Last week, I headed out to San Francisco (my first time ever in CA!) to speak on a "Politics and Technology" panel at the Young Democrats of America convention. Many of the leaders there were just beginning to learn how to effectively use the internet to organize on the ground. I spoke about email--the first and best weapon in any online organizer's arsenal. What follows are my (somewhat condensed) remarks.
It's true that EchoDitto compulsively reads techno-geek websites like O'Reilly Radar and go nuts for the Google maps API. But at the end of the day, all of us are practicioners. We use the internet to effect real change for our clients. And more often than you'd think, that means convincing them to STOP worrying so much about their website.
This may sound counterintuitive, because whenever you hear about the future of politics online, you'll hear a lot about the web. Blogs, virtual communities, comments, forums, online advertising, ad infinitum. All of that is fascinating--and important--but right now, 60% of Americans still don't know what a blog is. They will. In five or even two years, they will. But when you need people to knock on doors, or contact their representative, you need them to do it NOW, not in two years.
And that brings us to email. The big secret of successful online organizations is that email is what actually drives people to take action. This runs counter to the idea that many people have about the prototypical "Web Surfer." This phantom "Web Surfer" just putters around on the internet, clicking on links and online ads and surfing to websites. Sometimes, he comes across a website he likes and just signs up for the email list, or adds his name to a petition.
This guy does not exist in any meaningful way. Very few people enter through the "front door" of a website, or just from surfing from another page. Most folks visit sites via links in their email--from friends, family, or organizations.
The statistics bear this out. When we launch a new campaign, we generally use a lot of components to spread the word--we put it online, we buy blogads or Google ads, and we email our list. By far, the biggest spike in traffic comes from the latter--not just the first time you email them, but every time thereafter.
This axiom may seem obvious, but internalizing it will have a huge impact on how you choose to allocate your resources. Most of you are or will soon be in leadership positions in your organizations, which means that at some point, some consultant will put a shiny website in front of you and tell you how it will change your organization or campaign's life. And maybe it will--but only if you can get people to visit it.
Real-life fact: email drives traffic and participations. Implications:
- Stop stressing about your website. Yes, it should have regularly updated content and look halfway professional. But it shouldn't drive your strategy, it should be driven by your strategy.
- Figure out what organizations have big lists and befriend them. In DC, this might mean MoveOn or Democracy for America. If you're running a local organization, it might be your local Planned Parenthood or League of Conservation Voter chapter.
- Always be growing. Constantly ask yourself "How can I make this into a list-growth activity?" Tell your list to tell a friend. Do campaigns that encourage signups. Partner with other organizations.
- Write decent emails. Just follow a simple principle: write emails as if you're talking to a friend. There are a couple of points that go along with this.
- Your emails should be from human beings, not organizations. Put the name of a person in the subject line. The candidate, the campaign manager, whoever.
- Watch out for overly complex sentences. I try to do a "term paper check" a few hours after writing my first draft, where I go through and figure out which sentences sound like they belong in a political science paper, and delete them.
- No email newsletters! People have very, very short attention spans. Figure out the action you want the email to focus on, and write the email around that link. Paragraph, link, paragraph, link, paragraph, link, signature. PS: link. Even though you also want to include a link to the photo gallery, and the front page, and the campaign you did last week, and the event calendar...don't do it! Just pick one. Just pick ONE.
- Write out the link. This sounds petty, but it makes such a huge difference that I would be remiss in not mentioning it. Do not make "click here" into a link. do not make the name of your campaign into a link. Write the whole thing out, with the http://www. for each one. People like to know where they're going when they click.
Mass media requires sound bites and fifteen-second pitches and canned speeches. Email communications are an amazing tool because they let you talk to people as if they're humans.
So the next time you're writing a group email, think about what you do when you get an email address at a bar. You think for awhile about what to write. Should you be funny? Serious? Will you ask them to go out with just you, or you and your friends? You put a lot of thought into that email. If you do the same thing with the emails you send to your list, you'll start seeing results very quickly. Write your emails as if you're writing to people--because you are. Respect them.
