Earlier this month, I highlighted five advantages campaigns reap when organizing with NationBuilder. Today I'm rounding out the top 10 with five additional tips to strengthen the impact of your next campaign. Here's a hint—it all begins with synching your data.
In this post you'll learn how to improve targeted messaging and apply alternative contact methods to connect with people you'd normally consider "unreachable"—until now.
6. Use the Network Tab for digital field
Have you ever cut walk sheets only to realize there are huge chunks of addresses you can't canvass? For example, I live in a building in Downtown LA (also known as DTLA) which houses 300 residents. There's no way you're getting in to canvass...unless you're the pizza place that leaves me a flyer every Saturday.
In some cases, a digital knock is actually better than a door-to-door knock. Once we've matched a supporter record (see NationBuilder Match) to social media, we take it one step further by showing you everyone in that person's network and the campaign's network. This allows a supporter to easily view and tweet at those unreachable address residents to talk up your candidate. Many campaigns notice greater results when a voter receives a digital knock from someone they already know versus a traditional field. We've even seen campaigns create "tweet banks" to further harness the power of the digital connection.
7. Facebook phone banking with Amicus
Looking to take tweet banks to the next level? NationBuilder is now fully integrated with Amicus. This allows you to create a target universe with NationBuilder where volunteers can click over to Amicus and literally phone bank their Facebook friends. Yes, that's a real thing you can do.
8. Surveys improve message targeting
Here's a situation you probably recognize. You've just uploaded the candidate's personal email list of 8,000 supporters—some of these people are coworkers, some are political activists, and the rest are friends from church. Do you really want to send the same "give us $100 because the economy stinks" message to each of these groups? I hope not.
Luckily, NationBuilder comes with a built-in survey tool (one of the 20 website action page types). Send a survey to find out what people care about the most and NationBuilder will automatically tag the respondents. Now you'll know who's in it for education policy or campaign finance reform and you can tailor each message accordingly. Personalized messaging increases volunteer sign-ups along with your donations...you get the idea.
9. Boost GOTV efforts by easily engaging donors
I once helped run a Congressional GOTV effort where the fundraising team hadn't quite bought into the idea of GOTV. We were desperate for every human with a pulse willing to knock on a door. Sound familiar?
You've probably encountered a similar technical challenge. We knew hundreds of donors lived in a segmented donor database and it was simply too hard for fundraisers to figure out who wasn't already volunteering. How did we solve the problem? One of the huge advantages of NationBuilder is syncing this data. Every supporter record will show both donation history and volunteer status. All it takes is a quick 30-second search to find all your small dollar donors who aren't volunteering and your GOTV volunteer target list just doubled. You're welcome.
10. Make sure everyone is registered to vote
Okay, at first glance this one might seem obvious, but every campaign has an annoying instance when they realize an active supporter isn't even registered to vote.
This is another beautiful thing about syncing your data. If your voter file and volunteer file are in one place, all you have to do is de-dupe to find the folks who might not be registered. Better yet, NationBuilder automatically creates profiles for anyone tweeting at a connected twitter account or commenting on a connected Facebook account, and you'll be able to de-dupe them against the vote file too. In the end, everyone will vote and democracy will triumph.
If you're in D.C. on Thursday, I'll be sharing more pro-tips in my keynote address at Campaigns & Elections Fundraise to Win! Registration is now open, you should come learn more about what NationBuilder can do to help your campaign.
