Understanding Your Voters

The 2020 presidential election and the 2022 midterms inspired record voter turnout

The United States set a modern record for turnout in a presidential election in 2020 with 66.8%.¹ Voter turnout for the 2022 U.S. congressional elections was the second highest for a nonpresidential election year since 2000, with 52.2% participating.²

What does this mean for your campaign?
More opportunities to get that plus-one vote that could make a pivotal difference, ultimately leading to a victory speech.

Why taking an omni-channel campaign approach matters

Constituents today are constantly tuned in to a range of devices across multiple platforms, making it harder for candidates to stand out among the onslaught of political advertising messages.

A strategy that integrates online (email, banners, social media) and offline (direct mail, canvassing) channels can create maximum impact and deliver an experience that voters can’t ignore.

70%

of surveyed voters
read political mail upon receiving it.³

It’s Not Just Who You
Reach—It’s How You Reach Them

Whether the goal is to educate, persuade, or Get Out the Vote (GOTV), it’s important
for campaigns to connect with their target audience on a deeper, more personal level. Winning their votes starts with understanding what drives them to take action.

Let’s explore the mindsets of four different voters and the opportunities to reach, engage, and mobilize them along their journey to the polls.

Select a campaign button to explore voter profiles

Party Loyal

Party affiliation can automatically sway this voter’s decision to one side. The challenge is to get Party Loyal voters to the polls, in both the primaries and the general election. This presents a great opportunity for campaigns to allocate resources toward messaging around the key party issues that these voters care about.

Background of people with different political parties

Campaign Opportunities

for the Party Loyal voter:

Awareness

Campaigns can use data such as voter registration lists to identify which voters are registered with their party. That data can then be used to send a political mail piece with attention-grabbing messaging that imagines a world where the other party takes control of the office.

Bonus

You can then use that same voter list for digital targeting to reach the same constituents across multiple channels.

Persuasion

Your mail piece helps drive constituents online, so your campaign can collect first-party data while communicating the next chapter in your narrative—an optimistic message about a brighter future where your candidate is elected to office. You can also guide voters to specific information, like the candidate’s donation page.

58%

of surveyed voters search online to learn more about that race after reading a mail piece.³

GOTV

Messages that lean into key party issues and platforms can be particularly powerful for these loyalists. This can drive primary and down-ballot voting decisions and also reinforce the importance of going to the polls.

of voters find direct mail to be persuasive.³

Advocacy

Once the voter data is captured, your campaign could send constituents a political Share Mail^® piece before the election, thanking them for their support and asking them to spread the word to friends, family, and colleagues.

Share Mail is a customized direct mail product that works like a word-of-mouth marketing tool. Constituents can communicate and relay messages to each other through a postcard or letter sent from a USPS^® commercial mailer.

Instinct Driven

Instinct Driven voters tend to make decisions based on intuition. They typically trust their instincts and feel confident in their decisions. The challenge is to deliver relevant messages to these voters, at the right time. They can be influenced by like-minded groups, individuals, and candidates.

Campaign Opportunities

for the Instinct Driven voter:

Awareness

Campaign data is critical to reaching and precisely influencing an intuitive voter. You can mobilize new constituents by leveraging first-party data to uncover key psychographic information about your supporters. With this information, you can create multiple look-alike lists and then customize a targeted direct mail message to appeal to new voters.

Identify key organizations.

Choose organizations whose mission and values align with your target audience. Then create look-alike lists based on their membership and associated trends seen in demographics and psychographics to expand your reach.

Persuasion

With this valuable audience data, your campaign can craft highly tailored messages that speak to key values or interests for various groups. For example, you could deploy a political mail piece that highlights surprising commonalities between the constituents and the candidate.

Informed Visibility^® feature

Using this innovative feature, campaigns can coordinate direct mail with other political efforts such as social posts, email outreach, and door-to-door canvassing to further amplify their message. An omni-channel strategy is important with this audience to increase campaign visibility. 72% of marketers coordinate direct mail with email and 46% coordinate direct mail with paid social.⁴

Informed Visibility is a single, near real-time source for mail aggregate tracking information from USPS data that can help campaigns enhance direct mail performance through analytics and automation.

57%

of surveyed voters prefer political mail sent to their homes to get information on how to complete a mail-in ballot or early voting polling places and hours.³

GOTV

Once the voter is won over, your campaign can follow up with an additional mail piece that outlines voting information in their respective district. Capturing these voters early while they’re motivated can increase voter participation and ultimately win votes for your candidate.

Break Down
the Barrier

Roughly two in five voters cite logistical concerns as a barrier to voting: a lack of transportation to the polls (41%), being required to vote in person (39%), or not knowing how or where to vote (36%).⁵

Efficient Evaluator

Efficient Evaluators can allow their emotions to dictate their decision-making. They tend to gravitate toward a candidate’s stance on the two key issues most important to them, spending little time digging into anything else. The challenge is to deliver an authentic message to these voters that truly connects with them on a deeper level.

Campaign Opportunities

for the Efficient Evaluator voter:

Awareness

These voters tend to pay little attention to elections. Instead, they’re tuned in to what the people close to them are talking about. By creating share-worthy experiences on social media, your campaign can increase visibility and capture the attention of this particular audience.

73%

say access to the internet and social media has made them informed about current events.⁶

Persuasion

Messages that truly resonate with voters can motivate them to click a link or share a post. For example, by driving voters to your candidate’s website, you can request their name and ZIP Code^™ with a short form on the landing page. That data can then be used to uncover key demographics and create targeted mailing lists to areas with the highest number of responders.

22%

U.S. adults ranked mail as the most persuasive form of political outreach.³

GOTV

As your campaign collects web page data, you can start creating look-alike lists. For example, you can use the ZIP Code data to observe demographics in key regions and develop lists for voters in other areas with similar demographics. Your campaign can then target those voters with a political mail piece that encourages them to take action at the polls.

Undecided Researcher

Undecided Researchers tend to be swing voters, actively seeking information across both sides to aid in the decision-making process. These voters typically evaluate issues carefully and dig deep into the characteristics and motivations of each candidate. The challenge is to get the right knowledge to these voters so they can make an informed decision when comparing and contrasting candidates.

Campaign Opportunities

for the Undecided Researcher voter:

Awareness

Reach out to these voters in the early stages of the campaign cycle to capture attention and make an impact while they’re researching across the field. With a focus on swing voters, you can send out an invitation to a local debate or a meet and greet, helping to create a more personal connection with this key segment.

Persuasion

Your campaign can glean first-party data by sending a digital invitation to the event (via social post) that requires the voter to provide their registration details. The event is a great opportunity to stand out from the field and continue the conversation with the voter in person.

patriotic stripes

GOTV

Following the event, your campaign can leave a lasting impression by reengaging the attendees. With the voter’s information captured during registration, you can send out a retargeted direct mail piece that includes a follow-up thank-you note and a link to your candidate’s website for more details as the voter moves toward a final decision.

Direct mail retargeting is an algorithm that collects data on website visitors and then delivers a personalized direct mail piece soon after their online actions to the homes of prospects with the highest likelihood of converting.

Get multiple impressions from a single mail piece.

By including an Informed Delivery^® campaign with your mailer. The voter sees the postcard first in their Informed Delivery Daily Digest, accompanied by a Ride-along Image that links to the candidate’s web page.

Informed Delivery is a USPS^® notification feature that gives users a daily digital preview of their mail and gives marketers the opportunity to engage consumers through an integrated mail and digital marketing campaign.

67%

Informed Delivery has an average 67% open rate⁷ and 55M users as of May 2023.⁸

Get the Right Message to the Right Voters

Securing that plus-one vote can be the difference between victory and defeat. By understanding what makes every voter tick, you can speak directly to what matters to them most. It’s more imperative than ever to connect with voters wherever they are in their decision-making process to help drive action to the polls.

1. Nathan L. Gonzales, “Midterm Elections Could Set Another Turnout Record This Year,” Inside Elections, October 12, 2022.
2. “2022 Voting and Registration Data Now Available,” United States Census Bureau, Updated May 2, 2023.
3. “USPS Political Mail Post Election Research Analysis Report,” USPS, January 13, 2023.
4. “The State of Direct Mail Report,” Lob, 2023.
5. Taylor Orth, “What reasons do Americans give for not voting in 2022?,” YouGov, November 16, 2022.
6. Spring 2022 Global Attitudes Survey, Pew Research Center, 2022.
7. “Informed Delivery User and Household Data XLSX,” USPS, May 2023.
8. “Informed Delivery Year in Review Report, USPS,” January 2022-December 2022.

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Under­standing Your Voters

Get the Right Message to the Right Voters

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