In this electronic age, email remains the killer app of campaign communications. It’s efficient, it’s targeted, it’s cheap, it’s designed to go viral, and it works. Email is the topic of discussion this week on RunSmart2Win. Today we will look at 10 Tips for Maximizing the Effectiveness of Email Campaigns:

1. Keep your messages short and focused. People have short attention spans. Emails must grab the reader’s attention early, make one point, and conclude with one action step. Not only does this mean keeping the email short, but breaking your message into short sentences with headings for easy skimming. If you say three things, you say nothing. One point. One action step. That’s it. Remember the Five B’s of campaign emails: Be Brief, Baby, Be Brief.
2. Don’t just ask for money. Email is a great campaign fundraising tool, but you shouldn’t overdue it. Even your most avid supporters will spam block you if all of your emails are contribution requests. Mix up the topics you cover: campaign announcements, volunteer mobilization efforts, special event invitations, letters from the candidate, and yes, the occasional fundraising email too.
3. Don’t flood inboxes. Just as you shouldn’t ask for money in every email you send, you also shouldn’t send emails everyday! If you do, you will quickly discover that people have tuned you out. One email per week should be the upper limit. The exception to this is the last week of the campaign when you are turning out supporters and voters.
4. There is a time for urgency. On the heels of point three, the reason you shouldn’t flood people’s inboxes is so you can grab their attention when you really need it (for example, the last week of the fundraising quarter, the 72 hours prior to Election Day, etc.). By not spending your email capital too early — and not crying wolf with too many urgent pleas — you retain your right to implore your supporters to act, contribute, or volunteer with emotional appeals, deadlines, and countdowns.
5. Use the candidate wisely. Obviously, you want some of your messages to come from the candidate. But not every email should be from the man or woman in charge. If every email is from the candidate, people may assume that he or she is not the person behind it. It’s true that the candidate is the standard bearer of the campaign message, but use him or her wisely. Have the candidate author some of the emails, but include the candidate’s spouse, campaign staffers, and endorsements from members of the community.
6. Ask supporters to tell their friends. The most powerful method for starting a word-of-mouth epidemic over the Internet is friends emailing friends emailing friends. Encourage activists to edit messages from the campaign, then send them on to friends and family members. Ask supporters to remove “FW:” from the email subject line and personalize the message.
7. Link to online videos. Take a screenshot from a campaign video, making sure it looks like a video player. Then provide the link to the actual video (and embed code for people to place the video on their own blogs or social networking pages). Use your organization’s stories to bring people in, and then connect it to an “ask” at the end of the email. Capture their attention with video, then take them to a next-step — like contributing, volunteering, calling a radio station, or sending in a letter to the editor.
8. Be interesting and relevant. Don’t live in a bubble. Piggyback on the most talked about issues affecting your race. Is there a local corruption scandal or hot button issue that everyone is talking about? Don’t ignore the elephant in the room. Talk about what the voters are talking about. Address their concerns. Capitalize on grassroots anger. Relate your message to the day’s headlines. Talk about why your issue matters now.
9. Test and improve. Measure the success of your email campaigns by tracking open-rates, click-throughs, and forwards. Is there is an issue, action, or layout that people respond to more than others? Use that information to improve on future emails.
10. Say “Please” and “Thank you.” Mama was right: you should always ask politely, saying “Please,” and show appreciation, with a “Thank you.” Acknowledge the effort your supporters are making on behalf of the candidate and the campaign. Never take their time, effort, money, or support for granted.

The final results of the North Carolina Concerned Citizens Survey are in. One month ago we reported on the preliminary survey results, which didn’t look good at all for Gov. Bev Perdue and the Democrats in Raleigh. The final analysis isn’t rosy for the Dems either.

Over 1,000 North Carolinians responded: 86 percent of the respondents vote in every election, another 11 percent vote in most elections. (Politicians, do we have your attention now?) Here are some of the highlights:

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We’d like to introduce RunSmart2Win’s team of contributors, hailing from all corners of the country and continent!

Jeff Tillman is the founder of RunSmart2Win, a blog focusing on the recruitment of highly qualified GOP candidates to run for office in North Carolina. Jeff has worked in the marketing/advertising field for more than a decade. He is an Appalachian State University alumnus and lives in the heart of Starmount Forest, one of the best little neighborhoods in Greensboro, NC, with his wife, three children, and a pretty good dog named Beaufort. You can follow Jeff on Twitter at @GOP_NC.

Nathan Babcock is a missionary with Christ for the City in Nicaragua. His moonlighting job — and future career — is politicking: helping Republican candidates plan and execute winning campaigns by building online communities tied to grassroots movements. He is a Charlotte native and graduated from the University of North Carolina. Nathan and his wife, Amber, are in the process of adopting a child from Nicaragua. Nathan, Amber, and “Baby Babcock” are planning to move home to North Carolina early next year. (Twitter: @NathanBabcock)

Abigail (Abby) Alger works for Terra Eclipse, a political web development firm in Aptos, California. She is keenly interested in any combination of politics, policy, and web technology — especially as it relates to government transparency and political strategy. A Duke University graduate and reformed northerner, her heart — and, eventually, her home — are in great state of North Carolina. Aside from visiting North Carolina as often as possible, she enjoys horseback riding, following horse racing, and training to be a classic movie buff. You can follow Abby on Twitter at @AbbyAlger.

If you would like to become a RunSmart2Win contributor, guest blogger, Twitter or Facebook evangelist, please contact a member of the team above.

Like many government programs, voter-owned elections have a vaguely Orwellian, name, a noble purpose, and a hefty bill. Voter-owned elections–more accurately, taxpayer-funded elections–are a hot topic in North Carolina, so consider this your brief overview of a heated issue.

What are voter-owned elections? Voter-owned elections are intended to end political corruption and a host of other political problems. The argument is simple: money is a tainting force in politics since it favors the already rich and well-connected candidates and makes politicians feel accountable to their largest donors. There ore, to even the playing field, the taxpayers should foot the bill for a public program that provides money to candidates who wish to avail themselves of it, provided they do not spend any private funds.

The exact mechanisms differ by location, but in general (and in North Carolina), the program features a matching funds trigger. Once a privately-funded candidate in the race passes a threshold in campaign expenditures, the publicly-financed candidate is given matching contributions. Eventually, of course, proponents of the system would like everyone to be using the same amount of taxpayer money.

What are the problems with voter-owned elections? Unfortunately good intentions alone cannot make good policy, especially expensive, convoluted, and potentially unconstitutional policy like voter-owned elections. First, voter-owned elections do not solve the problems they set out to tackle. There is no evidence they have decreased corruption, encouraged broader political participation, or evened the political playing field anywhere they have been implemented. There is no strong argument to suggest they ever will.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, specific provisions of voter-owned elections can run afoul of the Constitution. Money is necessary for political speech, whether it is for buying public ads, yard signs, or even a website. Voter-owned elections laws try to curtail individuals’ political speech by curtailing the amount of money they may spend on political campaigns. In short, the state determines “how much” political speech is necessary for each political race, and then makes candidates dependent on the state for financing. Sounds frightening.

Third, there are practical considerations. There is no reason to send money to political campaigns over public infrastructure, public safety, or public schools, particularly in an economic downturn when local and state governments are struggling to stay out of the red. Additionally, it is fundamentally unfair to force taxpayers to subsidize political campaigns they find uninformed or even offensive. Freedom of association is enshrined in our legal history for a reason.

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The most important part of fundraising is making sure that you’re abiding by applicable campaign finance laws. Here we’ll provide a broad overview of North Carolina campaign finance laws. Nothing can replace the advice of an experienced lawyer or treasurer, so take this as it’s intended: a starting resource for further investigation, not the end-all of the intricacies of campaign finance.

1. Know who to ask for help. When in doubt, contact the people who do this for a living: your County and/or the North Carolina State Election Board. They will either know the answer or direct you to someone who does.

2. Research what laws apply to you. You are running as a candidate at the municipal (e.g. Town Council), county (e.g. County Planning Board), state (e.g. NC State House), or federal (e.g. US House) level. There are different rules at every level,  so be aware of them. This determines your main regulatory body throughout the campaign.

3. Find a good treasurer. Every candidate committee must have a treasurer, and it can be anyone but your spouse. The treasurer is responsible for maintaining your financial records and filing required reports with the Board of Elections. Your treasurer must be trained by a Board of Elections course within three months of his/her appointment and once every four years after that.

4. Know when you have to file forms. North Carolina has deadlines for filing forms for your candidacy as well as filing campaign finance reports throughout the year. (As a fun fact, the filing fee is 1% of the annual salary of the office for which you are running; for the State House or Senate, that’s $207.) Know these dates. Don’t be late.

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Once you have been (rightfully) convinced that you should begin fundraising online, the next question is how to select an online contributions system. This system is a web-based solution that processes credit cards to transfer money from your donors to your campaign account. The number of these systems, though, is staggering. This post will hopefully be a quick overview with some general questions you should ask about every system, and then a more specific comparison of three major contribution systems on the base of price.

General Questions to Ask
1. How much will this cost? Online contributions systems generally make money in two ways. They charge a per-transaction fee, always less than fifty cents, on each contribution processed through your site. They also take a percentage of all your donations, usually less than 5 percent though oftentimes soaring to as high as 10 percent. Additionally you will find myriad fees for set-up, processing, and the like.

2. How will secure data be stored? You do not want to be responsible for keeping credit card numbers secure. Find out who will be responsible for secure data, where it will be stored, and who will address a security breach should one occur. Generally, online contributions systems process and store the credit card data on their end and then credit your account with the money.

3. How often will I be paid? The internet has made everything instantaneous, including the transfer of money. Many online contributions systems will deposit money in your campaign account as soon as the credit card information is processed. However, others will oftentimes distributed checks on a weekly, biweekly, or monthly basis.

4. Will I be able to collect the data I need? Check local, state, and federal campaign finance laws to determine the information you need to collect from donors. For example, candidates for federal office must collect the employer of every person who donates more than $200. Make sure that you will be able to customize your donation form to collect the necessary information to comply with campaign finance laws.

5. Will I be able to brand my donations portal? This is often a question for your technical team as it is for the contributions system you select. You want the transition from your website or online presence elsewhere to your donations portal to be as seamless as possible. The branding, graphics, colors, and other stylistic elements should remain as consistent as possible. Donors want to know that they are donating to the candidate they have selected. Additionally, sending them elsewhere is simply jarring, like inviting friends to a BBQ in your backyard only to traipse over to the neighbor’s living room.

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We’re kicking off another focus week on RunSmart2Win. This week we’re tackling fundraising.

As the famous saying goes, money is the mother’s milk of politics. While technology has leveled the political playing field somewhat, money is still one of the best predictors of Election Day success. How do you go about raising the funds your campaign needs to win? Here are 10 essential fundraising principles:

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