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?

This weekend I was quoted in the Post and Courier as saying “if someone wants to know something about you, the first thing they do is Google you, and you better make sure it’s your Web site they are running across and not some gossip blog.”

You know exactly what I mean. Studies show that 37% of Americans now get their news from the Internet while only 25% actually pick up a newspaper. Those statistics will continue to spread during the next few years. The problem is that good legislators are remaining quiet on the web while many bloggers are turning the Internet into the Wild Wild West.

Gossip blogs are ruling the web and there’s no telling when they are going to start aiming for you, if they haven’t already. There’s nothing you can do to stop them, but you can neutralize the negativity with positive news stories, frequently updated blogs and pictures, and constituent service tools that keep voters informed.

What do you want your voters to see when they Google your name? A blog about your numerous tax raising votes and irresponsible spending antics? Or information on how to reach you for constituent service help? Even if the former is untrue it can and most likely will be spread on the Internet. That’s just the way it goes these days. Rumors and lies become truth when only one side speaks.

Don’t wait until election season. Start populating great news about yourself now so that when campaign time arrives, you have a treasure trove of positive information to combat the gossip blogs. The more you update, the higher your website will go on a Google search. That way its your site voters see…not some gossip blogger’s.

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…

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:

I hate to disagree with Patrick Ruffini. After all, he has been playing on the web a whole lot longer than I have and to compare my online experiences with his would be pretty absurd.  But while Patrick has been playing on the web, I’ve been playing on the streets, running the nuts and bolts of state legislative and US Senate campaigns.

Here’s what I learned:

People get sick of seeing political television ads during CSI commercial breaks.

People get sick of us filling their mailboxes with political junk mail.

People get sick of us calling them during dinner.

Does that mean we should stop?  I’m hoping right now that my opponents are saying yes.

Ruffini discusses the complaints generated by purchased email addresses, but tell me when’s the last time you’ve done anything politically that didn’t generate complaints. Have you ever run a phone bank?

A large part of politics is annoyance and you better believe that I annoy the crap out of IDed voters until they get out to vote. I’ll call them five times a day and send someone to their home to drag them out. That’s how you win.

The same is true with emails.  Patrick argues that purchased email address lists are SPAM and should not be used.  If that’s the case, my question to Patrick is – what about voter lists?  Should we just stop mailing and calling voters too?

Patrick is right in that organic lists are more effective. It really doesn’t take a genius to figure out that someone is more likely to open up an email if they actually signed up to receive it.  I’m a hell of a lot more likely to eat a corndog if I bought it.

In an ideal world every voter would do their civic duty, educate themselves about candidates, and get out and vote.  But we don’t live in an ideal world and voters are becoming more and more apathetic. We can’t just wait and expect voters to magically find our website and sign up for our emails, so how do we get them to sign up?  How do we deliver the “hey look at me and sign up for my email” message?

Sure, we could rely on word of mouth and viral forwarding, but unless you have a button that makes your opponent start singing “bomb bomb Iran” on command, I would recommend a more proactive response. Try prospecting - delivering a specific message to a target audience in an attempt to capture a list of supporters.

We do it all the time with fundraising.  We buy a list from say…The Minutemen. We send them an illegal immigration targeted fundraising mail package, wait for a return, build our house file, and keep hitting them up every few weeks for more cash.

We do the same with email lists.  During the heat of the immigration battle, we rented a list of 40,000 voters for Senator DeMint.  We emailed them an immigration survey and asked them to forward it to their friends. Within three days we had 7,200 new organic emails.

People may be interested in your campaign, but if you don’t tell them it’s there, they are never going to support you or sign up for your emails. Emails are becoming as important as direct mail, phone calls, and even television ads, but unless you have a voter-matched email list to target your voters, you will never really introduce your web campaign and grow your organic list.

That is…unless you have a rock star candidate like Barack Obama. But when’s the last time you had one of those? Until you find one, go get yourself a purchased voter-matched email address list. Hollar at me. I can help you out.

We are thrilled to have the opportunity to work with Congressman Gresham Barrett in his reelection campaign. Check out his new website, produced by our little web firm, by clicking here.

The press release:

CONGRESSMAN GRESHAM BARRETT LAUNCHES GRESHAMBARRETT.COM

ASKS VOTERS TO SIGN THE “BRING CONGRESS BACK NOW” PETITION TO SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI

(WESTMINSTER, SC) – Congressman Gresham Barrett (R-SC) announced today the launch of his new website at www.greshambarrett.com. The website will focus on communications with constituents and furthering the conservative message leading up to the fall elections.

The website features the latest news, videos, and blogging by Congressman Barrett concerning the issues facing the 3rd Congressional District and South Carolina. The website also features a special Solution Center focusing on the hard-hitting issues of the day, such as energy independence and wasteful pork-barrel spending, and bringing comprehensive solutions to those issues.

The new site will launch featuring the “Bring Congress Back Now” petition to Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“Americans are fed up with $4 a gallon gas. They are tired of having their very livelihoods held hostage by foreign countries that happen to control the oil. It is finally time to do something about it,” Congressman Barrett said.

He continued “Unfortunately, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) believes it is more important to block a vote on this important issue until AFTER the election when she might have more votes to defeat any comprehensive energy legislation. She let Congress go home for a five-week vacation while you continue to suffer the pain at the pump.”

Congressman Barrett’s website also includes links to online networking sites Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube and will grow to include new social networking sites as they expand. “By using the latest social networking sites, we can spread our conservative message to new constituents and engage them in the latest debates on the issues. These new online communities are truly a new form of expression in democracy and I’m excited to be a part of it,” said Barrett.

The website, www.greshambarrett.com, is maintained by Under the Powerlines, a Columbia-based strategy group specializing in e-campaigns for clients such as Senator Jim DeMint and Congressman Joe Wilson.

# # #

DeMint, Hensarling launch ‘energy freedom’ countdown Web site

(CNN) – As House Republicans continue to focus on energy policy, Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas launched a new Web site Tuesday that highlights October 1 as the day the congressional ban on offshore oil drilling will end unless Congress takes some action to continue the ban.

The site prominently features a YouTube video clip of DeMint and Hensarling discussing energy policy and encouraging the public to contact their representatives in Congress about lifting ban on offshore oil drilling and oil shale recovery. The site also contains a clock-like widget counting down the time until October 1. Visitors to the site can copy the HTML code for the widget so that they can embed the countdown clock on their own blogs or Web sites. Visitors can also sign an online petition on the site and read a blog about energy policy.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, also recently launched a Facebook application that allows users to add a gas-pump-shaped October 1 countdown clock to their profiles on the popular social networking site.

These online developments come on the heels of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s announcement Monday on Larry King Live that she would be open to holding a vote on offshore drilling if it were part of a larger energy package. Pelosi’s change in position echoes a similar change in position by Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. Since August 1, House Republicans have been staging a protest against Pelosi’s refusal to hold a vote on an energy bill before Congress’ five-week recess began.

Check out the Hot Air post.

We are excited to announce another website we have launched with Senator Jim DeMint, this time in conjunction with Congressman Jeb Hensarling. Check out www.energyfreedomday.com. And while you’re there, make sure you sign the petition and grab the widget for your site.

SC State Representative Nathan Ballentine gives us a quick update from the State House on education funding. Check out Representative Ballentine’s blog at www.nathansnews.com.