Political Marketing Automation and Direct Mail: The New Dynamic Duo

Make your political campaigns more personalized, streamlined, and impactful.

Today’s voters are constantly bombarded with ads vying for their attention. That’s why it’s become so important to target specific voter segments with personalized messages that can break through the clutter. Reaching the right voters at just the right time with the right messages can be your key to winning them over.

However, with a multitude of media channels to choose from, large voter bases, leaner staff and high scrutiny of campaign budgets, this can be a daunting task for campaign managers.

While tapping into rich voter data and segmenting audiences has become the norm, finding efficient ways to deliver personalized content delivered against real-time voter behavior remains a challenge.

Political marketing automation can help you do all that and more—all while freeing you and your staff from time-consuming manual tasks related to managing online campaigns.

POLITICAL MARKETING AUTOMATION: A CAMPAIGN MANAGER’S SECRET ADVANTAGE

When we talk about political marketing automation, we’re referring to software technology that can help you efficiently run your campaign across multiple online channels such as direct mail, social media, and websites—within one platform.

Marketing automation works by enabling you to assign specific actions that are automatically triggered by online voter behavior such as donating to your campaign or registering for an event. These include sending direct mail and email. Automating these actions helps reduce cumbersome manual tasks for you and your staff, so you’re free to focus on other strategic actions.

For campaign managers, it’s like having an automated campaign expert that helps you determine the optimal content type, media channels, targeted messaging and call-to-actions for your campaign based on captured voter information and behavior.

For your campaign, marketing automation can be especially effective at nurturing voters with highly personalized content that resonates. This can help your candidate engage with prospective voters on a deeper level and most importantly, turn them into influencers.

WAYS TO ELEVATE YOUR CROSS-CHANNEL POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS WITH AUTOMATED DIRECT MAIL

1. DELIVER PERSONALIZED CONTENT 

THAT FEELS LIKE YOUR CANDIDATE IS HAVING A 1-TO-1 CONVERSATION WITH VOTERS.

Political marketing automation technology can help your campaign to quickly identify the most valuable prospective voters and send them highly relevant collateral that speaks to their specific issues and interests. Using dynamic personalization such as names, maps, and event details helps increase the likelihood that voters will interact with your content and respond with the desired call-to-action.

IDEA STARTERS:

  • Automatically trigger a personalized “thank you for supporting our campaign” mailpiece when a constituent signs up for your email list.
  • Nurture constituents throughout the election cycle with time-triggered mailpieces such as reminders to get out and vote for your candidate a few days before the election.
  • Trigger mailpieces from your data-base focused on key issues, such as education, that are important to specific voter segments. For example, inform them of upcoming education-focused political events such as school board meetings, etc.

2. STREAMLINE YOUR CAMPAIGN’S PROCESSES.

Integrating a variety of media channels in a nurture campaign not only makes more impressions, it helps you deliver unified messaging across channels.

Instead of using emails exclusively for every communication, mix it up and add a step that incorporates direct mail. The average lifespan of an email is now just 2 seconds and brand recall directly after seeing a digital ad is just 44%, compared to direct mail which has a brand recall of 75%.1

Some direct mail providers can integrate with a campaign’s automation platform through Application Program Interfaces (APIs). This allows you to relay information about individual voter behavior—in real-time—directly to print houses who then create personalized content relevant to that voter.

It also enhances campaign tracking, by letting your know which voter came from which campaign and how each is performing.

IDEA STARTERS:

  • After a constituent donates to your candidate, generate a personalized mailpiece to thank them by their name. The automation platform allows you to configure rules that will pass information to direct mail printers with each individual’s name and specific message.
  • Send direct mail multiple times along your voter’s journey with your candidate/platform by automating a new message at every stage of your election campaign.

3. MAKE AN IMPACT WITH MORE TOUCHES.

It can take multiple touches to influence prospective voters. This is especially true for Millennials. Research shows that this key voting segment prefers and is accustomed to verifying information from multiple sources. Political mail provides an opportunity for campaign integration by listing website and social media channels.2

And because direct mail works best when paired with digital in a multi-channel campaign, it is highly targeted and can be tailored to include highly relevant messages. That’s why it’s the perfect channel for political campaign strategies.

IDEA STARTERS:

  • Trigger a direct mail reminder for constituents who have registered to attend a local event where your candidate is speaking.
  • Use high-impact direct mail technologies such as augmented reality (AR), Near Field Communication, and dynamic QR Codes in your mailpieces to increase engagement and impact.

DID YOU KNOW THAT COMBINING AR WITH DIRECT MAIL:

  • Increases engagement. The average dwell time for an AR campaign is on average 2.5 times longer than other channels.3
  • Delivers more measurable and trackable results.3

THE BOTTOM LINE

Combining the power of direct mail with the streamlining capabilities of marketing automation is a dynamic political strategy that can help you nurture prospects into supporters. It’s a win-win.

FOOTNOTES

  1. Rosie Niblock, “Infographic: Direct Mail vs Email – the ultimate fact sheet,” Proactive Marketing, February 8, 2017.
  2. USPS and Summit national online survey among 1,156 U.S. adults March 18 to 23, 2016.
  3. “What is Augmented Reality and how can it enhance your direct mail?” Howard Hunt, March 21, 2016.