I’m Derek Johnson, with tatango.com and I’m answering the question, how are political
candidates using text message marketing?
So with 99% open rates and 90% of text messages being opened within three minutes, it’s
no wonder that political candidates want to use text message marketing to reach voters.
So I’ve written down three different ways that political candidates are using text message
marketing.
These three different ways though require a political candidate to build first an SMS
subscriber database.
And essentially, what that means is a political candidate has to have people opt-in to receive
their text messages.
They can do this by entering their phone number into a website, or texting a keyword, which
is just a word to a short code, which is a five to six digit phone number.
Something maybe like “Vote” to 12345.
Whatever way it is the person or the voter is opting in for the political candidate to
send them text messages.
So that’s key first.
Now, once you have a big subscriber database now the fun stuff begins because 99% open
rate is amazing when it comes to spurring action from voters.
So first thing that we see political candidates do with their text message marketing database
is getting out the vote.
GOTV.
This essentially means that the day before, the week before, the day of voting, you’re
gonna wanna use text message marketing to text message voters to remind them where to
go vote, when to vote, that they need to vote, that’s essential.
Again, 99% open rate so everyone you text message those few days are going to see that
text message.
So if you’re a political candidate and getting out the vote is important, which I’m pretty
sure it is, you’re gonna wanna use that text messaging database.
That’s number one.
Number two here is donations.
So as you build up that mobile subscriber database up until the election and the voting,
you’re gonna wanna continue to message your subscribers and ask for mobile donations.
So that’s huge with 99% open rates all those voters and those supporters are going to be
seeing those messages.
And with mobile donations becoming more and more popular this is a great way for political
candidates to raise a bunch of money.
Number three and the last one that we see for political candidates using is to spur
action.
And what this means is, again, getting out the vote is kind of the end action obviously,
but during the election when you build up a huge subscriber database you can get your
voters and your supporters to take action really quickly.
So a few examples are if your candidate is in town or in a certain city and you wanna
pack a stadium or you want to make sure that people are there when the candidate arrives,
you can send a text message specifically to people in that area, that have opted in, obviously,
for the candidate’s messages, and tell them to go show up at a certain time.
And with 99% open rates, a lot of people will show up, trust me.
Are there some other ways if a candidate needs signatures, if a candidate needs calls, you
can put in the text message a link out to a mobile website.
You can put in the text message a phone number that they can click to call.
So there’s all these different ways that you can use text message marketing for political
candidates to spur action for voters when they’re really just sitting around waiting
for the candidate to tell them how to help.
So those are the three different things.
Getting out the vote, mobile donations, and then spurring action from supporters and voters.
That’s how we currently see political candidates using text message marketing.