, which garnered $245,000 from deceased donors. At the top of the list of dead donors is Raymond Groves Burrington, a Tennessee man who left more than $217,000 to the Libertarian National Committee. Current federal rules require political giving by the deceased to comply with applicable contribution limits. So an individual's estate cannot donate more than $5,200 to a federal candidate during an election cycle and no more than $32,400 to a political party each year. But a case pending before a federal appellate court in Washington, D.C., seeks to overturn limits for deceased donors. The Libertarian Party is arguing that it should be able to receive Mr. Burrington's money as a lump sum, rather than in annual installments, since "a dead person can't corrupt someone," reports USA Today. See the full story at http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/08/04/campaign-contributions-from-the-dead/2616245/