The President's Email Campaign

Recently, my left shoulder almost fell off. Okay, that was what I told my wife to get nonexistent sympathy. (Last time I had a cold: “Honey, my lungs are filled with lava; I require coddling.”)

Since I’ve had joint surgery on other limbs, my left shoulder felt ostracized, alone. So it developed a bone spur the size and sharpness of an eagle’s talon that dug into nerves, flesh and anything else to make you cringe on your way to sending a donation to help pay the orthopedist.

Perhaps charitable donation copywriting isn’t for me.

But it certainly was for the team that recently got 690 million dollars donated to Mr. Obama. Via email. All online. You read right.

Whether it’s political fundraising or contractor services, mass persuasion that drags nearly ¾ of a billion dollars with no direct benefit to the donor is a flat-out marvel. So how good would it work if you offered a very direct provable benefit? (I’m referring to you, dear contractor!)

A team of 20 writers and 4 strategists composed these emails, and allowed some students (including pain-riddled and groveling me) to review the techniques. And here they are…

This is not about political fund-raising. For this editorial expose, I could give a rip who got elected, or their platform. This is about the dissection of persuasion, and one you might employ, since the ONLY difference between a rotten marketing campaign and one that keeps you busy for weeks is your ability to persuade.

In fact, if you were NOT for Mr. Obama, then perhaps this is your rare opportunity to extract value from the re-election. Personally, I’d grab it.

Toby Fallsgraff, lead strategist for this avalanche of emailed millions, has a word he uses a lot: testing. So you can look at this very short list and draw two conclusions.

1. You realize that its relative simplicity resulted from complex testing of 4.5 million coded responses, in layered double blind, A/B split testing that considered manifold data query, constantly re-setting the controls at each “win” or…
2. You think it’s bunk and you want to do it your way.

Either way is fine by me; one of the choices can greatly impact you.
NOTE: Regular SMI readers and MegaMarketer members may recognize some steps from earlier research, also used in our Web Marketing PowerProgram. Yet to re-affirm their incredible effectiveness with added data, here you go:

1. List Segmentation – Fallsgraff’s main 7-figure genius. He found that the more specific the emails were in recognizing donors, the more they donated. (My overly-repeated phrase “Specificity rules response.”)
   
   That is name, behavioral habit (“You gave $75 in 2008”) and familiarity-triggers. “At our age, you and I remember when…” etc. The days of “one ad fits all” copy is dead. Targeted, tonal copy matters, folks.
   
   The researchers found the Top donor groups as follows, and I’ve inserted the direct parallel equivalent (PE) in your business.
   
   
   • Previous – Those who’d given earlier in the campaign were asked again. PE: Most recent purchasers. Recent repair to old system credited to new system.
   • Quick – A subset of the above whose information was saved for the automatic payment. PE: “We have your information on file and can process your Agreement instantly.”
   • Non – Names on file but no donation. Copy was specially formed to move them forward. PE: A credible message, laced with testimonials, guarantees, “trust builders” and solid offer.
   • Lapsed – Those who’d donated in previous campaigns. PE: What we call “reactivation” letters and emails in our PowerPacks and PowerPrograms. These are mildly guilt-inducing, enticingly reactivating.
     
     
2. Quick, Convenient – Short sentences, email length limited to 300 words, line length pared to < 10 words, paragraph depth < 6 lines, “donation options” shown 1 per line (reduced confusion, focused attention on single numbers) such as:
   $3
   $35
   $50
   $100
   $250
   
   Notice carefully chosen price points clustered where they felt most would give ($35-$50) and larger differentials at top and bottom.
   
   
3. Conversion Magic – 300% increase in response here with one change. The ‘old’ way was to link to a brief form for demographic capture. (Nearly all fund-raisers function this way now in muted effort to segment.)
   
   Yet genius testing proved that those numbers automatically triggered payment, specifying with clarity, “Your donation will go through automatically.”  There is power in each word there, removing the mystical middleman, or processing costs, or other subtle impediments to unfiltered donation.
   
   
4. Test the Message – The 20 top copywriters poured copy onto the strategists and programmers. Testing was fast and furious, with “winners” (we say “controls”) remaining king until toppled.
   
   As covered in Coaching calls and seminars, I often yell … I mean “coach”… about the importance of Subject lines. All the great copy, fancy linking software and sophisticated segmenting mean NOTHING unless…
   
   They open the email. Most writers treat subject lines like an afterthought, yet they’re the caviar of copy. (This very SMI tested 2 subject lines; I’ll publish the winner if you vote at the bottom.)
   

The #1 Subject Line.
Prior to the Web PowerProgram, I’d written perhaps 1,500 subject lines and pared down open rates to 3 categories:

• Curiosity – Is this yours?
• Situational – Was it something I said?
• Impending event – This ends soon.

From these results, we ended up with 44 Subject lines (having just added 16 more for a collection of 60 “rip me open now” email lines) but the #1 Subject Line, out of over 200 written to nearly 3.4 million people for the most lucrative online fund-raiser ever conceived was synergistically linked to the emotions and sensibility within the target groups. It breaks new ground for Direct Response copywriters due to its first-person, near-defeated stance.

It read:

“I will be outspent.”

That email by itself, raised $2,600,000. (And yes, we’ve already written and are launching our test equivalents to this subject line, ready for the Version 3.0 PowerProgram to debut February 28 nationally. Want to be on the notification list? See below.)

Perhaps you can use these suggestions to help get some of your customers to donate to you. I suspect they’ll get more from you than promises and taxation.

Should you do really well, I’m still accepting donations for my shoulder. My orthopedist thanks you too!

Adams Hudson

• Which is the more-opened subject line? (Results in next issue of SMI.)
• TEST #1: Secret Email Strategy that Re-Elected a President
• TEST #2: The President’s 690 Million Dollar Email Strategy

• Click to be put on the Advance Notice list for the much-awaited Marketing PowerProgram 3.0. This program integrates offline and online marketing, and is an entirely new level of “done for you” marketing for contractors.