No matter where you are in America, the nation can't stop talking about November 6th! Whether it’s an election for a local mayor or a statewide gubernatorial campaign, organizers are turning from the traditional methods of mass canvassing or dialing voters. What’s replaced a lot of these efforts? Text messages!
That’s because using SMS marketing to engage voters is the most effective way to garner support and organize your base in order to get your candidate or cause into the spotlight. Heck, Barack Obama’s team used text messaging and grassroots organizing to help him win the presidential election!
Here are a few ways that texting can help your political campaign better engage with your supporters and turn out the vote!
Foster Support with Mobile Keywords
By having your supporters text in just one word, a text keyword makes it easy for you to establish a direct line of communication with your supporters. All you need to do is to include your keyword and the short code they text it to in your political advertisements, on social media, or on your posters and mailers.
One of the best things about text keywords is that if you have an advanced SMS software suite like Trumpia, you can then use the signup process to learn more about your supporters. So when a contact signs up to receive your text messages, our intelligent system can then ask them questions about what issues are important to them, how or if they would like to volunteer, or even ask them demographic questions so you learn more about who your base is.
Reaching Your Base Isn't Limited to One Channel
Campaigns must always be on the hunt to raise more funds if they want to have a chance at winning. But instead of relying on just one channel like email to get donations, try an omni-channel approach to increase exposure during your campaign.
If you choose a multi-channel platform like Trumpia, you have control over text, MMS picture messaging, email, voice broadcasts, and social media to give you multiple ways to reach your audience and mobilize your supporters. What if a supporter doesn’t ever check their emails? That’s okay; you can text them. Someone doesn’t want to commit to supporting you just yet? You can use social media to reach people on the fence and really get your message out there!
Conduct SMS Surveys of Supporters
With a response rate 750% higher than email, SMS surveys will get you far more feedback, so that your campaign can actually make decisions that reflect what is important to your base. Trumpia goes beyond simple surveys with our unique Response Based Automation which branches depending on how someone responds.
So whether it’s asking supporters their thoughts on a new proposition or just gathering more information on what issues are important to them, text surveys allow your campaign to get great feedback from supporters and make them feel like their voices are being heard.
Cut Campaigning Costs with Text Automation
Volunteers are the backbone of any successful ground game. But if you’re still spread thin, an advanced SMS solution like Trumpia with text automation can do some powerful things for you, freeing up your staff and volunteers for more impactful work. It can do anything from sending relevant updates based on what you know about a supporter, or even having our system automatically walk new voters through the voter registration or volunteer process.
If a volunteer needs to know their assignment or directions to the event, our intelligent Text Bot can automatically direct them to the information they need. Or if a prospective donor wants to know more information about your candidate before contributing, Trumpia’s system can send them a link to your website and track whether they have clicked it, automatically sending them a reminder a week later if they haven't.
Talk to Your Supporters With SMS Messaging
Supporters that feel they are being listened to will be more likely to support you in the future, including in re-election bids. With Trumpia you can text-enable your landline number, meaning your volunteers and donors will be able to call or text the same number. This means you can both receive feedback and reach out to individual donors so that you can answer their questions and concerns.
Save Time By Coordinating with SMS
Having a call center presence is vital for political campaigns, but they are expensive and hard to coordinate. And even though email is frequently used for mass communication, it has just an average read rate of 22%.
Keeping up with your email while you are coordinating an event or volunteering is also impossible. But with SMS messaging, you can send out short messages with reminders to volunteers to make sure things run on time and efficiently.
That’s because texting has a 98% read rate, so it ensures that your messages to staff, donors, and volunteers will actually be seen. This allows you to save time and manpower by having coordinators text volunteers information and directions so that they help your campaign in the only most impactful ways.
Are you looking to help a candidate in an upcoming election? Click here to learn more about SMS marketing for political campaigns!
