Tag Archives: Municipal Elections

Email Marketing For Municipal Elections

It does not matter if your election is downtown Toronto or in rural Essa Township, all Candidates need to use an email marketing service.

Election Email Marketing

There are a few common service providers such as AWeber, Constant Contact and Mail Chimp.  I have worked with all three and found that AWeber is the most cost effective and has one of the best delivery rates – meaning less of your emails end up in your voters’ spam mail.

Collecting email addresses is not always easy, however it is slowly becoming vital to your campaign for many reasons. Let’s take a quick look at a few:

  • The decline of the home phone. In the “good old days” matching your voters list to a landline was a simple task, but in 2014 everyone is cutting the cord on home phone services. Collecting personal email addresses gets you straight to a voter’s mobile phone.
  • The introduction of online voting. This will be widespread in municipal elections in the near future with many small townships already offering online voting in 2014. In Leamington, Ontario this fall it’s the only choice. How nice would it be if your email asking for support entered a voter’s inbox shortly after their online voting instructions?  GOTV is going to get much easier (and cheaper).
  • Email marketing is fast and cheap. If you have a robust email list of voters you can get information out quickly when responding to a current issue or promoting a last minute event. This is much more efficient than trying to get the word out by phone or on your feet.  A subscription to an email marketing service comes at a low cost. The monthly cost of AWeber is less than $20 per month.  Compare that to over a thousand dollars for a mail out or hundreds of dollars for a voice-broadcast and it’s a great deal!

If you are thinking you can manage your email list with a spreadsheet and your current email provider, think again.  An email marketing service comes with many perks including email marketing education, sign-up confirmation pages, delivery and viewing statistics, and professional looking templates.   To learn more about all the features of an email marketing service I encourage you to visit a few of their websites.

For more info on email marketing subscription costs and features visit AWeber’s website.

City Campaigner Members can log onto the members-only portal for my latest video on email marketing. This includes easy tactics to collect voters’ email addresses and how to use automated email drip campaigns to keep voters engaged.

Keep Knocking,

KEITH

Google
 

Election Press Releases

Publicity is often referred to as “earned media” because you do in fact need to earn it.

press release

I am far from a communications expert, however this brief post is for municipal campaign candidates who are looking for a bit of media coverage from their local paper and radio station.   This week I posted a more in-depth instructional video on election press releases and a downloadable template to the City Campaigner Members Portal. These resources are for City Councillor Candidates who are serious about investing in a win.  For aspiring candidates and future campaign volunteers, here are some quick points on election press releases: Continue reading

WELCOME

Thanks for visiting the City Campaigner Blog!

I’ll be using this space to update readers on the City Campaigner membership team and to provide a few tips on what municipal campaign candidates must do to win.

City Campaigner is a Municipal Election Campaign Community that benefits members with online election training, templates, expert interviews, election services/products, and group buying discounts. Details on how to become a member of this community will be coming in the next couple of weeks.  If you are a candidate in the 2014 Municipal Election and would like to be a member of  the City Campaigner Team, email me at[email protected]. Since I want everyone on the team to be successful I will only be accepting one candidate per Ward in each municipality.

Keep Knocking!

KEITH

Continue reading