In campaigns, the three most precious resources are these: money, time, and the attention span of voters. That last one–voter attention span–makes each contact you have with a voter important, especially in an age in which it is easy for voters to shut you out. In an ideal world, you’d want to know each voter well and tailor a personal message to deliver. But in the real world, you are forced to make a best effort to narrow down a mass message.

Good thing there’s list segmentation.

List segmentation is the simple practice of breaking down your contact list into sublists. These sublists are based on criteria you choose, e.g. people in the 27705 zip code. You can then send more focused and more relevant emails to the people on these sublists. This tactic is not new, but it is newly simple thanks to the advent of affordable commercial marketing services.

Segment-Friendly Systems
The more you can learn about a voter, the better, because that information will help you communicate quickly and efficiently on the issues most important to that one person. So when you are designing information-gathering forms for your site, begin with the end in mind: creating a segment-friendly system.

On your website, you should have a quick capture email form with zip code and also a longer form people can fill out to opt in to your email list. On the longer form, you can ask people to check issues important to them or to indicate what volunteer activities interest them. You don’t want to make your join form too lengthy (since that is a surefire way to discourage people from completing it), but you should be strategic about the information you require. Every data point you collect must have a use.

Once you have this data, you can easily send targeted emails to separate groups. People interested in Second Amendment rights would receive information about the candidate’s support for concealed carry. Volunteers who wanted to phonebank could receive a note of thanks and instructions on how to get started.

Ways to Segment Your List
You can segment your email list by any field for which you have data. The most common ways are listed and explained below.

• Geographic Information. This breakdown, most commonly done by zip code, pinpoints voters in a specific region. This is a great way to send out a local issue alert as well as poll locations for Election Day.
• Stated Preferences. If voters have volunteered information about themselves, e.g. the issues most important to them, you should use this as a way to tailor your communications. Although voters have opinions on a wide range of issues, it is typically a handful that “move” them to the polls and in the voting booth. So take this information seriously. When someone checks boxes indicating they are interested in education and healthcare, s/he is telling you those issues will strongly affect their vote. Contact them accordingly with emails that highlight your positions on both topics.
• Behavorial Data. Commercial email marketing systems give you a slew of valuable data with each email you send. You will see which of your contacts opened the email, clicked through your links, forwarded it to friends and family, or simply ignored it. Think of this as a tool to identify the people most interested in and most excited about your campaign.

Regardless of how you segment your list, remember to pay attention to your results. Your email marketing system will show you how people respond to your email. For example, if your emails high open rates (i.e. high rate of people opening it to read), analyze your efforts and then do more of the same. But if your emails are consistently left unread or, worse, cause people to unsubcribe from your email list, go back to the drawing board and try, try again.

Tags: Campaign Tips, eCampaigning, email

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 13th, 2009 at 6:00 am and is filed under Campaign Tips, Polls & Surveys, eCampaigning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.