Presidential Campaigns’ Email Tactics: Good Lessons in What Not to Do

by Ron Daly

This election season, both presidential candidates have turned up the heat with their email programs. They know email is an efficient, fast, and cost-effective way to reach supporters and to bring in donations. But according to Email Insider’s Jordan Ayan, both campaigns are “abysmally poor at executing based on today’s best practices.” (The Real Presidential Debate: What’s up with Candidates’ Email Campaigns, Oct. 1, 2008).

While we won’t have a winner until tonight, the presidential race is a dead heat when it comes to email no-no’s. Here are a few examples:

• Sending too many emails. Like many companies, presidential campaigns have many departments and offices, making it hard to keep track of the various messages being sent out on behalf of the candidate. Both the McCain and Obama campaigns regularly send numerous emails within the same day, giving recipients the impression of not just a poorly managed email policy, but a campaign that doesn’t value their time or respect their inbox. 

• Using multiple and irregular “from” addresses. When trying to build a brand or establish consistency, the email rule of thumb is to use familiar name(s) in the “from” line, which improves open and readership rates. Both the McCain and Obama campaigns send emails under various names – some are familiar, like their VP candidates and spouses, but many are unfamiliar, like state chairpersons and major supporters. This tactic is confusing and increases the likelihood that the messages will go unnoticed.

• Ignoring CAN-SPAM guidelines. The FTC ruled that emailers must provide a simple unsubscribe process that doesn’t make the recipient give information other than their email address and opt-out choices, and does not require them do more than send a reply message or visit a single Web page to unsubscribe. Neither campaign follows these guidelines … Obama’s sends recipients to a designated webpage to receive a special code number that they must enter on a designated browser form; McCain’s requires recipients to give a reason for unsubscribing.

Today, many financial institutions recognize that email is a valuable tool when it comes to communicating with members/customers and marketing products. The secret to success is knowing the right way (and wrong way) to plan your email strategy – and putting that knowledge into practice.