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Elections are taxing. On the candidates, who end up saying goofy stuff, on the voters, who get figuratively buried in direct mail and robocalls, and on the campaign staff, who are so busy working on the campaign up to the election that they often forget that they’ll be unemployed starting the day after. But this year, it could be our email boxes that are strained to the point of breaking.

I’m subscribed to the list of all three major Democratic candidates. Since the new year began, I’ve received no less than 4 messages from Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Barack Obama, and his surrogates have sent me 3 messages. But the king of bacn award goes to the Edwards camp, who sent me 9 messages since the 1^st, including 3 on the 6^th. They also sent me 20 messages in the month of December, compared to 9 for Clinton and 14 for Obama.

Where’s the point of diminishing returns? At what point does one more message break the camel’s back (or at least Gmail’s server)? I explore this question below the fold…

The January 3 caucus was tough on campaigns internet teams. Throughout December, non-profits fill our inboxes with appeals, who combine the spirit of the holidays with their (c)(3) status to make for a strong appeal. And the mental bandwidth that isn’t consumed with the latest appeal from NPOs goes to the nearly omnipresent messages from commercial advertisers - from Best Buy to Barnes and Noble, everyone’s in the game with ugly pitches that break if your email reader blocks images. So it’s tough for campaigns to be forced to get their messages out at the same time.

But let’s look at the content of these messages, breaking them out into four general categories:

• Fundraising - Unfortunately, because of Buckley v Valeo, elections in America are all about the Benjamins. And while I’d rather candidates get their money from me, you, and other active citizens online than from Exxon, every fundraising appeal is an appeal that could have been something else.
• Action - Sign my petition! Send a letter to an organizer! Create some content! This is the meat and potatoes of the email list, and what keeps people engaged. These tend to be the appeals worth reading, because there might be something cool on the other side. Also in this category is that most important communication: go vote!
• ReadMe/WatchMe - In my past life as Internet Director for a campaign, I tried to avoid these - what could have been a cool action or needed fundraising was instead a piece trumpeting an appearance on some talking head show that no one outside the beltway cares about. Videos of campaign appearances can be better, but these remain some of the worst filler that communications directors make us send out. When these are video messages that direct another action or fundraising, they belong in that category - this category is for content without a call to action.
• Other - Everything else, from promotions of more gear, to simple "thank you’s," to press releases that are, for some bizarre reason, being sent to your list, this is everything that’s not one of the above.

So let’s look at the matrix of what these candidates sent in December and January to see if they really needed this volume, or if, in fact, more can be less:

	Fundraising	Action	ReadMe/WatchMe	Other
Clinton	7 (53.5%)	0	4 (30.7%)	2 (15.4%)
Edwards	24 (82.8%)	0	3 (10.3%)	2 (6.8%)
Obama	10 (52.6%)	2 (10.5%)	3 (15.8%)	4 (21.1%)
TOTAL	41 (67.2%)	2 (3.3%)	10 (16.4%)	8 (13.1%)

Methodology: In cases where the email could be multiple categories, I counted it for the one that was listed on the callout button - for example, in an email about a new add where the callout button said "Contribute," I considered it fundraising. Also, I’m geotargetted as being in Virginia - early state voters may have received different messages.

That’s a lot of fundraising - two-thirds of the total. So the question is - was that really the best way for candidates to message their lists? And did they really need to send that many messages?

To answer, let’s look at the opportunity cost. In theory, in the weeks leading up to the Iowa Caucuses, what the candidates needed most was to convince a small universe of people to vote for them, and all that everyone else in the country could do is to contribute to that effort. By asking them for money, campaigns could turn that cash into TV ads, which would motivate people to vote the way the campaigns wanted.

But what about a more direct approach? I didn’t receive any messages about the bevy of tools that the campaigns could have used to get voter contacts in a more personal way than TV spots. While Obama’s team asked me to send a note of support to an Iowa staffer or volunteer (one of their most innovative appeals), they didn’t send out anything about their virtual phonebank tool. While Edwards toted some videos, they never asked people to check out their extensive list of social networks to see if there’s any other way to connect with the campaign. And Clinton had not only a virtual phonebank, but also peer-to-peer fundraising tool that she never touted.

The campaigns wouldn’t have spent resources to build these tools if they weren’t useful, but if they’re worth building, aren’t they worth promoting? Are you that short on cash that you need to make every email a direct appeal for funds, rather than scrapping a few ads to try direct voter contacts?

Without access to the candidates open, clickthrough and unsubscribe rates, we may never know if their lists felt oversaturated. We can assume that the campaigns were watching their numbers closely, and knew to back off if they started seeing fatigue. And with my What-If machine broken, there’s no way to find out what would have happened had the candidates had sent out less mail - would Iowa and New Hampshire have turned out differently?

I’d be interested to see a more in-depth study of what the saturation point is for the average email recipient. I’d also be interested to see how that point changes when getting near the peak event of a list, be it an election of a candidate, an annual walk-a-thon, or some other event that list members understand to be the primary reason for that entity’s existence - how much more mail will readers who are fired up tolerate?

But my instinct tells me that we, as marketers, should respect the inboxes of our lists. People choose to be on your list as part of a compact that you will send them content they’ll appreciate. And while they may not be wild about every message (I’ve had people ask me if they can get on a separate list that sends out everything but fundraising appeals), if we’re judicious about what we send, and ask if people really need to hear it, if there’s nothing better to send instead, and if it really needs to go out today, we’ll be better stewards of our lists and caretakers of our members’ inboxes.

While it’s true that people won’t give unless they’re asked, and the same goes for action, you can’t raise anything from a member who’s unsubscribed or tuned out. There’s still eleven months until election day, and if the nominee keeps going at his or her current pace until then, we’ll see about 110 more emails from Clinton, 165 more from Obama, or a jaw-dropping 275 more from Edwards. And if that’s not the saturation point, I don’t know what is.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 9th, 2008 at 4:42 pm and is filed under Current Affairs, Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.