There are a host of ways to contact voters in our modern age. Over the phone, texting, through the mail, through social media, geo-fencing, and door to door contact to name a few.
We see a lot of first time candidates’ heads spin as they try to wrap their minds around, “Do I have to do all of this? Which one is the most effective? Can I even pay for all of this?”
To answer the latter first, money is the mother’s milk of politics. With the right campaign structure built from the ground up, you will likely not need as much as your opponent(s). But make no mistake-you will need to raise money to win in politics.
But as for the rest, where to start?
The most simple, cost effective way to reach voters is through door to door contact. Period. With a great platform like Sidekick and a small army of friends and family dedicated to helping you as the candidate win, you can do amazing things.
However, we often hear, “A lot of volunteers are older, I am not sure we should use a tech platform. . . can we use paper lists?”
We’re just going to go ahead and crush the notion that senior citizens can’t and won’t use technology.
Did you know that 80% of senior citizens have and use a mobile device?
80%!
We recently did a training with a client and they put more than fifty volunteers in a room for us to talk to. Most of them were over 70 years old. One of the first questions we asked was, “How many of you own a smart phone?” They all raised their hands.
The next question was, “How many of you use social media on your smart phone?” They all, again, raised their hands.
If you can use social media on your smart phone, you can use CampaignSidekick to contact voters.
So don’t be dissuaded by the fact that some of your volunteers are older and will protest for a few minutes about using tech to contact voters. They can and will once they are trained.
Most of all, you want them to use a platform and app like Sidekick. It makes data easy to use in politics. You don’t have to remember who you talked to and when, you can quickly store answers to voter’s profile to use for Get Out The Vote and you can create very narrow universes of voters to message to, motivate and mobilize.
