We've seen a lot of suggestions that online political campaigns would benefit from mass email services, and I have to wonder: why not multi-channel marketing automation? What is it about email that is so dominant, despite mobile being the fastest and surest way to connect with someone these days? Why do people limit themselves to a single channel when, for the same cost, you could gain access to a multi-channel communication platform that has 15 channels? Let's weigh the two, and then decide what's most effective.
Most mass email services include a message cap. What this means is that, depending on what you've paid for, you'll have a set amount of messages per month, regardless of the length of your contact list. This can be highly detrimental, as that list will likely grow over the course of your campaign. You want to be able to send however many emails you need, to whoever you need to, regardless of how many messages go out. This is especially important if you plan to manage volunteers and so on with the service, as well as connect with prospective donors and supporters.
Using a mass email service limits your online presence outside of your campaign list. This means that you're limited to contacts who you already have, and you need to rely on them to spread the word. You will likely not have any in-house contact management, and you'll have to rely on integrations with a separate CRM for that. This increases your campaign expenditure.
With a mass email solution, you have custom templates, customization, and probably the ability to personalize your emails with the names of voters, contributors and more. But many people may not see those emails for days. Email inboxes get neglected and forgotten as daily life becomes hectic and busy, but we always find time to check our phones and social media. So a mass email service is not always the quickest way to reach people.
If you only need email, you can send invites, notifications, thank yous and other automated messages through a mass email service. However, there is a more cost-effective ways to obtain efficient, comprehensive communication. Connect to your staff, volunteers, donors and voters through one channel or many.
A multi-channel marketing solution such as SimplyCast 360 charges you on a per-contact basis, so you don't have a message cap or limit. Of course, you could simply purchase a package with all our channels and then pay for additional contacts during the campaign. Pre-built packages begin at a reasonable $49 per month, and top out at $599 per month, so they're affordable to virtually any level of business and can be expanded as necessary for larger enterprises.
In addition, there are multi-user accounts that can be used for more than one employee in a business. The administrator account has the ability to manage the permissions of all of the staff accounts contained under the original, and change them as necessary. This allows you to manage your staff members who are using your 360 capabilities and how they do so.
Our multi-channel marketing is available for individual channels as well, and comes with a deliverability guarantee. Any form of messaging that requires a per message fee, such as SMS or fax that cannot be delivered is free of charge. To make the deal even sweeter, we offer a price-match promise on each of our single channels. We won't be beat even if all you need is email.
All these channels combined with our automation processes, tracking and contact management wrap up into one powerful package with a responsive API. We also integrate to all outside CRMs to give you the best solution available for your online political campaign to get off the ground. And the benefits don't stop at just one campaign. Our software is capable of being repurposed as many times as you need, either by clearing old projects to make room for new, or by purchasing additional project slots. At the highest level, our 360 pricing gives you unlimited projects for whatever you need.
By keeping your public's awareness up and keeping your messages, contests, announcements and newsletters current, you keep the public engaged. You're not just a face, you're giving back to them, keeping them up to date and keeping your finger on the pulse of your area. Even better, with merge tags, you can input individual names in your emails to the public, making them feel as though you are addressing each and every one of them personally during calls to action, surveys and more. This keeps up your visibility, and makes you more interactive than other politicians.
Now let us show you ways you might put our platform to work for you on and off the campaign trail using specific examples that will benefit your overall political efforts. Keep in mind these aren't nearly all the potential uses. We love to hear your feedback.
- Gather donations more effectively by announcing when you begin to accept and when you can no longer accept
- Canvass your voters via email, fax, SMS and voice, urging them to contact your base staff to confirm their vote
- Build landing pages for contributors and volunteers to sign up to work or support events
- Use the communication channels to keep in touch with staff and volunteers all over the country
- Keep voter, staff and volunteer information in our contact manager, all tagged appropriately to prevent mix-up of data.
- Send specific messages to specific voter groups.
- Set processes to work months in advance, and don't worry about them outside of ensuring the information is current
- Post on social media to start contests, generate interest and announce events
- Put out surveys to keep an eye on public opinion on key matters of interest, and learn what's important to them.
- Track what happens on your web site, where people spend the most time, and implement that in your marketing, as well as the names, or even the locations of specific groups by using merge tags and web tracking.
- Use multi-user accounts to see everything, while restricting staff access to the portions of the campaign that are relevant to their duties. No more mix-ups.
- Automate key communications that save you time, so that you can spend more time interacting with people and putting your best public foot forward.
These are just a few of the obvious reasons why marketing automation is the way to go for your online political campaign needs. You can read more on our government and politics page, and read industry-specific blog posts, articles and more. You can also find video content, podcasts, and frequently asked questions. Keep checking back, because when the featured flow for government and politics becomes available, you don't want to miss it. That document is a pdf of general templates you can use to build the basics of your online campaign strategy and more.
Don't forget to stop by our marketing automation page to see a comprehensive list of our features, available pricing for our SimplyCast 360 packages, as well as an idea of the total capability within our robust app. Another place to look for useful content related to you is our government page. If you can think of industry-specific features that we don't have, give us a call and let us know, because we want to know how we can help you best. We'll consider how it would work within our app, and you might even see it pop up in the platform soon. But you'll only see it if you sign up for a free trial, or talk with our knowledgeable staff about what SimplyCast 360 can do for you.
