Presidential Campaign Email Report

Unless there’s another recount campaign, this will be the last report on the candidates’ use of email before election day.

The frequency of emails is astounding: The Kerry/Edwards campaign is averaging over one per day during the month of October. The Bush campaign is barely behind, with 12 in the first 17 days. The Dean list is being used to drum up financial support for various down-ticket candidates. Even the Libertarian candidate, Michael Bednarik, has started to come on strong, with three in the three days.

The emails have maintained a similar format and style, but with a variety of signers and a variety of action appeals. Both campaigns have sent emails from the campaign staff, the candidates themselves, and from relatively unknown staff members in the campaign (both appealing for help financing the recount, both within 24 hours of each other). Other action appeals include sending letters to the editor, calling radio stations, spreading the word to other voters, and going into chat rooms at AOL, MSN and Yahoo!

So here are some ideas to extract from the final rush:

• Don’t hesitate to send an email to your supporters when you’ve got something to say, regardless of how long it’s been since your last email; 
• Vary the “ask” so you can involve your supporters in different ways, and so they don’t get tired of reading them; 
• Use different “senders” to give the supporters different angles on the same story; 
• Maintain enough consistency in the format so the readers recognize your emails quickly (and so the production becomes easy in peak times)

Here’s one suggestion that does NOT come from the candidates’ emails: tell the truth.

October 2004

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