As viewer eyeballs continue to shift away from the television to tablets and mobile phones, the ability to reach an audience with video advertisements is diminishing. NationBuilder offers a solution to this problem by allowing you to deliver ads and video directly to an individual's phone. The ads are not delivered using QR codes or Bluetooth, which require effort on the part of the reciever, but through one of the simplest and most popular forms of communication today - text messaging.
If you're not already using text messaging to reach your supporters, you should be. Sixty-eight percent of US cell phone users actively send text messages and SMS traffic is expected to reach 9.6 trillion this year.
With NationBuilder, not only can you text ads directly to your supporters' phones, you can also run A/B testing of two different ads to gauge their relative effectiveness and generate real time feedback. Here's how:
Start by creating a sign promoting your candidate. You could use a line like: "Mayor Smith loves animals just as much as you do. If you don't believe it, text PUPPIES to 818-555-5555." Then you can set an auto-response containing a YouTube link to a video of the mayor saving puppies from a burning house. When people text back the code, they will receive a text response with the link and can immediately view the video on their mobile phone.
To take it a step further, set up two different keywords to trigger two different versions of the ad. You can test their effectiveness by encouraging viewers to text back their thoughts on the ad and whether or not they liked it.
In the context of connecting with a prospective voter, you have now accomplished the following:
1. Collected a cell phone number to use for future follow-up
2. Targeted your message by sending a highly specific ad to someone who is interested in that topic
3. Compared the effectiveness of two different ads
4. Gathered feedback from supporters on the ads
Watch the video below to learn more about text messaging using NationBuilder.
