In Targeted Donor Race, E-mail Still Beats Social

With political campaigns and causes expected to spend up to $1 billion on digital efforts for the 2016 races, npr.org's James Doubek recently discussed the impact on the political marketing landscape. Thanks to social networks, campaigns are now able to enhance static data--voter lists and consumer behavior--with personal "engagement" data. To explain the advantage, Doubek quotes Will Conway, lead organizer at NationalBuilder, a political digital platform provider: "If this person subscribes to Field & Stream and he drives a Ford F-150, there's a high percentage chance that he's a veteran. Well, if in his Twitter bio he says he's a veteran, you know he's a veteran." So it's no wonder 2016 campaigns are spending on hyper-targeted Facebook and Twitter promotion (plus Snapchat, YouTube and more) to influence voters. But when it comes to raising money, e-mail is still the "king." "Nothing comes close" to an e-mail list, Michael Beach, co-founder of Targeted Victory, a Republican digital campaign firm, explains to Doubek, adding, "Our campaigns will do 70%-plus of their fundraising through e-mail." Back in 2012, Obama gathered 90% of his online donations from e-mails. And this time around, the e-mail list targeting is likely to be more refined and efficient. For example, Hillary Clinton's team has a 5 million-person e-mail list, but the average e-mail blast only goes to 780,000, because e-mail messages are tailored by factors such as interests and likelihood of donating. Read the complete news story: http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/07/28/426022093/as-political-campaigns-go-digital-and-social-email-is-still-king