The Most Awesome Subject Line Ever
Jacob Nielsen’s article about newsletters during the last week of the campaign brought back some memories from the last presidential race.
During my time in Florida, I would call my parents everyday to say hello and I remember them being very annoyed with all of the phone calls from the grassroots organizations. One day it was a recording from John McCain, the next day it was a Kerry volunteer. As the countdown progressed, so did the number of calls...and so did the aggravation.
I think that the important lesson from the Nielsen article is for the campaign to try to put themselves in the voters' shoes. Voters may not be interested in the election during that final week, especially if the hype surrounding the election is exhausting. I can't imagine that the last week of the campaign is a great time to ask for money (though I'd be interested in seeing fundraising results). I think it’s much more constructive to concentrate on Get Out the Vote initiatives during that time.
If I was distributing those newsletters, the subject line would be absolutely indicative of the intended message. It’s not time for the title to persuade them to read the entire newsletter; it’s time to tell them to “Vote for Bush on Tuesday” or to “Remind 5 friends to vote for Bush” so they don't have to read the newsletter.
5 Comments:
I think you're dead on here. A campaign can't expect its supporters to want to read its newsletter every issue, much less in the last week. Crappy subject lines were Kerry's No. 1 newsletter problem.
On fundraising in the last week, I'd say that Kerry was trying to take advantage of the Democrats' fear of the recurrence of a Florida debacle, and thus sought to raise money for the recount. From all accounts of how much the two candidates had for a recount, Kerry was much better prepared.
Then, of course, when there was no legal battle, he had to donate all that money to charity. What a payoff for all those last-minute donors!
I have to agree with you too. As an employee at the RNC during the campaign, everyone made calls the last week of the campaign to voters in FL, OH, PA, etc.
I will tell you, there were some angry Floridians. They would say things like, 'if you call me one more time, I won't vote for Bush!" I think the problem was that so many conservative groups were all using the same phone list. No one really differentiates between the groups who call because they're all calling for the same reason, "remember to vote for your GOP candidates on Tuesday."
I feel for the people in battleground states....
The problem is that if you don't make those phone calls and the opponent does, people are going to get tons of phone calls from the opponent and none from you. Even subtracting the people who get fed up, that kind of pounding will result in a net vote gain for your opponent. Therefore, attrition it is!
I agree that GOTV is vital the last few weeks, especially for the faithful, but there is a certain percentage of people who don't make up their mind until the last few days of an election (who these people are I don't know, but apparently they exist) therefore persuasion remains important right up to the end.
I agree with you completely. At a point so late in the race, don't waste your time on emails that people will disregard, but get to the point!
If groups were allowed to coordinate, they could avoid harrassing voters. Campaign Finance law doesn't let us do that, though, and it makes campaign way inefficient.
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