Is it possible for something good to emerge from this election? Out of my own frustration and knowing the amount of money and expertise at work, I wondered what we could learn from this year’s campaigns. These are two, multi-million dollar marketing/advocacy organizations studying, targeting and reaching every American. How are the campaigns reaching voters?
The following are a few of our observations that can inform nonprofit fundraising and communication strategies.
Email
The volume of email from the candidates is staggering -- sometimes multiple emails per day. Here are the lessons: (1) Don’t be afraid of volume. (2) Change the sender (Emails from the candidate, campaign manager, surrogates, celebrities, etc.) -- it seems EVERYONE is emailing me. (3) Make it personal -- I received several emails like this: “We need 117 more donors in [your city] to give $X.” Then the next day I received, “Your [city] is coming together but we still need 44 more donors at $10 or above to reach our goal.” Additional emails highlighted my particular interests. (4) Keep it Short. ALL of the emails were short, included a lot of spacing for readability.
Twitter
I am already a Twitter fan (@swellfunds) but this election, even more than those in the past, has made clear the power of Twitter. (1) Join the platform - personally and as an organization. (2) Be a thought leader. Use Twitter to follow conversations pertinent to you or your cause - retweet and comment on those that strike you. (3) Team management. For the most part, candidates aren’t managing their Twitter accounts themselves-- there is a team approach. (4) Strategy: Use the platform to get people to sign up and support the campaign (collecting potential donor email addresses and names in the process). Follow your local media outlets so that they might follow you in return. If you as a nonprofit can gather a media audience on Twitter, you can broadcast information directly to your followers without a formal press release, saving yourself time and money.
Social Media Targeting
Yes, the candidates have access to a lot more funds than most nonprofits ever will, but that doesn’t mean you can’t dip your toe into the social media advertising pool. Many social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn offer the ability to geo-target in their boosts or paid ads. While 2008 seemed to be the year of the social media presidential campaign, both candidates have far surpassed that year’s spending. In fact, in an article in the Wall Street Journal Trump’s digital director Brad Parscale noted that the “campaign sprayed Facebook users with ads one day in August linking to 100,000 different webpages – each micro-targeted at a different segment of voters.” Of course, Hillary’s campaign is doing it as well.
Making Hashtags Great Again
Nothing has been more meme-able this election than Trump’s campaign slogan. (Though whether or not that has worked to his advantage is still up for debate.) Similarly, #Imwithher became a powerful way for celebrities to end a speech or regular voters to end a supportive message on Facebook. The brilliance of this message is that it supports the larger message of StrongerTogether. The point here is that messaging matters. Distilling your core brand message or fundraising campaign to a short, easily understood and compelling message is important. This provides you -- but most importantly your core supporters -- a way to easily demonstrate support and, thus, encourage the support of their peers. It can be easily recognized and eventually very little else needs to be said.
While none of the above is a magic bullet, they are worth exploring. If you don’t have the resources to do them all, pick one and focus on doing it correctly and thoroughly, then move to the next one.
Implement what you learned on a Giving Day, like #GivingTuesday. To learn more, read on here.
