[Lnc-business] Fundraising

Sun Feb 7 12:46:06 EST 2016

I have to disagree, Dan & Kevin . . .

“Doing more of what works!” is a well established truism.  “Doing what works for others!” is not necessarily so.

Do you get daily e-mails from the Cato Institute?  The Heritage Foundation?  How about the Heartland Institute?  Why not?  Surely it is not because they already have enough money, and not because they do not have your e-mail address.

The context in which campaigns like the Ted Cruz campaigns operate is totally different.  For example,  Mr Cruz is getting hours of national media exposure every day.  He also has an awesome brain trust managing many huge lists, tailoring their use according to well devised dynamic strategies.  New polls are issued almost hourly.  New lists are acquired routinely.

As advised by my marketing brain trust, my wife, a successful fundraising effort must be based on three universal concepts:  Achievement, Audience, and Motivation.  One follows from the other and all three must be present to be successful.  Not integrating all three can often produce negative results.

Achievement.  A solicitation is, essentially, asking the recipient to join the solicitor in achieving something.  We do not have a clear definition of what we are trying to achieve.  As I have written before, we have an implied goal of 50+ state ballot access for our national candidate.  However, this goal is not among the 6 goals we established in September 2014.  It was not among the four goals established in November 2012.  It was not among the goals established in November 2010.  I suggest that this is because we as a committee are not really, truly, committed to it.  We ourselves lack confidence in our ability to achieve it.

Audience. The recipients of our message must be those who would be interested in achieving the chosen achievement.  That is, solicitations need to be delivered to folks who would consider the achievement as something in which they would very much want to be a part of.  It is here that facilities like NationBuilder, with its integration with social media, can be essential to the success of the campaign.  Sending solicitations to folks who do not consider the achievement worthwhile risks getting put on the “virtual ignore” list.

Motivation. A solicitation must motivate the selected audience to participate.  This is the magic behind matching funds, the magic behind “selling the benefits.”  This is the magic of the “goal posts”, the percent complete thermometer.  This is why it is much easier to raise funds for a specific project as opposed to funds to replace the carpets in the office.

Repetition is indeed a basic, and valid, tenet of advertising.  This works in media venues where exposure results from other attractions such as in TV, radio, newspapers, and magazines.  It is only during the Super Bowl that folks actually tune in to watch the commercials.  In the mail environment, whether postal or electronic, ignoring a message is easier than absorbing it.  In such environments, sending the same message time and time again simply puts the sender on a “virtual ignore” list whether that list be the trash can, the delete button, or the unsubscribe link.  Note that in the electronic mail environment, we use techniques to count the percentage of actual opens and often consider 10% to be wildly successful.

Once you get on the “virtual ignore” list, it is very difficult to get off it as your carefully crafted, targeted, and motivating  message is never actually seen regardless of how many times it is sent.  Quantity is not always a good substitute for quality.  Doing something simply because it works for someone  else is not an easy ticket to success; and if not used wisely can actually be detrimental.

Norm

--

Norman T Olsen

Regional Representative, Region 1

Libertarian National Committee

7931 South Broadway, PMB 102

Littleton, CO  80122-2710

303-263-4995

From: Lnc-business [mailto:lnc-business-bounces at hq.lp.org] On Behalf Of Kevin Ludlow
Sent: Thursday, February 04, 2016 4:03 PM
To: lnc-business at hq.lp.org
Subject: Re: [Lnc-business] Fundraising

Dan,

Thank you for pointing this out.  It's unfortunate to think this might actually be a discovery for us.

>To raise more money for the LP, we should pay attention to what others are succesfully doing.  Frequent repetition obviously works, and it gains far more than the annoyance it causes.  As another example, MoveOn.org sends out an average of about one email a day.  As long as each one has a different, interesting subject line and message, it doesn't become counterproductive.

Yes. A thousand times yes.  Wes, I definitely appreciate all of the new projects that we've got in the pipeline and have no doubt that they will all help us to some positive degree.  But to Mr. Wiener's point, we really shouldn't wait to have everything in place.  We have lists.  Email is ostensibly free.  We should be blasting the shit out of those in order to constantly be raising more funds and circulating more communication.

The evidence that it works is that you keep getting it.  People wouldn't spend the time to do it if it didn't have a significant return.  And it does have a return.  So again to Mr. Wiener, I agree with you wholeheartedly that this needs to change ASAP.

While I truly, fully support NationBuilder, it is NOT some kind of magical lead generator.  Save for perhaps the single worst website in the poli-sphere, we already have everything we need to run these kind of email campaigns; we just don't run them for reasons that remain entirely unknown to me.

I will support any motions aimed at significantly increasing our digital communication and calls to action through digital mechanisms.

Thank you for creating the talking point.

Kevin

On Thu, Feb 4, 2016 at 4:44 PM, Wes Benedict <wes.benedict at lp.org> wrote:

We can do it with NationBuilder or our current systems, or any systems. 

Here are some of the big projects that have taken a lot of staff time that prevent getting the fundraising emails out:

Audit Committee request, and unnecessarily overly complicated bookkeeping procedures.
The new membership plan adopted by the LNC and implemented in the summer of 2014, which rearranged and complicated things.
A new logo and branding. I like it, but rolling it out takes a lot of time.
Emails deciding where to have the next LNC meeting, changing minds, getting more quotes, spending time communicating with the service we hired to make all this go faster, etc.

We have a new NationBuilder site up an running: http://libertarian.nationbuilder.com/

It doesn't drive itself. 

Wes Benedict, Executive Director
Libertarian National Committee, Inc.
1444 Duke St., Alexandria, VA 22314
(202) 333-0008 ext. 232 <tel:%28202%29%20333-0008%20ext.%20232> , wes.benedict at lp.org
facebook.com/libertarians @LPNational
Join the Libertarian Party at: http://lp.org/membership

On 2/4/2016 5:31 PM, goldsteinatlarge at gmail.com wrote:

we could have done a lot of this with nationbuilder.

sam goldstein

Sent from Windows Mail

From: Daniel Wiener <mailto:wiener at alum.mit.edu> 
Sent: ‎Thursday‎, ‎February‎ ‎4‎, ‎2016 ‎5‎:‎16‎ ‎PM
To: lnc-business at hq.lp.org

I'm on a bunch of mailing lists for various candidates, mostly Republicans but also organizations like MoveOn.org and Bernie Sanders.  (Even for me, the Hillary email list is a bridge too far.)   I've been getting an average of two Ted Cruz emails a day, sometimes spiking up to half a dozen.  I think we have much to learn from all their fundraising pitches, especially from Cruz who has run an extremely effective and organized campaign and raised huge amounts of money.

Among those lessons are to greatly increase the frequency of our solicitations; to segment and micro-target potential contributors (i.e., I'm pretty sure that the Cruz campaign uses different pitches tuned to different interests and subcategories); to use attention-grabbing subject lines which at first may appear counter-intuitive; to always give some excuse for extreme urgency; to use gimmicks such as triple-your-donation (see example in the email below); and to have large links (often giant red buttons) for different contribution levels.

Here are some examples of attention grabbing subject lines from Cruz (in just the past two weeks):

Re: huge phone call - Ted has been trying to reach you.

Can't wait to tell you - Friend, I can't wait to tell you about the phone call I received

Tonight - BREAKING: WE WON!

I have to ask - I need to ask you for a personal favor

this is incredibly hard

📎 See Attached, Friend

THE ESTABLISHMENT: "Anyone but Cruz"

Fantastic news for Ted Cruz

My Friend Donald Trump - This is the email I didn't want to have to write.

[1] Message Unread

Also noteworthy is that I'll sometimes get two or three almost-identical versions of the same fundraising pitch, but with one word different in the subject line.  Or even something as subtle as using square brackets around a number in one case and parentheses in another case, or single quotation marks versus double quotation marks.  Obviously they are doing extensive A/B testing to optimize their response rate.

To raise more money for the LP, we should pay attention to what others are succesfully doing.  Frequent repetition obviously works, and it gains far more than the annoyance it causes.  As another example, MoveOn.org sends out an average of about one email a day.  As long as each one has a different, interesting subject line and message, it doesn't become counterproductive.

Dan Wiener

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: ted at tedcruz.org <ted at tedcruz.org>
Date: Thu, Feb 4, 2016 at 11:12 AM
Subject: help
To: Friend <wiener at bidslash.com>

I'm praying this email reaches you immediately because I really do need your help before the clock runs out...let me explain. 

 <http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/33332484:WGX7HQCN8:m:1:847663864:88B419050AE825FBC70E4886A19AF2C4:r> CruzFor President

Friend, 

I'm praying this email reaches you immediately because I really do need your help before the clock runs out...let me explain. 

We received great news when a few very generous donors stepped up after we won Iowa and agreed to match all online donations -- one for one -- for 48 hours, BUT that has expired. 

However, today I have even BETTER NEWS! 

For the next 24 hours, several donors have stepped forward to DOUBLE the match of all donations made through the links in this email. 

 <http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/33332484:WGX7HQCN8:m:1:847663864:88B419050AE825FBC70E4886A19AF2C4:r> LIMITED 24 HOUR DOUBLE MATCH EXTENSION: click here to donate >>

This means our matching program has been extended for a limited 24 more hours. 

Please let me share how special this is: your contribution of $25 will be matched two-fold to become $75, $50 will be worth $150, and $500 will become $1500.

Your donation will be worth triple the original amount you gave. 

Here is the best part -- even if you have already given a matched donation this still applies to you. 

You can see how this is the most important message I've sent you. 

 <http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/33332484:WGX7HQCN8:m:1:847663864:88B419050AE825FBC70E4886A19AF2C4:r> 24 HOUR DOUBLE MATCH EXTENSION: Stop what you are doing and click here to donate >>

Please, can I count on you to respond right away? 

Any amount helps, and with just days before the New Hampshire primary -- I need every last bit of support I can get. 

If you've already donated, thank you. I wish I didn't have to ask...but as one of my most trusted supporters, can I count on you to make the most of this opportunity and donate again? 

Friend, the next 24 hours are critical. Your action today will give me the momentum I need leading into New Hampshire, South Carolina, and beyond. 

 <http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/33332484:WGX7HQCN8:m:1:847663864:88B419050AE825FBC70E4886A19AF2C4:r> Donate $10, see it matched to become $30 >>

 <http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/33332484:WGX7HQCN8:m:1:847663864:88B419050AE825FBC70E4886A19AF2C4:r> Donate $25, have it double-matched to become $75 >>

 <http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/33332484:WGX7HQCN8:m:1:847663864:88B419050AE825FBC70E4886A19AF2C4:r> Donate $50, see it double-matched to become $150 >>

 <http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/33332484:WGX7HQCN8:m:1:847663864:88B419050AE825FBC70E4886A19AF2C4:r> Donate $100, it will be matched two-fold to become $300 >>

 <http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/33332484:WGX7HQCN8:m:1:847663864:88B419050AE825FBC70E4886A19AF2C4:r> Donate $500, it will triple to become $1,500 >>

This is good for only 24 hours. 

Friend, this is our time. 

Our win in Iowa was key -- with your support, it can happen again. 

For liberty,
http://www.csimgs.com/tcruz/tc-sig-b.jpg
Ted Cruz

PAID FOR BY CRUZ FOR PRESIDENT
www.tedcruz.org

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-- 

"In general, we look for a new law by the following process. First, we guess it (audience laughter), no, don’t laugh, that’s the truth. Then we compute the consequences of the guess, to see what, if this is right, if this law we guess is right, to see what it would imply and then we compare the computation results to nature or we say compare to experiment or experience, compare it directly with observations to see if it works. If it disagrees with experiment, it’s WRONG. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is. If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.” -- Richard Feynman (https://tinyurl.com/lozjjps)

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-- 

========================================================
Kevin Ludlow
512-773-3968

http://www.kevinludlow.com

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