Yesterday I wrote about direct mail Christmas catalogs. Today’s marketing tip about the use of direct mail in political campaigns – ‘tis the season.
Direct mail has not declined in politics in the way that it has in the catalog business; in fact, some estimates say that its use continues to increase. Obama and Romney spent over $200 million on direct mail and printing in 2012.
Local politicians may send out visibility postcards that are little more than mailed yard signs, but better funded and more sophisticated campaigns use targeting and tactics that rival the largest retailers and credit card companies. Their campaigns use all sorts of data related to demographics, psychographics, past voting behavior, gender, occupation, magazines that they subscribe to, etc., to micro-target individuals that are likely to be supporters or persuadable, and save money by not targeting those unlikely to vote for them. You couldn’t do that with TV ads in the past, but it’s coming.
Like the electric company, campaigns have also found it effective to use social pressure. Some send letters in plain envelopes (so they don’t look like a fancy marketing campaign) to supporters, thanking them for voting in the past and encouraging them to do so again this year. In the 2010 Colorado senate campaign it’s estimated that this produced 2.5% higher turnout – 25,000 more votes – from the one million Democrats who received them. The Democratic candidate won by 15,000 votes.
Republicans give partial credit to direct mail for their dominance of the U.S. House in the past several years. In 2010 they targeted just a few swing state senate and house districts – enough to turn several state houses from Democrat to Republican. Since it was a census year, the Republicans in those states could then draw Congressional districts to favor Republican candidates for the next 10 years and help achieve control of that chamber, even as they were losing repeated presidential elections. It was a highly cost-effective strategy since it had national impact but only required targeting relatively inexpensive direct mail to a small number of voters in just a few state level districts. Shrewd.
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