Building an Activist List

BUILDING AN ACTIVIST LIST

This is me. Roz Lemieux.I am a partner at Fission Strategy.

You can learn more about us at:www.FissionStrategy.com

What lists are we talking about?

1. Email Action Alert List

2. Social Networks

3. Mobile Action Network

4. Other Supporter Lists

Part I: Email Alert List

1. Have a good campaign.

Ask yourself…

Why me?

Why now?

Why this?

2. Look for “moments”.

Immigration > Arpaio Video

Moms > Mother’s Day

3. Be innovative.

Case Study: HealthyToys

Case Study: MomsVote

Case Study: Act.ly

4. Test!

Case Study: Yes/No

Case Study: First Name

No first name:0.17% donation rate

First name:0.22% donation rate

Adding the first name to the subject line lifted open rates by 6%, click rates by 12% and donation rates by 30%

Case Study: Talking Points

Bullets on what to say to personalize:6.94% action rate28.36% emails personalized

Normal (‘low’) request for personalization:7.65% action rate5.50% emails personalized

Giving people concrete bullets to talk to on landing page suppressed action rate by 9% and lifted personalization rate by 400%

5. Segment.

Case Study:

6. Seek out allies.

Organizations

Organizations

Bloggers

Part II: Social Networks

1. Make the case internally.

Email Open Rates Are Declining

According to M+R:

Email open rates declined almost

63% between 2004 and 2008.

Social Network Use Is Growing

According to Pew:

35% of adult Internet users are social network users –

up 4x from 2005.

Integrated Online Communications Strategy

Social Network Use Is Growing

Integrated Online Communications Strategy

Social Network Use Is Growing

2. Research your supporters.

Rapleaf Reports

Social Media Scans

Social Media Scans

2. Do the easy stuff first.

Case Study: MomsRising

Case Study: Google Groups

3. Follow these Twitter tips…

Top-secret Twitter Tips

Advocates

Journalists

Congress

Industry Leaders

Case Study: Twitter

3. Follow these Facebook tips…

Feed the News Feed

Status Message Saturation

Pervasive Profile Pics

Day of Action

4. Cultivate your geekiness.

Stay on top of tech news.

Learn SQL

Part III: Mobile Action Network

Technology

Mobile Network in Action

Part IV: Other Supporter Lists

What is modeling?

You start with a list of supporters, about whom you have some information, e.g. marketing or voter data.

Then you do a short poll to a large sample of the list, to find out who is (and isn’t) a supporter.

Then you create a “model” of a typical supporter. The model is a description based on the data that you have about your list – e.g. demographics, voting history, location.

Then you rank how likely each person on your list is to be a supporter, based on the model. You can focus on those most likely to be supporters, so your outreach is more targeted, more efficient.

Catalist Enhanced Voter File

230,000,000 records

Catalist Enhanced Voter File

230,000,000 records

How does modeling work?

Universe of Likely

Supporters

Universe of Likely

Supporters

Patch-Thru Calls

Patch-Thru Calls

Model of a Likely ActivistModel of a

Likely Activist

Apply ModelApply Model

Universe of MOST Likely Supporte

rs

Universe of MOST Likely Supporte

rs

Call CongressTxt 2 JoinSign

Petitions

Call CongressTxt 2 JoinSign

Petitions

MOBILIZEMOBILIZE

Q & A

[email protected]