NMC Goes 5-1 in Off-Year Online Campaigns

0 Comment(s) | Posted November 04, 2009 by Clay Schossow | 

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Clay Schossow

Clay Schossow leads New Media Campaigns' project management and business development efforts. A graduate of UNC Chapel Hill, he has guided more than 200 websites from concept to launch. He is a frequent writer on Internet marketing and online campaigning. You should follow him on Twitter.

As a political website design firm, New Media Campaigns is happy to report that in 2009, an off year for elections, the company went 5-1.  NMC built online efforts in 5 different states for city council, mayoral, and levy campaigns.

The five winners were Stephanie Miner for Mayor of Syracuse, Luke Ravenstahl for Mayor of Pittsburgh, Bonner Gaylord for Raleigh City Council, the Hamilton County Library levy, and the Five Rivers Metroparks levy.  Unfortunately, the Joe Merrill for Mayor campaign was unable to unseat Binghamton’s incumbent mayor, but he ran a spirited and professional campaign that we were happy to work with.

Each campaign brought a unique set of challenges and goals to the table, and the NMC team was eager to assist them. 

We were proud to assist Romanelli Communications help Stephanie Miner become the first female mayor of Syracuse, and build an online fundraising infrastructure that helped raised tens of thousands of dollars online. 

The Ravenstahl mayoral campaign website design was successfully launched in just one week’s time – a very rare feat for a website of any kind, especially for such a high profile race.  This re-election helps the mayor continue his mission of moving Pittsburgh forward, which was featured in the NY Times this week.

Bonner Gaylord put together a sophisticated web effort that is rarely seen with local campaign websites.  He used his site to register and organize hundreds of supporters.  Furthermore, the fresh design and feel of the site helped differentiate the political newcomer from other candidates.

The two levies had the unenviable task of asking voters for money in a tough economy.  They were able to both be victorious by building a strong coalition of supporters.  Both campaigns successfully used social  networks to broaden their message and engage younger voters.  Furthermore, the library levy was able to recruit dozens of donors through yard sign and bumper sticker promotions hosted on the campaign site.

NMC has already began lining up clients for 2010 and will begin revealing its client list, including several statewide campaigns, over the coming weeks as the new campaign sites launch. 

Thanks again to our partners and clients on a successful 2009 election and congratulations!

Categorized in: Clients, New Media Campaigns, Politics

Should You Build Your Own Private Social Network?

3 Comment(s) | Posted October 21, 2009 by Clay Schossow | 

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Clay Schossow

Clay Schossow leads New Media Campaigns' project management and business development efforts. A graduate of UNC Chapel Hill, he has guided more than 200 websites from concept to launch. He is a frequent writer on Internet marketing and online campaigning. You should follow him on Twitter.

As social media have become more popular, organizations have frequently wanted to create a more branded and controlled experience for their target.  A common (and expensive) solution to this problem has been to build a private social network aimed at connecting your users with one another while bypassing the “distractions” in other networks.

These attempts range from a few wildly successful cases such as MyBo and Pickens Plan to many failures that just turned into virtual ghost towns.

The successful private networks are definitely the exception and not the rule.  You’ll notice all the successful cases were supported by organizations with really, really deep pockets.  It’s very difficult and nearly impossible to start a private, niche, network that organically takes off.

However, the very popular and high profile cases catch a lot of headlines and thus lead people to consider launching one for their own organization.  I frequently speak with great non-profits, corporations, and individuals who are toying with the idea of launching their own network. 

My answer is almost invariably no.

Save Resources and Go To Where Your Audience Already Is

Even though services like Ning have reduced the dollar amount to almost nothing to build a private network, the cost is still too high.  The true cost is your time and resources devoted to attracting and engaging users on a new network when they’re already herded and conversing on others, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and more.

Your audience has already set up shop in their desired social media, and to convince them to leave and spend the time to launch another presence is a nearly impossible task.  Rather than building your own space from the ground up, you should focus on leveraging the organizing tools in place on popular social networks that your target already inhabits. 

From Facebook Fan pages to LinkedIn groups (read more on using LinkedIn for business) to Twitter discussion, rather than trying to slowly build an audience from scratch and then engage them, you have the power to immediately connect with them in a space they’re already accustomed to.

Making Sure It's the Right Decision for Your Organization

Before you build your own network, you have to be able to answer the following questions with a definitive yes:

1. Have you already built a formidable community (I’m talking thousands and thousands of folks) through other social media?
2. Do you have the available resources to support and promote the new network with other media?
3. Has your brand cultivated an audience that is passionate enough to sustain its own community?

If the answers to those three is yes, I congratulate you on having a great organization and taking advantage of social media.  However, it still doesn’t mean you’re ready to launch your own presence.  You then must be able to pledge your continued and persistence efforts to the following:

1. Creating loads of content  that provides valuable information and fodder for discussion to educate and engage the community.
2. Continually interact in the  community by answering questions, greeting new members, posting content, and encouraging interaction.
3. Progressively upgrade the network with exciting new features, offers, and opportunities.

As I stated above and these checklists demonstrate, it's very very rare that it's appropriate for an organization to build its own social network, it's even more rare for that intiative to actually succeed.

Your resources would be best utilized to engage your target on their ground and terms rather than trying to dictate a new gameplan.  Have you seen other organizations that don't fit this mold successfully build their own networks?  Have you been a part of a winning private network?

Categorized in: Internet Marketing, Politics, Social Media

Using Social Media in Political Campaigns (Part 1)

0 Comment(s) | Posted September 24, 2009 by Clay Schossow | 

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Clay Schossow

Clay Schossow leads New Media Campaigns' project management and business development efforts. A graduate of UNC Chapel Hill, he has guided more than 200 websites from concept to launch. He is a frequent writer on Internet marketing and online campaigning. You should follow him on Twitter.

Since we do a lot of political website design, we frequently find ourselves helping candidates navigate the confusing landscape of social media.  It’s a place where campaigns know they should be, but they don’t always know all of the nuances behind it.  So, we’ve put together this multi-part series on using social media in political campaigns to help you effectively and efficiently leverage this exciting space.

Social Media has become the marketing strategy du jour for corporations and organizations of all sizes.  From crowdsourcing vehicle designs to delivering excellent customer service, marketers are using social media in a variety of manners to derive input and value from their target.

Social Media also offers the rare example of a marketing strategy on which politics isn’t twenty years behind.  Candidates and elected officials have been quick to adopt and leverage social media to engage and educate voters.  For example, Barack Obama had dozens of social network profiles, ranging from MiGente.com to Facebook to BlackPlanet.  However, as candidates continue to learn everyday, they’re not Barack Obama. 

He was the once-in-a-generation-type candidate who had the type of celebrity appeal that made people excited to actually be his friend and network online with him.  However, even though Obama is the exception and not the rule for extreme social media success, it doesn’t mean that your campaign can’t still have a formidable online presence that supports your offline efforts.  It’s no secret that the campaign website is the hub of a campaign’s online activity, but social media are an important supporting cast that can drive valuable traffic to the site and engage voters on a more personal level.

This post, the first in the series, aims to educate campaigns on the most important social media and where you'll see the most bang for your buck.

What Social Media Should a Political Campaign Use?

This question is a difficult one to answer.  When deciding how many social networks to join, it ultimately comes down to the candidate’s appeal and the campaign’s resources. 

The number one rule is to not have any social media presence become a “ghost town,” meaning don’t join networks that you don’t have the available resources to update or be active in.  It reflects horribly on a campaign to have a vacuous social network profile – a rarely update presence makes it appear that the campaign doesn’t value that network and its demographic while also suggesting that the campaign is more of a spammer than general conversation constructer. 

While the first rule is to not overextend yourself into too many networks, that doesn’t excuse any candidate from not having a presence on at least a few of the top networks.  We believe it’s absolutely necessary to have presences on at least: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr.

I like to call these networks the Big Four.  They’re the fastest growing and farthest reaching of social networks; also, they represent four distinct ways of publishing to and connecting with voters. 

• Facebook is comprehensive and allows you to post pictures, add videos, send detailed mass messages, publicly interact on Walls, and more.
• Twitter excels in short message bursts, event updates, blog post pushes, and breaking news.  It allows a campaign to instantly send a succinct message to 1000’s of followers and also lets the campaign interact with other people in a one-on-one manner.
• YouTube is purely a video medium.  However, its reach cannot be underestimated.  The service’s search engine is second in use only to Google!  This staggering number of searches makes it essential to own your candidate’s name for search on this platform.
• Flickr should be used to publish campaign photos.  With more than 4 billion images and over 30 million monthly visitors, it’s an important place to be and exposes your campaign to an important network.

As you can see, each network is totally unique and allows you to connect with a huge audience.  Voters expect every campaign to be on these media.  In addition to simply having a presence on each of these networks, you should update them frequently and make sure that they are linked to from your main campaign website, allowing voters to easily get access and engage you in the different networks.

Depending on your campaign's message and target, other networks could also prove to be very useful.  For a candidate with a strong business background, LinkedIn is a logical choice.  For campaigns that are targeting an edgy or urban crowd, Myspace can still be a viable and effective network.  There are dozens of other networks out there, with niche focuses ranging from veterans to volunteers. 

If you have the available resources, the first networks to focus on after the "Big Four" are those focused on niches to which your candidate has specific ties.  This strategy allows you to use natural synergies and capitalize on the base character of the candidate and campaign. No matter which networks you focus on though, it's important to never break the first rule by allowing any of your presences to become a ghost town.

This first post was more of a general overview.  Part 2 will focus on how to specifically use and leverage each Big Four network.  We invite you to stay tuned through our RSS feed or to join our Online Campaigning Linkedin group, where we hope these posts foster some creative and engaging conversation.  Let us know your thoughts on social media and politics and any success you may have had in the comments.

Categorized in: Internet Marketing, Politics, Social Media

How to Build a List: Gather Data Early and Often

0 Comment(s) | Posted July 26, 2009 by Clay Schossow | 

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Clay Schossow

Clay Schossow leads New Media Campaigns' project management and business development efforts. A graduate of UNC Chapel Hill, he has guided more than 200 websites from concept to launch. He is a frequent writer on Internet marketing and online campaigning. You should follow him on Twitter.

As a leading political website design firm and having worked with dozens of other niches, we understand that one of the most important and appealing aspects of a web presence is to gather important data about visitors.  This data can be leveraged to keep in touch with visitors, microtarget your message, provide relevant calls to action, and more. 

From our experiences with clients and other industry research, we have seen that one of the most effective ways to quickly build a list is to prompt your visitors for data very early in the site experience.  One way to effectively accomplish this goal is to have a registration splash page before the main content.  A splash page significantly (30-50% in some cases) increases sign ups.

However, while it is extremely beneficial to have as much data on each visitor as possible, it can be troublesome to try and collect it all at once.  For splash pages, we don't recommend collecting more than 5 simple fields, typically: First Name, Last Name, Email Address, Cell Phone, Would You Like to Receive Texts? - only email and name are typically required of those fields. 

This strategy of collecting limited data upfront is due to the fact that people are much more likely to fill out a brief, simple form that only asks for basic information than to take the time to fill out detailed data.

There are several reasons that people don't want to fill out too much information at once.  First, is simply the time factor involved.  Visitors to your site are busy people and have plenty of things to do other than fill out your form, so they're likely to abandon the process if there are too many fields.  Second, is a trust factor.  This visit could be the first time that the person has interfaced with your organization, and they could be hesitant to give out too much information about themselves.

However, just because you only gather a little data early, it doesn't mean that you can't expand on that information over time.  This is where the "often" of "gather data early and often" comes into play.  Once you have a visitor's base information from your splash page, an email registration, a contact form, or some other form of contact, you should continue to ping them over time to fill out more data.

A great strategy is when blasting out emails to supporters, to send different blasts to people with varying amounts of information in your database.  For example, for folks that you only have a name and email for, prompt them at the end of the email to visit your site and enhance their file with more important information.

By breaking the "data asks" into several chunks, you've avoided the first obstacle of a long form being a time-sink for visitors.  They now never have to spend a substantial amount of time on a single form with an overwhelming number of fields.  Similarly, you've jumped the second hurdle of trust by having established a rapport with the visitor over a series of email blasts and other interactions.  They likely now either support the campaign or are willing to receive more information to help their decision, so as long as you haven't abused the original data they provided, they're more likely to fill out the second fields.

The other half of the often equation is to have "data asks" laced throughout your site; in fact, there shouldn't be a single page that doesn't afford someone the ability to submit data, even if it's just an email address, or to quickly access a contact/volunteer page.  On our political sites, we have an email registration field as a standard feature in the top right of all pages.  Furthermore, even on our own corporate site, every page has a newsletter signup in the sidebar.

By prompting vistiors for information early and by understanding that you don't need to hit the ball out of the park on the first submission, you can reliably scale your contact list over time.  Use frequent asks, email marketing, and sustained contact to continue gathering more and more information from visitors, ultimately allowing you to better microtarget your message and personalize thier experience with your organization.

Categorized in: Internet Marketing, Politics

Amazon Shuts Down Associates Program in North Carolina

1 Comment(s) | Posted June 26, 2009 by Kris Jordan | 

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Kris Jordan

Kris Jordan leads web programming & development at New Media Campaigns; Kris previously worked for Microsoft's Developer Division, and studied Computer Science at Brown University and UNC Chapel Hill. You should follow Kris on Twitter.

"We are writing from the Amazon Associates Program to notify you that your Associates account has been closed as of June 26, 2009. This is a direct result of the unconstitutional tax collection scheme expected to be passed any day now by the North Carolina state legislature (the General Assembly) and signed by the governor."

What is the Amazon Associates Program?

Amazon Associates is a Amazon's referral program. Bloggers and webmasters who place links to Amazon on their website will get some percentage of each sale that is generated by traffic from those links. It's Amazon's equivalent of Google's AdSense. Many bloggers and webmasters use associates as a way to support their blogs and websites.

Who does this affect?

To understand the significance of a program like associates shutting down it is worth first answering: how do blogs make money? The upper-crust, say the top 3-5% of blogs, sell their own ads or are involved in small advertising rings. These sites demand a premium for their ads and have full-time staffs writing for their sites and selling advertisements. The long-long-tail blogs, the lower 40-60% of blogs, don't make any money or run at a loss because of hosting costs. These are mostly personal blogs, or the just-getting-started blogs.

So who is most affected? The mid-level bloggers. Amazon Associates and Google AdSense are the two leading ways of monetizing mid-level blogs. Monetization is actually too noble of a word: covering hosting costs is more like it. These blogs typically don't generate enough revenue to be full-time jobs for their authors, the money is simply a reward for producing really solid content and obtaining respectable audiences. The best written, most interesting content of the blog-o-sphere comes not from the most popular commercial blogs but from the mid-level bloggers whose writing is a labor of love.

If programs like Associates and AdSense start shutting down due to state legislation the most interesting and insightful bloggers and blogs will suffer because of it.

The Full 6/26/2009 Amazon Email

"We are writing from the Amazon Associates Program to notify you that your Associates account has been closed as of June 26, 2009. This is a direct result of the unconstitutional tax collection scheme expected to be passed any day now by the North Carolina state legislature (the General Assembly) and signed by the governor. As a result, we will no longer pay any referral fees for customers referred to Amazon.com or Endless.com after June 26. We were forced to take this unfortunate action in anticipation of actual enactment because of uncertainties surrounding the legislation’s effective date.

Please be assured that all qualifying referral fees earned prior to June 26, 2009 will be processed and paid in full in accordance with our regular referral fee schedule. Based on your account closure date of June 26, 2009, any final payments will be paid by September 1, 2009.

In the event that North Carolina repeals this tax collection scheme, we would certainly be happy to re-open our Associates program to North Carolina residents.

The North Carolina General Assembly’s website is http://www.ncleg.net/, and additional information may be obtained from the Performance Marketing Alliance at http://www.performancemarketingalliance.com/.

We have enjoyed working with you and other North Carolina-based participants in the Amazon Associates Program, and wish you all the best in your future.

Best Regards,

The Amazon Associates Team"

Categorized in: Politics, Internet Marketing

Marketing an Online Political Campaign

0 Comment(s) | Posted June 21, 2009 by Alex Pomer | 

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Alex Pomer

Alex Pomer is a project manager and online media buyer at New Media Campaigns. He received a degree in Advertising from The School of Journalism and Mass Communication at UNC Chapel Hill. He has successfully launched sites for statewide political campaigns, national organizations and non-profits. Follow him on Twitter.

Political websites are one of New Media Campaigns' specialties. And oftentimes, we give suggestions for how to best market the websites we build. We've done several on-line ad campaigns for political clients in the last few weeks so I thought I'd share a couple guidelines, both with regard to ads and also to political marketing in general.

How to get the most out of your ads

• Placement is key. The efficiency of banner ads in general isn't stellar (less than 1%) and if you don't place your ads in front of the right audience then you don't have a chance. Look into local newspapers' websites. Advertise in the politics section obviously, but don't forget to advertise in areas that reflect the issues that are important to your campaign. Google's adwords and Facebook ads are both very inexpensive and should be at least a part of your online marketing campaign. Google allows you to target users who are searching for keywords that directly relate to your campaign. Facebook does the same except with people's interests instead of their searches
• Your ad should be a call to action. With banner ads, you have one or two sentences at most so you need to make every character count. Readers are probably only going to glance at your ad so unless it stands out and inspires the reader to take action, you don't have a shot at getting them to check out your website (which is the whole point, right?).
• Use more than one ad. You never know what ad will bring the masses to your website so when you're placing ads online, create two or three and rotate them. Then monitor them throughout your campaign and if one ad is producing significantly fewer clicks than the other, take it down. It doesn't make sense to place all your eggs in one ad-basket. Create a few and let real data decide which ads you're going to stick with.
• Use CPC as opposed to CPM when possible. The goal of banner ads is to redirect web users to your website. So don't pay for just impressions when you don't have to. Pay for clicks on your ad since that's what you want anyways. Both Google and Facebook allow this option but they're not the only ones. Look into the sites you're advertising on and if they allow a 'cost per click' option, take it.

How to get the most out of blogs

• Research blogs that are relevant to your platforms. Look into both political and non-political blogs that align with the issues that are important to your campaign. People choose to read blogs that interest them. If your campaign is pertinent to the blogs you've researched then it's likely that your issues are pertinent to the readers of those blogs and they'll be more likely to take to heart the information you present.
• Send bloggers a personal email. Your research should include not just the blog but also the person writing the blog. Send that person a personal email detailing who you are, what your issues are and most importantly, why they are relevant to the blogger and the blog she writes (note: changing the name at the top of a templated email does not qualify as personal). Bloggers are always looking for something new and interesting to write about especially if it appeals to their readers. If your campaign will appeal to the blogger's readers, try getting her to write a post about you. You'll reach a large group of readers/potential supporters without the trust barrier that comes along with traditional advertising.
• Don't send bloggers mass emails. I touched on this earlier but bloggers can be your enemy just as easily as they can be your friend. They have the ability to reach people who want to read about topics relating to the issues surrounding your campaign. Don't irritate these bloggers by spamming them with mass emails. You want them on your side not writing about how annoying it is to get email after email from you. Which brings me to my last point...
• Email, but don't email too much. Not so much about blogs but, if someone has indicated that they want to receive updates about your campaign, don't violate that trust by emailing them several times a week. You want the people who get your emails to read what they say and the more often you email, the more likely it is that they will just delete the email or unsubscribe from your mailing list.

What are you doing to market your political campaign? Have you employed any of these strategies to success? To failure? Do you have any other suggestions? Let me know in the comments below

Categorized in: Blogging, Politics, Social Media, Internet Marketing

Reflecting on Three Years of Business

3 Comment(s) | Posted May 25, 2009 by Clay Schossow | 

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Clay Schossow

Clay Schossow leads New Media Campaigns' project management and business development efforts. A graduate of UNC Chapel Hill, he has guided more than 200 websites from concept to launch. He is a frequent writer on Internet marketing and online campaigning. You should follow him on Twitter.

Just last week on May 5, to little fanfare around the world (except for a few tweets), our firm celebrated its third year in existence.  It has been an exhilarating and rewarding few years, which has seen us grow from a bootstrap funded startup to a successful full service web design and development firm that has launched over 200 websites for clients ranging from public corporations to national non-profits.

Over time we have grown in number, have had a couple of different offices, have adjusted our business model, have won awards, and have made plenty of mistakes.  However, we have also always stayed true to our core business philosophies:

• Empower our clients with powerful technology that meets their needs to solve specific problems.
• Create beautiful websites that set our clients apart from their competitors.
• Provide unparalleled personal service, always making ourselves available to our clients and going the extra mile for them.
• Have a lot of fun in the office and make NMC a truly enjoyable place to work.
• Do all of the above at an extremely affordable price for our clients, allowing them to successfully leverage the web at a fraction of the cost of our competitors.

Challenges and Decisions Along the Way

When we first launched, we envisioned ourselves as only a political web design firm, solely focusing on that niche.  As it stands today, a little over one third of our total business is political, and the rest is non-profits and corporations.  This is due to the fact that within weeks after launching, our political clients brought us non-political business; rather than reject these clients, we embraced the new niches and expanded into new regions.  This decision ended up being a major revenue driver and likely kept our company alive through off-election years.

Similarly, when we first launched the company, we didn't foresee acting as a web development partner for ad agencies, and that is now our most explosive area of growth.  The idea makes total sense.  Ad agencies are amazing at strategy and creative; we have special talents with technology and understand the web.  Why not marry the two knowledge bases to provide clients with the best of both worlds and no added overhead?!  It seems so straightforward now, but it was a space we looked over in the frenzy of our initial launch.

This ability to wholeheartedly embrace change within our company and shift on the fly ultimately helped us become a stronger company with a deeper body of work and a more steady revenue stream.  To this day, we're constantly trying to think of ways to evolve our business into other disciplines that strengthen our overall offering to clients and also grow our company.

Separating Ourselves from the Pack

We have progressively grown every year that we've been in business, in terms of volume of work done and company revenue.  The number one thing attributing to that growth are referrals.  We pride ourselves on being passionate about our clients and truly wanting them to succeed online, and they have rewarded us by sending new business our way.  

In addition to our service, another reason our clients remain happy with us is our view on project-based billing vs. on-going hourly fees.  We're not here to milk every billable hour out of each client, in fact we try to avoid hourly charges to clients all together.  After we have priced out, built, and completed a project, over 90% of our clients never incur an hourly fee; however, just about all of our clients reach out to us for help or advice sometime in the future...we just don't bill them for those requests.  

It's a pretty novel idea in the world of interactive agencies and most of our clients are initially skeptical, but it boils down to our core principles of empowering our clients with powerful technology at a good price.  We want them to succeed, and we know that if we do that without unnecessary fees, the long tail of the relationship will be much more lucrative than billing for our time on a phone call.  This approach has worked well for us and our clients, and I'm surprised that more agencies aren't moving in the same direction.

Where We Are Now

These decisions and procedures have helped us stay viable and become the company we are today, all along without ever deviating from the core principles outlined above.  As it currently stands, we're one of the top political web design firms in the country, have a renowned Content Management System, and have built a prestigious client list.

None of this would have been possible without facing the adversities listed above or without the dedication of our staff and partners.  It's been a great ride over the past years and we have learned a lot; we're also focusing on continued expansion over the next year.  2009 has already been the strongest year in our company's history, and it's much thanks to the leg work we put in the past three years.  At times, it was a slow growth curve to get here, but it has continued to be worth it, by allowing us to do quality work and have fun.

Happy Birthday to New Media Campaigns and congrats to our team for some great work, and a special thanks to all of the clients that have made this possible!

Categorized in: Blogging, Content Management, New Media Campaigns, Partnerships, Politics, Internet Marketing

Leveraging Mobile Technology in Politics

2 Comment(s) | Posted April 02, 2009 by Clay Schossow | 

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Clay Schossow

Clay Schossow leads New Media Campaigns' project management and business development efforts. A graduate of UNC Chapel Hill, he has guided more than 200 websites from concept to launch. He is a frequent writer on Internet marketing and online campaigning. You should follow him on Twitter.

Over this weekend, I made the trip up to Washington, D.C. to attend the 2009 Pollies Conference. One of the breakout sessions from the conference was focused on leveraging mobile technology in politics and how it has already been used successfully. The panel for the session was Kevin Bertram, CEO of Distributive Networks; Scott Goodstein, the brain behind Obama's text strategy; and Christan Zimmer, CEO of the Mobile Giving Foundation.

The Case for Using Text Messages in Political Campaigns

Everyone was exposed to the success of Obama's mobile strategy through his VP announcement via text. While that instance is most likely the Mobile "posterboy" example of 2008, there are still many other things to take note of relating to the importance of mobile.

Predictably, there is great penetration in the young voter demographic with 76% of 18-24 year olds texting regularly. What's more surprising is that the medium's dominance even extends to senior citizens, with 19% of the 65+ age bracket texting. Mobile is no longer restricted to teenagers and twenty-somethings. The statistics demonstrate that mobile is now a mass medium with deep penetration in every demographic.

Furthermore, Kevin Bertram relayed a very compelling statistic that all of Distributive's internal and external studies had consistently demonstrated approximately a 4% increase in voter turnout when mobile is used in the days leading up to and on election day. That is a shocking number that shows the power of texting and how it can be used to engage and excite a campaign's base. A 4% bump it turnout can easily be the difference between winning and losing come election day.

The medium is absolutely exploding with activity and continuing to grow. Zimmer stated that on the first day that texting was available in the US in 2001, there were approximately 20,000 messages sent over the network that day. Today, just eight years later, literally billions of messages are being sent over cell phone networks every day.

Text messages have an extremely high read rate due to the captive nature of the audience and the strict control of SPAM messages managed by the US carriers. Voters are checking their email less and less and are more prone to delete campaign or superfluous emails. However, texts still have an abnormally high read rate as people are constantly checking their phones and read nearly every message before deleting them.

There's clearly a huge opportunity in leveraging mobile technology in political campaigns. From engaging hard to reach demographics to delivering definitive results on election day, the medium has already proven itself to be valuable to campaigns of all sizes.

Ways to Build a Campaign's Text Message List

Similar to most important media, the hardest part of leveraging the strategy is actually gaining an engaged audience, which in this case consists of building a list of voters' cell phone numbers. The panel outlined several compelling Calls to Actions to help build a campaign's list of numbers. Almost all of these methods revolve around short codes, which are short messages (HOPE was one of Obama's most used - UPDATE: a Short Code is the number you text to, such as 388873, where as the message, such as hope, is called the "trigger."  Thanks to Dane for catching this oversight on my part) that supporters text to a designated number and are then automatically subscribed to your list.  So, it is not just about gathering the data from your main website or on-the-ground signups, but also utilizing short codes in a variety of methods to gain signups:

• Give Incentives. Everyone loves free things, and voters are much more willing to part with their data in exchange for something tangible. Some great examples of incentives utilized by the Obama campaign and others are bumper stickers, ring tones, and cell phone wall papers. Tell supporters that by texting a short code to the campaign that they will receive one of these incentives in exchange.
• On-site/event participation. At a fundraiser or rally, have a specific part of the event dedicated to having people subscribe to your text list by having a moment for them to text in the shortcode to subscribe. Obama utilized this strategy at nearly all of his rallies. One thing the panelists made sure to note was that you give the attendees a few minutes warning before they need to make the actual text; for example, ask them to pull out their phones a couple minutes before displaying the actual short code.
• Sweepstakes and Contests. Manage a contest where participation is strictly managed through supporters texting the campaign. Examples of possible prizes are the opportunity to meet the candidate or have a VIP ticket to an expensive event. Promote the contest on the campaign website, at events, and through other media for supporters to text a specific short code to be entered into the contest.
• A "Must Have" Offer. Distribute exciting and compelling information and offers solely through texts. For example, tell supporters that the location of the post-rally party will be offered exclusively via text. Or guarantee that once a month via text, the campaign will send out information about the candidate's whereabouts for supporters to meet him/her. People will be likely to give up their number for texting if there is an exclusive offer tied to the medium.

All of these methods have been successfully utilized by political campaigns, non-profits, and corporations to help build their lists. These strategies are very inexpensive to the campaign and can be used in conjunction with each other to quickly build out a large, excited, and engaged list.

When is Texting the Right Strategy

Even though the panel was stacked with mobile evangelists who had successfully leveraged the technology, they were still adamant that texting is only the right strategy in certain cases.

Texting is a great strategy to be used for communicating with your core base. These supporters have already bought into your campaign's message and will be excited to receive an intimate message to their handset.  You don't need to convince them of the merits of your campaign, but can simply use texting as another way to engage them and get them more involved.

The panelists admitted that texting is not going to replace the other current major forms of political communication such as direct mail, TV, or even email blasts. The fact is that texting is not an effective persuasion tool. With only 160 characters, you're not going to be able to sway an undecided voter to vote for your campaign.

Similarly, texting is not a good tool for going negative. The alloted space is simply too short to convincingly lay out negative arguments against opposing campaigns. Furthermore, your supporters did not opt in to get Spammed with negative messages coming straight to their phone, so it's not worth alienating them by going negative.

It's a great way to disseminate small, time-sensitive tidbits of information to your supporters. For example, before Obama appeared on Letterman, the campaign sent out a text to supporters that evening, alerting them of his appearance. This event was very time-sensitive and rather than sending an email at night that probably wouldn't be read until the next day, the campaign guaranteed a timely notification by sending a text. Also, due to the brevity of the announcement, it would have been a waste of an email that could have been better utilized for a longer fundraising message or issue statement.

While texting is certainly on the rise and a powerful strategy, it is not going to replace the persuasive and content-rich media such as direct mail, online, or TV. Texting is becoming the ideal method to communicate short, time-sensitive information to your base, but a campaign has to be very careful not to alienate their base by sending superfluous messages straight to the phones of supporters.

Conclusion

While texting has been in use by campaigns for the past several years, it really came into its own in the past cycle, powered by Obama's innovative use of building and leveraging lists of numbers. The technology is continuing to grow in popularity and asserting itself as a medium that permeates every demographic. While not perfect for every campaign need and not poised to unseat other entrenched media, texting has already demonstrated itself as a valuable technique for GOTV efforts, event information, base engagement, and more.

We will definitely be working with our clients to implement and enhance their mobile outreach strategies, ranging from building initial lists to leveraging those numbers through the course of the campaign. Does your campaign or firm have plans to embrace mobile? Have you already had success with texting campaigns? Has this article helped you understand the value and strategy associated with mobile technology in political campaigns?

Categorized in: Politics, Social Media, Internet Marketing

Political Registration Landing Pages -- Good Strategy or Annoying Hindrance?

1 Comment(s) | Posted March 26, 2009 by Clay Schossow | 

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Clay Schossow

Clay Schossow leads New Media Campaigns' project management and business development efforts. A graduate of UNC Chapel Hill, he has guided more than 200 websites from concept to launch. He is a frequent writer on Internet marketing and online campaigning. You should follow him on Twitter.

One of the largest roles of a political campaign website is to gather data from voters and donors. Sites gather data in a variety of ways, whether through simple contact forms, volunteer sign ups, online contests, contributions, or other methods.

However, in the last cycle, a new strategy rose to prominence, the registration landing page. This is a registration page that appears before the main site and prominently prompts visitors for their data in order to proceed onto the site. There is also a less distinguished "Skip to the Site" option typically located in the bottom left, allowing people to continue moving on to the site.

2008 certainly was not the first year for this strategy, but it had previously been a pretty rare strategy and reserved mainly to high profile races. This past cycle saw the landing page technique become ubiquitous, appearing on campaign websites at every level. Our Vote the Site research reported a large amount of landing pages in House races, where they had previously been very rare.

My opinion of this strategy has evolved over time. Two years ago when they were less popular, I recommended our clients against them. I felt they were a usability nightmare and could potentially turn  undecided voters away from the site as they struggled with figuring out how to skip the registration and access the content, causing the candidate to lose that vote.

However, as the registration landing page has grown in popularity, my usability fears have equally diminished. Voters are now so accustomed to the landing page, that they are much less likely to "bounce" off the site because they can't navigate it. Also, that upfront registration ping has a decent chance of getting a casual supporter to surrender their data in order for campaign updates about the candidate.

We now recommend registration landing pages for nearly all of our political websites. In addition to just recommending them, we urge our clients to get them up as soon as possible. These pages have proven themselves to be a valuable data collection tool, and by getting them up early in the campaign, the candidate definitely gets a leg up on their opponent(s) by building their list quicker.

As a voter, what is your opinion on political registration landing pages? Do you frequently sign up through them? Do they ever lessen your opinion of a candidate or prevent you from visiting the site? To see this philosophy extended to the corporate world, check out an example of a great landing page.

Categorized in: Design, Inbound Marketing, Politics, Social Media, Internet Marketing

Launching a Political Campaign Website in Just One Week

1 Comment(s) | Posted March 13, 2009 by Clay Schossow | 

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Clay Schossow

Clay Schossow leads New Media Campaigns' project management and business development efforts. A graduate of UNC Chapel Hill, he has guided more than 200 websites from concept to launch. He is a frequent writer on Internet marketing and online campaigning. You should follow him on Twitter.

This post is meant to shed some light on the NMC process and how we're different from many other web firms out there. As a web design firm that works with dozens of political campaign websites, we've noticed candidates are already eager to gear up for the 2009 and 2010 cycles. This trend can probably be attributed to the campaigns witnessing the success of President Obama's online campaign.

Over the past couple weeks, we've launched several online campaigns and had numerous others contract with us to begin building their sites.

However, one recent campaign website stands out as unique among them, because of the way and speed with which the site was planned, designed, implemented, and launched. The site is for Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, and the entire process took only seven days!

We pride ourselves on our service philosophy and quick turnaround, but this site really takes the cake for speed and results. Much of the credit, however, is owed to the Ravenstahl campaign for their great feedback and timely deliver of necessary content.

What's most striking is that this turnaround is not some unattainable goal, as many people believe. Much of the credit goes to the amazing campaign staff for helping out by getting us all the information and feedback we needed in a timely manner.

Here's a timeline of how the Ravenstahl for Mayor campaign website took shape:

• Monday, March 13 - The campaign fills out our standard Creative Brief. The CB is the document that guides us through the creative process by giving us into the campaign's themes, aspirations, and ideas. The campaign answered all of the questions and got us the necessary materials such as their logo, candidate headshot and pictures.
• Wednesday, March 15 - We returned the first draft of the design to the client. Thanks to their great answers on the CB, we very nearly nailed it with the first draft.
• Thursday, March 16 - We work with the campaign to iterate on the design based on their feedback. Mostly small changes pertaining to minor layout and menu changes. We also draft the interior page design based on the latest iteration.
• Friday, March 17 - The campaign approves the design and we begin coding it onto our Content Management System. We code each of our sites in CSS onto our system, ensuring that the custom design is completely controlled by the CMS.
• Through the weekend - Our team worked over the weekend to finish the coding and get the site up on our test server by Monday morning. The campaign was awesome and sent us great content throughout the weekend, allowing us to load it into the site through the CMS as we tested across browsers and hooked up interactive features.
• Monday, March 20 - Final proofing by the campaign and we launch the site in time for the Mayor's noon announcement. The whole process took just seven days and we owe a lot of the credit to the campaign for being so helpful.

The site has been well received so far. We plan on continuing to build out new features and the campaign will continue adding content through the CMS, but it's a great starting point for an important race.

We were very excited when we were first selected to be involved with such an awesome race, and have only got more exhilirated as we've seen how truly awesome the campaign is to work with. In case you haven't already, be sure to check out the site.

I hope you found this post interesting to learn more about our process and how we work with political campaigns around the world (we recently just signed our first two international clients, so we can now say that). Do you have any exciting launch stories of your own that you want to share?

Categorized in: Clients, Design, Development, Politics