Under The Power Lines

Emails are the best tool for driving people to a political website, but they must be utilized the right way or they can actually drive people away. Here are my 6 rules for using emails effectively:

1. Build an organic email list.

Most big political campaigns are purchasing/renting voter matched email lists, but those lists should be used for the sole purpose of building an organic list – a list people sign up for. On my personal blog I jokingly said “I’m a lot more likely to eat a corn dog if I bought it.” Well, the same is true for emails. People will open emails a lot more if they signed up for them.

2. Don’t over do it.

People are getting sick of SPAM. You will lose readers if you bombard them with emails. Email them important issue pieces and forgo the nonsense. Don’t send them an email every time you receive a positive news story.

3. Don’t make it all about you.

Politicians fall in the “me, me, me” trap and quite frankly, voters just don’t care about that. They want to know about the issues important to them and that doesn’t mean some blanket political promise. Send emails about issues that are imminent, important, and meaningful.

4. Grab their interests and then make The Ask.

The worst thing you can do is to keep asking voters for something in every email. Whether it’s volunteering or donating, politicians just need to lay off. Talk about important issues and grab their interest first. Then make The Ask. Send four or five issues pieces before sending a request email.

Don’t get me wrong; you should always include donation and volunteer links on an email. Just don’t make donating and volunteering the purpose of every email.

5. Keep it short.

With the growth of the Internet, people are being bombarded with information overload. They don’t have time to read a three-page treatise on your tax plan. Give them a very brief summary with links to “read more.” I try to keep my emails under three paragraphs.

6. KISS.

Keep It Simple Stupid. Too many political campaigns try to prove how smart they are with complex emails and blog posts. Connect with voters by keeping your emails as simple as possible. I do it by using lists. Seth Godin recently wrote “the web loves lists almost as much as it loves video.” He’s right and voters love lists too. It’s a great way to KISS.

Rumors and lies become truth when only one side speaks.

Two weeks ago I needed a new grill for USC tailgating. I Googled “tailgating grill.”

Last week I needed a new lawn guy. I looked for one on Google.

Yesterday I ordered a pizza on the Internet. I simply Googled “Pizza Hut, Columbia, SC.”

You see, that’s what people do now. The yellow pages, to-go menus, folded maps, encyclopedias, and many more paper tools of the past are becoming obsolete. Newspapers aren’t far behind. Today folks are going straight to Google for nearly all their needs.

So what happens when someone Googles your name? What do they find?

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In today’s new global economy and 24-hour news cycle, people are being inundated with constant news updates around the clock.  Here in South Carolina we have seen a rapid growth in personal blogs and the use of new media by mainstream media outlets, all relevant and all constantly updated.  Unfortunately most people don’t know these news sources exist and even if they did, they don’t have time to check them all everyday.  It’s for these next five reasons that the Under The Power Lines team is launching a brand new, fresh out of the box news aggregator this week:

1. We need an unbiased news aggregator. No one in South Carolina is bringing people all the news, all in one place.  Current aggregators are cherry picking the news to match their views. Our new aggregator will link news stories and not be a gossip or opinion blog. We will also give readers our entire client roster so that they know exactly who is really paying us.

2. We need all the relevant news stories and not just six or seven every morning. We will post big stories from around South Carolina, all the latest presidential news, and other national stories that affect our political landscape. We will even post my “geek links” so that you can stay up-to-date with all the latest tech news and my other interests.

3. We need the news bright and early in the morning. Our morning starts early and so does yours. Most folks can’t wait until 10 am to get their news. They need to know what’s happening first thing in the morning. It will be our goal to update the news every weekday morning by 8 am.

4. We need the news updated throughout the day. News doesn’t stop at 8 am. It continues throughout the day and night. We will post new stories as soon as we can as they are happening. This isn’t our full time job, so we aren’t promising to have them up immediately, but we will get it done fast.

5. We need more ways to follow the news. Technology is changing and we plan to always stay up-to-date. Readers will be able to follow us on our website or by following our RSS, Twitter, FriendFeed, and Facebook feeds.

Stay tuned…

In the last few weeks we’ve had numerous folks contact us to ask if we produce Senator Jim DeMint’s web videos.

The answer is YES!

And YES, our team can produce high grade television quality web videos for your campaign too. Here are just a few we’ve created over the past few months:

NEARLY 250,000 VIEWS: