Update on Presidential Campaign E-mails

Both the Dean and Bush campaigns are using e-mail heavily.  We signed up for each one and reported on their web sites recently.  In the last seven weeks, we have received 32 emails from the two campaigns.

We received a welcome message from the Bush campaign almost immediately. We received no such message from the Dean campaign, but did receive a newsletter the next day.

So far, Dean is winning the e-mail count, 20 to 12. There is no clear pattern of email distribution.  The Bush campaign took an early lead in December, then sent no e-mails from the 18th until the 31st of December. They have sent only four so far in January.  The Dean campaign sent no e-mails from December 2 until the 27th, when they sent a barrage of e-mails daily during their end-of-quarter fundraising rally. The Dean campaign has averaged almost one per day so far in January.

The Bush e-mails seem to follow one of two formats: Most are html newsletter style, with a “News Alert” header that matches the web site.  Others appear to be on Bush ’04 letterhead, signed by various campaign officials.  One was signed by the President himself using his own letterhead.  Dean’s e-mails are mostly rich-text format with one graphic image.  They have leveraged their endorsements by sending e-mails within 24 hours of the Gore and Bradley endorsements, signed by Gore or Bradley.

Only one of the emails has followed the basic direct marketing tactic of asking for specific amounts of money for specific purposes.  The Dean e-mail of January 16 asked for:

• $345 contribution rents a van to take volunteers and supporters to caucus locations
• $278 contribution pays for printing 734 brochures to be used on caucus night
• $143 contribution pays for doughnuts and coffee for one caucus site
• $56 contribution pays for food and lodging for a volunteer
• $32 contribution pays for 400 reminder calls for favorable voters

We also get e-mail from the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC).  We receive frequent updates from its chair, Senator George Allen, including one in early January offering us “four reasons to give four dollars.”  I’m curious about the strategy behind this.  It may be a clever way to move non-donors on the list a small way towards becoming donors, but in direct marketing, that tactic generally backfires, resulting in a large number of chronic low-dollar donors that are hard to move up.

We’ll keep watching the mailbox and reporting on tactics that you can use in your e-mails.

January 2004

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