Politics of Email: Marketing the President

by Steven Brown

Now that 2004 Presidential election is over, what will happen to the millions of email addresses the candidates collected so persistently? How will the political parties continue building relationships with their e-constituents between now and 2008? We raised this issue and more last month during a discussion of the election at the INBOX email marketing event. Lyris has a number of political clients, and collaborated with the event director to organize this exclusive panel of representatives from the Kerry and Bush campaigns. Mike Connell, CEO of New Media Communications, and I described our respective companies' work with the Bush campaign, and presented some of our our most important lessons.

Campaign Comparison

The panel presentations made clear that both political parties used email to drive Web site traffic, enroll volunteers, generate financial contributions, and, ultimately, Get Out the Vote (or, as the politicos put it, "GOTV").

The Democrats apparently used email for a greater portion of their fundraising, while the GOP focused on stimulating local activism and volunteer efforts. Mike Connell, a veteran marketing strategist who likened the campaign approach to a "one day sale" in which all efforts lead up to that first Tuesday in November, also indicated that content personalization and viral referrals were key aspects of his client's email marketing success.

A common denominator between the two parties is that their respective staff work incredibly hard—and they expect their Email Service Providers to be just as dedicated. Presidential campaigns mean long hours, last-minute requests, and exacting quality, all of which translates into loads of work for the ESP.

At Lyris, this included 24x7 support, a custom interface for easy creation of highly complex conditional content, and database tuning for extremely fast delivery of personalized messages.

In the months leading up to the election, a number of writers published articles evaluating the two parties' email marketing Best Practices. Each campaign was critiqued for breaking some of the rules that good commercial marketers take as givens: failing to send "welcome" messages upon sign-up, using cryptic or meaningless subject lines, or not managing expectations about mailing frequency.

Mike Connell explained that political candidates are "catching up" with email, but in some cases they're actually cutting the edge in sophistication. He gave a prime example from the Bush campaign, which used Lyris ListManager software and postal address information to merge in detailed maps and driving directions to individual list members' polling stations.

Key Lessons

One member of the audience asked the killer question: what will the parties do with the lists they've built for this election? Each has millions of email addresses, names, and, in some cases, demographics, all of which are incredibly valuable if kept fresh.

The panel ran out of time to explore this issue in depth, but I've given it further thought in the last couple of weeks. Is the "one day sale" approach a fact of life in politics? And if so, how could a political party transition from intense acquisition to more patient retention in between its periodic "sales"? How could it maintain a dialogue with enough constituents such that it doesn't have to start from Address One all over again?

One approach would be to identify a "List Champion" whose mandate is to protect the integrity of the current addresses, oversee list hygiene, and coordinate acquisition efforts. Some amount of attrition will happen no matter what, but the List Champion would work to minimize it.

The List Champion would articulate now what the party's list should look like in two years, when the next round of presidential campaigning will likely begin, and then work backwards from that point, planning a variety of steps to achieve that desired "state of the list."

In order to create a manageable, long-term communication plan that keeps the dialogue going without burning out the list, the List Champion would also collect constituents' preferences for post-election mailing frequency and topics. Mailings that were previously sent daily or weekly would surely need to be scaled back for all but the party diehards.

Last, the List Champion would be a best practices educator, teaching the rest of the organization that "spam" is no longer just from fly-by-nighters—it's also from known, trusted individuals who send irrelevant mail. That "one day sale" mentality may be ingrained throughout the organization, and changing it won't happen overnight. But by listening to and acting on constituent needs over the long term, the political marketers will be that much smarter about targeting messages, raising money, motivating volunteers, and "GOTV" for the next election.

During the Inbox discussion, the panelists agreed that today's email marketing best practices will become "expected practices" in the future. Everyone also recognized that email marketing will be a critical part of any major political campaign that's to come—especially the 2008 presidential race. The results of this year's candidates are so well documented—in particular, those of another Lyris customer, the Howard Dean campaign—that other candidates will aim to reproduce or improve upon those successes in the future.

Curious for more? Take a look at Baseline Magazine writer Larry Dignan's recent hypothesis about how a totally unknown, independent candidate could leverage email and the Internet for a successful presidential bid.

Contact us at editor@lyris.com to share your ideas. We may include it in the next issue of Making Mail Work!