Remember the days of gathering all your campaign supporters around a kitchen table with a printed copy of your targeted voter list and several large pizzas in order to send personalized postcards to voters in the district?
Everyone around the table grabs a sheet, scans the list until the find a name they know and then check off that voter as they sign and add a personal message to a pre-printed postcard.
I’m a big fan of this neighbor-to-neighbor personalization and campaigns that do this well, often times win, even overcoming spending disadvantages.
We figured there had to be a better way to accomplish this task by utilizing technology, thus the creation of Voter Neighbor.
Voter Neighbor is a friend to friend personalized postcard program managed online that replaces those grease stained postcards.
How’s it Work?
- Victory creates your campaign’s unique Voter Neighbor website.
- You supply Victory with your voter file or targeted list of voters whom you want to persuade through Voter Neighbor.
- Through your specific Voter Neighbor website, your campaign administrator provides supporters each with a unique user name and password so they may access Voter Neighbor.
- Using various query options, campaign supporters (24/7) find people they know and select those people to receive a postcard. The people selected, or “tagged”, might include family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, etc.
- Your supporters personalize each postcard by choosing one of six campaign provided messages that will best persuade each recipient. Additionally, with Voter Neighbor’s capabilities, your supporters may personalize the salutation on each postcard. For example, if the supporter has chosen his or her uncle Frank, and everyone calls him “Big Frank”, the supporter may personalize the salutation to say “Big Frank” instead of his name that is currently listed. Supporters are also able to update or add phone numbers and email addresses for the people whom they identify.
- Your campaign and Victory work together to create an image for the front of the postcard.
- Your campaign determines when you want to send the postcards. Victory prints the personalized postcards, applies first class postage, and ships them via UPS directly to the campaign. All your campaign then needs to do is drop the postcards at the local post office.
At any time during the process, Voter Neighbor enables your campaign to track the number of supporters using the system, as well as supporters’ mailing lists.
Bottom line….not utilizing technology in your campaign, whether you’re running for City Council or U.S. Senate means you’re missing opportunities to engage voters, reduce costs and run a more efficient campaign.