Blog
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June 23, 2009
Campaign data drives the voter lifecycle
Drive the Voter Lifecycle by capitalizing on your greatest ally: Campaign data. Campaign data helps you raise money, build a brand, and put the right people in the voting booth by allowing you to identify and target:
• Probable voters,
• Favorable voters (ones who will vote for your candidate),
• Potential donors, fundraisers, & motivators,
• Voters to be ignored
Data allows you to build a strategy that drives disengaged voters from supporters, to donors, to fundraisers, and finally to campaign advocates; a sequence BlueSwarm refers to as the Voter Lifecycle.
Unfortunately, most political organizations have difficulty using the data they have. The wide variety of disparate databases made necessary by the diverse data collection methods utilized by vendors (usually proprietary databases) and consultants (usually spreadsheets) are at fault. These databases collect campaign data without regard for diverse data collection methods causing overlapping or duplicate data for a voter, for a region or for an event.
These disparate databases and the data points they collect include:➢ Voters
Voter list generation
Voter direct mail
Paid-phone voter ID
Absentee voter/early voter data
Micro-Targeting
GOTV➢ Volunteers
Volunteer phone lists
Volunteer preferences
Yard sign locations➢ Favorable
Voter ID
GOTV
Direct mail surveys
Online surveys➢ Fundraising
Bundling programs
Major donor programs
Low-dollar programs
PACs/527s
Events
o Invite lists
o RSVPs
o Host reports
Direct mail solicitations
Email solicitations
Outbound telemarketing
Online donations➢ Donors
Pledge tracking
Pledge management
Contribution tracking
Contribution management
Bundler management
Fulfillment
o Thank you letters/emails
o Pledge letters
o Premiums
Donor relationship management
o Direct mail
o Telemarketing
o Email
Inbound telemarketing➢ Communications
Online
Phone banking/Robo-calls
Direct mail
Door-to-door
Email blastsNo one vendor or organization can provide best-in-class services for all of the data listed above, which is why we see diverse data collection methods and disparate databases. However, by:
Housing all campaign data in a centralized database, and- Providing database access to all campaign vendors,
a campaign effectively develops a platform that can accommodate its widely varying needs while preventing the long-standing problems of overlapping or duplicate data. The campaign can then focus on analyzing and acting on data rather than aggregating and managing data.
The benefits of housing all campaign data in a centralized database and creating a standard set of web services for vendor integration include:- Future-proof campaign data against a constantly changing technology and political world,
- Ability for the campaign to select vendors on a function-by-function basis,
- Reduction of the campaign’s cost to change vendors thus creating a competitive vendor environment, and, most importantly, reducing the campaign’s dependence on any single vendor,
- Allowing the campaign to emphasize action on data rather than synchronizing data between varying systems
But how do you determine what, exactly, should go in the database from this wealth of data?
The answer to this question leads back to driving the Voter Lifecycle. The Voter Lifecycle focuses on each individual person’s conversion from disengaged voter, to supporter, to donor, to fundraiser, to advocate. Therefore, a centralized database should be configured to focus on contact records.
Increasing the Voter Lifecycle’s conversion rate is most dependent on a few core pieces of information that should be stored in a contact record:- Name and contact info
- How a contact got into the database
- Current position in the Voter Lifecycle
- If and when a contact volunteers or how much they donated
- If they are part of another important group such as press or surrogates
This information empowers a campaign to identify and target their audience by defining Lifecycle Personas. Character profiles identifying a contact’s needs, desires, worldview, attitude, personality, and behavior define Lifecycle Personas.
The principle value of Lifecycle Personas lies in their influence on campaign decision-making processes:- What language to use in appeal letters,
- How marketing strategies are implemented,
- How to coordinate GOTV and door knocks, etc.
Obviously, the more robust your data is on each contact, the better prepared a campaign is to develop these Lifecycle Personas.
The key take-away here is that campaigns need to develop Lifecycle Personas as early as possible, so implementing a centralized database focused on contact records at an early stage is critical.
A campaign may only have one opportunity to capture information from a voter. Be sure your campaign is ready to seize that opportunity and capitalize on your greatest ally: Campaign Data. -
May 28, 2009
Best Craigs List sales copy ever written
Who says great sales copy has to be short and direct. Here is an ad for a couch in the Bay Area that is utterly inspiring. I am dying to see a picture of this "leather couch of my dreams."
The bad news is that CraigsList doesn't have a good sense of humor and they've already pulled this posting down. Boooo!Here it is...the leather couch of your dreams. Its beige leather surfaces are in pristine condition, no rips or scuff marks to speak of. Animals domesticated or otherwise, were not allowed on it. Teenagers were only allowed only under adult supervision and with numerous scornful/reproachable looks thrown in to make them uncomfortable enough to leave the room. Moreover, despite best efforts for conjugal activity, nothing of a sexual nature has ever happened on (or sadly near) this sofa.
This sofa is in, another words, FANTASTIC shape.
But wait...there's more!
This couch originally cost over $1,300 and includes an inner spring mattress that has NEVER BEEEN slept on. That's right. No only has sexual activity never occurred ON the sofa, the bed itself has never had a hint of any such action. Let alone drooling, snoring or even breathing.
So how much does such a beautiful, exquisite, dare we say, Virginal, piece of furniture cost you?
Wait for it...
$200 obo.
That's right, OBO. Or Best Offer. So you're probably just vibrating with anticipation at this point as to exactly what could constitute a 'best offer'. Well, let me tell you.
A best offer is when someone arrives, looks at the couch, hands over an agreeable sum of money and THEN CARTS THE COUCH AWAY.
What is an agreeable sum of money?...I don't know, riddle me this Sherlock...did you notice the part where I said, THEN TAKES THE COUCH AWAY? Because if you can follow those simple instructions that agreeable sum of money can be ludicrously small, a pittance, a flippin' joke in fact. But if you show up, offer $150 and then ask me to move it for you, well, you're about $1,000.00 too short.
So, if you want the couch, if you need this couch, if you're just'a jonesing for that perfect couch to perform all sorts of debauchery on...and if YOU're willing to CART this couch away...this couch is definitely for you.
One last thing, if you can get my son to help you load it I will give you $20. That's right, if you'll get him to actually help lift the friggin couch, you win $20. I don't care if we settle for $10 on the couch and I wind up OWING you money. Just ask for the Internet deal. -
May 12, 2009
FEC's New 3L Form Targets Campaign Bundlers
The 3L form is the latest and greatest hit from those star-makers at the FEC. The purpose of this filing is to track bundled contributions forwarded by, or created by lobbyist and PACs. Here is the actual 3L form for your PDF downloading, form-filling enjoyment.Who does it affect?
The 3L is designed to disclose bundled contributions from
- lobbyist/registrants, or
- lobbyist/registrant PACs
who contribute in excess of $16,000 during a filing (or coverd) period.
What is a "filing period?"
House and Senate candidates - your filings are quarterly: April 15, July 15 and Jauary 31. Quarterly reports filed on July 15 and January 31 must also include total reportable bundled contributions for the semi-annual covered periods of January 1 through June 30, and July 1 through December 31, respectively. Reports for the 12-Day Pre-Election covered period include activity from the day after the closing date of the last report filed through the 20th day before the election and are filed no later than the 12th day before any primary or general election in which the candidate seeks election. Reports for the 30-Day Post-General Election covered period include activity from the day after the closing date of the last report filed through the 20th day after the election and are filed no later than 30 days after the general election.
Party Committees, Leadership PACS, and Presidential Committees - You file your 3Ls at the same time as you file your Form 3X but... if you file your 3X monthly, you have the option of filing your 3L quarterly. Now isn't that easy to remember?
Thanks FEC for another great form!Here is the full FEC speal on the 3L.
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April 30, 2009
Handy Federal Election donation limits chart (thanks McKenna Long & Aldridge)
A friend of ours over at McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP in DC gave us this great donor limits chart (in a business card size). It is a pretty handy tool so here it is for all you campaigners out there:
DonorsRecipientsSpecial LimitsCandidate CommitteePAC (1)State, District, Local Party Committee (2)National Party Committee (3Individual$2,400* per election (4)$5,000 per year$10,000 per year combined limit$30,400 per year*Biennial limit of $115,500* ($45,600 to all candidates and $69,900 to all PACs and parties (5)State, District and Local Party Committee$5,000 per election combined limit$5,000 per election combined limitUnlimited transfers to other party committeesNational Party Committee$5,000 per election$5,000 per yearUnlimited transfers to other party committees$42,600* to Senate candidate per campaign (6)PAC Multi-Candidate (7)$5,000 per election$5,000 per year$5,000 per year combined limit$15,000 per yearPAC Not Multi-Candidate$2,400* per election (8)$5,000 per year$10,000 per year combined limit$30,400* per year*These limits are indexed for inflation in odd-numbered years.
(1) These limits apply both to separte segregated funds (SSFs) and political action committees (PACs). Affiliated committees share the same set of limits on contributions made and received.
(2) A state party committee shares its limits with local and district party committees in that state unless a local or district committee's independence can be demonstrated. These limits apply to multicandidate committees only.
(3) A party's national committee, Senate campaign committee and House campaign committee are each considered natinal party committees, and each have separate limits, except with respect to Senate candidates - see Special Limits column.
(4) Each of the following is considered a separate election with a separate limit primary election, caucus or convention with the authority to nominate, runoff election and special election.
(5)No more than $45,600 of this amount may be contributed to state and local parties and PACs.
6) This limit is shared by the national committee and the Senate campaign committee.
(7) A multicandidate committee is a political committee that has been registered for at least 6 months, has received contributions from more than 50 contributors and - with the exception of a state party committee - has made contributions to at least five federal candidates.
(8) A federal candidate's authorized committee(s) may contribute no more than $12,000 per election to another federal candidate's authorized committee(s). 2USC§432(e)(3)(B) and 11CFR 102.12(c)(2).
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April 28, 2009
Boston Globe burys White House related errors!
Which is the true news story here?
Today's Wall Street Journal front page states:
"A 'Classified Photo Op Turns Into A Soaring Blunder for the White House
Mission to Get Beauty Shots of Presidential Jet At Statue of Liberty Panics 9/11-Wary New York."
This headline is followed by a nice color picture of a Air Force One 747 and a fighter jet flying at low altitude. The article then goes on to talk about the Air Force admitting that the flight was a secret mission of which city officials had been made aware.What about the Boston Globe?
The Boston Globe has a very different take on this story. On the Globe front page, there is a small lead that says,
"A flyover by two jets sent frightened workers pouring out of buildings..."
The AP article is printed on page A7 and doesn't mention the fact that one of the planes is an Air Force One 747 until the 8th paragraph, 300th word. Talk about burying the lead.
The fact that it was a Presidential Air Force One buzzing Manhattan and scaring folks is THE STORY! Why hide it?
This is not a huge story so why protect the White House in such a heavy handed manner? What else are you hiding?And the Globe (owned by the NY Times) wonders why its subscribers are defecting to Internet based news sources.
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March 26, 2009
Presidental fundraising: 2008 verses 1976
While doing a little market research today, we pluged the past 9 election cycle fundraising numbers into a graph. Besides the dip in the 1980 election, we've got a serious growth industry here.
Note that the Y access is in millions so the total amount raised in the 2008 cycle was $1.63 billion. That buys a lot of yard signs.
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March 26, 2009
Calling all Australian PHP developers, we need bodies to manage our CodeIgniter/AJAX mashup CMS
Calling all Australian PHP developers, we need bodies to manage our CodeIgniter/AJAX mashup CMS which we call Tegel: http://tinyurl.com/cg6x4g.
Candidates must be able to work on-site at our offices in Rozelle, less then 7 minutes for the center of Sydney.
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March 17, 2009
Twitter for complete and utter beginners
A client of ours who is not very "new media" savvy wants to jump into the Twitter pool without looking like a total rube. They asked if we could jot down a few notes to help them get started.
If you are halfway familiar with Twitter, you can stop reading now. If you are new to the Twitter world, the following notes may help you get started. Note that these thoughts were pulled together from a bunch of folks in the office so if there is any plagiarism here, please be flattered ;)
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1. Twitter Basics
Twitter is a free mass text-messaging service that allows you to send out 140-character messages to a group of followers. It is used by friends, family and co-workers to stay connected. Twitter utilizes real time updates (referred to as Tweets), which are posted on your web-based Twitter profile and sent to your Followers’ (other Twitter users) mobile phones.
Twitter is like a casual digital diary and is used for publishing fun facts, useful tools, thoughts, questions, etc. The 140-character space limit emphasizes a large number of short posts. Twitter posts traditionally consist of:
- Status Updates: “Off to the store for some milk”
- Musings: “The construction on 95 in Stoneham is driving me insane!”
- Interesting Links: “Peggy Noonan’s comments today on the economy hit the nail on the head: http://online.wsj.com/peggy-noonan.html”
- Questions: “Is anyone else having problems with their GE fridge freezing up?”
- And much more.
It is not necessary to make each Twitter post substantial. Twitter followers are most interested in what you are interested in or what you are doing now. Twitter should be treated as a fun, slightly self-indulgent broadcasting toy that can lead to a deeper connection with your audience.
Note that Twitter is not just a way to broadcast messages, you can also reply, “@replies” in Twitter-speak, to your followers. Replies are not necessary but are considered good form in the Twitter world.
2. Glossary- Tweet – a short (I40-character) message.
- weeters/Tweeple - People who use Twitter.
- Twoosh - A perfect 140-character tweet.
- Followers - Tweeters who are following your tweets. Followers will see any updates you make on their homepage of Twitter.
- Following - Tweeters you are following. You will see any updates (tweets) on your homepage from anyone you are following
- TweetUp - An ‘in person’ meeting between Twitter users.
3. Getting Started
All you need to use Twitter is a computer with an Internet connection or a mobile phone. Go to http://twitter.com and sign up. Take a look at who is using Twitter by using the Find People tab. Some successful tweeters include:
- eNilsson - http://twitter.com/enilsson (we couldn't not include this one)
- CNN Breaking News – http://twitter.com/cnnbrk
- Stephen Fry – http://twitter.com/stephenfry
- Barack Obama – http://twitter.com/BarackObama
- Anderson Cooper – http://twitter.com/andersoncooper
Once you are comfortable with the experience, you can take advantage of all Twitter features.
4. Things you should do- Post tweets that add more value than the attention it consumes. Instead of posting “just had a great burger”, post something like “great burger specials today at Joe’s Burger Palace in Cambridge”.
- Be aware of how often you tweet. Post enough to keep followers interested (at least once a day), but not so much that you flood their feeds with 50 new tweets a day.
- Use Twitter to provide updates when a new blog post or press release is posted on your website. This can be done automatically provided the content is already in an RSS feed.
- Use services like tinyurl.com and is.gd to shorten links. Tweet real estate is important because of the 140-character limit. Tweeters use these services (often built into desktop and mobile Twitter applications) to shorten links like https://www.freestrongamerica.com/contribute to http://is.gd/kHdP.
5. Things you shouldn’t do- Do not post just news updates. News updates are important, but including personal content in your tweets allows for that human feel that makes social networking and media work.
- Don’t post and read at the same time. What happens is that you are all set to make a post, but you see updates from people you follow so you stop to read those. After a while, you have forgotten what you intended to post, as well as your to do list. Schedule time to twitter.
- Do not use an @reply to send a message to someone that you would like to be private. This will show up on the public timeline.
6. Mobile Tweeting- Text Messaging/SMS: You can send updates to Twitter by linking your mobile phone number to your Twitter account and then sending a text message to 40404. You can also elect to receive Twitter updates of other users by allowing Twitter to send their updates to you in a text message. Important: Twitter is limited to 140 characters while most mobile carriers set the text message limit at 160 characters. If you go over 140 characters then your message will be curtailed.
- Smart phones: Popular devices like Blackberry’s and iPhones have applications that can be downloaded to improve the user’s experience with Twitter. For the iPhone, try TwitterFon at http://twitterfon.net or Twitterrific at http://iconfactory.com/software/twitterrific. Each device and application has its pros and cons, but the general principals of Twitter remain the same.
7. Twitter applications for Blackberry users- TwitterBerry – The most widely used Twitter application for Blackberry phones, TwitterBerry has its legions of loyal followers. With all applications, TwitterBerry can only pull from the Twitter api less than 70 times an hour. A complete FAQ can be found here: http://www.orangatame.com/products/twitterberry/faq.php. The supported devices and system requirements can be found here: http://www.orangatame.com/products/twitterberry/.
- Twibble – The second most popular Blackberry application for Twitter. Twibble will function on any JavaScript enabled mobile device. Pros for Twibble include keyboard shortcuts and minimal amounts of data transferred. A huge draw for most Twibble users is that Twibble can be configured to be ‘geographically aware’ on some devices – this includes updating your latitude and longitude coordinates with each Tweet. For obvious security reasons we would not recommend enabling this feature. More information here: http://www.twibble.de/twibble-mobile/.
- TinyTwitter – TinyTwitter succeeds in that it will work for any phone that is JavaScript enabled. All of the basic functions are the same, including a number of settings to customize the user interface and data displayed. More information can be found here: http://www.tinytwitter.com/about.html.
8. Actions/Features- @replies - By using “@username” at the beginning of your tweet, you can direct that tweet at a specific user. It is intended to support back and forth communications. This type of messaging is publicly visible.
- ReTweet - To re-send a previous tweet or to resend someone else's tweet so it reaches a larger audience. Proceeded with “RT @username” with the username being the original author.
- Direct Messages - You can send a direct message to another user by using the message link on their profile page, the reply icon from your own direct message, or using the command “d <insert username> <insert text>” message. Only you and the person you are direct messaging will see the contents of the tweets. You can only send a DM to someone who is one of hour followers.
- Favorites - You can store any of your favorite tweets by clicking the star icon by the message.
- Tags, hash tags, and #’s – You enter a tweet that reads: #golf Augusta National GC opening soon. The #golf is a tag. Users will often include a tag somewhere in their messages if they are relevant to a popular topic. The tags can be searched at http://search.twitter.com/. The search result for #golf is http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23golf. All tweets with the #golf tag will be listed.
9. Recommendations- Acquire your name, fore example: twitter.com/DavidBeckham: As in domain names, a Twitter account name is important. The more personal you can keep it, the better. Example: WarrenBuffett is a better username than BerkshireHathaway.
- Use mobile tweeting, but use an application and not the text message service. If someone were to gain access to your account then that individual would be able to access your phone number. Also, an application can allow you to browse tweets easily – the SMS/text message option would require you to subscribe to a user and would also open yourself up to a plethora of text messages.
- Consider using a service like TweetLater.com to track relevant keywords and hash tags, automatically post pre-written tweets at scheduled intervals, and automate a host of other actions.
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February 26, 2009
Australian Department of Immigration is all kinds of awesome
It appears that usability standards have not reached Down Under.
While filling out a 457 Long-Stay Visa application, we were faced with the following pulldown:
"If you wish to lodge only one nomination application then leave the counter set at "0". Entering "1" will generate two nominations, this nomination and an additional nomination. Entering "9" will generate ten nominations, this nomination and an additional nine nominations."
The best part was that one of the pull down options had two seperate zeros to choose from. Don't choose the first one becaust that zero doesn't work.
Calling all usability experts, there are jobs to be had with the Australian Government! -
February 26, 2009
The wrath of Internet Explorer
Lifehacker.com header - from top to bottom - in IE 6, IE 7, and Firefox 3. If you're involved in the world of web design and developing then you know all about the horrendous family of browsers from Microsoft. The nomenclature is quite appropriate - each labeled as Internet Explorer and then followed with a number that dictates what ring of hell each hails from.
The awfulness of Internet Explorer (6 and 7 being the presently used versions) doesn't really have all that much to do with the user experience. IE 7 is actually a tolerable browser when you're stuck running Window Updates and downloading spyware tools on your computer illiterate friend's computer. The real evil shows itself when you write up code for a website and you have to insert some annoying workaround to get some simple element to render correctly.
Case in point: When we want to use images with transparency in IE 6. Or building a Flash application that will run on a https server and the problems that causes with IE.
In Internet Explorer's defense, other browsers do miss the mark in the same respect. But at least other browsers are grouped somewhere around the bull's eye. Internet Explorer is the drunk at the local bar that's, at times, lucky if it's hitting the wall that supports the dart board.
Like an idiot I held out hope that IE 8 would make all of this a bit easier. Nope. Recent news from ZDNet is quite sad. IE 8 has a growing list of high traffic sites that apparently are not compatible with how it wants to render them. The best one on the list: microsoft.com.
And all these browser issues is another reason why we love Flex.
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Campaign data drives the voter lifecycle
June 23rd, 2009 -
Best Craigs List sales copy ever written
May 28th, 2009 -
FEC's New 3L Form Targets Campaign Bundlers
May 12th, 2009 -
Handy Federal Election donation limits chart (thanks McKenna Long & Aldridge)
April 30th, 2009 -
Boston Globe burys White House related errors!
April 28th, 2009
