Which mobile tactics work? MobileMondayDC looks beyond Obama’s campaign on sms success, part 1
December 19, 2008 :: Jill Foster
MobileMondayDC and the MobileMonday global community offer great resources and networking events. If you work within the industry or just want to engage with those who do, their events are worth the time (and Finland started it all…!). And thanks to Kathie Legg for helping to create DC’s very own chapter.
Mobile tech inside and beyond elections
MobileMonday’s DC chapter met earlier this week for strong networking time at Amplify Public Affairs. Later in the night, hip mobile media minds discussed their election experience and more , including: Kevin Bertram-CEO, Distributive Networks; Scott Goodstein-External Online Director, Obama Campaign; Michelle Mayorga-Mobile Program Manager, Rock the Vote; and Katie Harbath, previous Deputy E-campaign Director, Rudolph Giuliani Campaign and currently Online Services Director with DCI Group.
Mobilizing mobile: strategy & outcome
With great context, humor, and time for Q&A, the panelists shared a lot that translated from reaching voters to new fundraising sources to potential consumers. I work more with content creation these days so it was exciting to see what went on behind the scenes on strategic goals at this level.
Rock The Vote
They’re a nonpartisan organization focusing on citizens between the age of 18 to 29 to enroll as voters and participate in elections.
Mobile media goals:
Their main aim was to implement an inclusive voter registration program and galvanize voter turnout. Thus enters mobile media to help tactically achieve that.
Tactics:
The team launched numerous texting programs (SMS) for voter registration drives and election day communications that were geo-centric and time sensitive.
Results:
Through texting programs like registration deadline reminders, this campaign registered 2.5 million new voters. And on election day, they were able to keep voters informed of poll place changes i.e. one Florida polling center decided to extend voting hours last minute on November 4th. Rock The Vote informed residents enrolled in their text program of the change almost in real time.
More on results & lessons learned:
Check this out for progress(!) Rock The Vote grew their mobile campaign enrollment list by 1600%. As for the value of hindsight, Michelle and her team needed to change SMS service providers in the middle of their mobile drive. They did so using At&t yet the vendor change took far longer than preferred.
Obama’s campaign: ringtones, text, iPhones, & the short code
Scott Goodstein introduced himself with a raise-your-hand survey to the audience, asking all how many had downloaded Obama campaign ringtones from their cell or had signed up for text updates or iPhone apps. Many raised hands. It was a compelling intro to his commentary.
Goals:
Scott from first joining Obama’s campaign in February 2007 viewed national election communications as fertile ground for mobile campaigning. From his vantage point, campaign outreach needed to be where voters were – and voters were mobile (vs stationery in front of their tv set).
Tactics:
Scott’s team worked with Distributive Networks to build a different type of texting program. He set up the text short code ‘Obama’ aka 62262 that enabled two-way text communications between the campaign & cell phone users signed-up to participate.
Results:
As the other panelist Katie Harbath, formerly with the RNC, said with humor and grace: ‘We (the Republicans) got beat!’ And according to Scott & the Obama campaign, what proved the best piece of SMS tech on Election Day was transmitting poll station hours. Letting voters know how much longer a particular poll center was open via mobile text remained vital that final day.
The short code: lessons learned & more on fees
Setting up a short code seemed like a big mystery to me. So this particular lesson from the campaign trail made an impression … :
Invest the funds to reserve a dedicated short code (do not share short codes with other organizations!).
The program moderator Kevin Bertram shared what Hillary Clinton’s campaign learned:
Some of Clinton’s supporters -who signed up to receive campaign updates via text- unintentionally received pizza coupons and even worse, crisis pregnancy center info, because Clinton’s campaign chose to share the short code with other organizations to avoid set up delays.
Next up: MobileMondayDC, part 2
- 1) Learn steps to get started on your own mobile outreach effort including guidelines for setting up a dedicated short code;
- 2) Get details on managing bi-lingual and multi-lingual needs with online presence and text messaging from the campaigns;
- 3) Learn the unique and driven social media outreach per select U.S. representatives told straight from Katie Harbath, former Deputy E-campaign Director for Rudolph Giuliani’s campaign.
Photo of cell phone cake by Donbuciak under Creative Commons A-NC-ND 2.0
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