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Door-to-Door Campaigning: The Esri Component Part I

We’ve stressed the importance of face-to-face interaction, door-to-door canvassing, and boots-on-the-ground. Sometimes, however, it can all seem overwhelming. If you introduce yourself to people from nearly every demographic (especially if you live in an urban city), you want to make sure that you avoid presenting the same message to each demographic. You might know which door you’ll be knocking on, but make sure you’ve done some groundwork as to who will be opening it.

Voter Gravity has integrated Esri Tapestry Segmentation into our Esri base maps. Esri Tapestry Segmentation combines of all the possible demographics you may encounter — whether you live in an Urban city or a rural area. They break six main categories into 65 different Lifestyles. Today, we’ve broken down the large tapestry into sections that correspond to your possible campaign area and picked just a few lifestyles to share. Hopefully this can be a starting point as you tailor your face-to-face talking points and introductions in a way that will be meaningful and powerful.

A. Principal Urban Centers:

1. Laptops and Lattes: Singles/shared apartments – These solo acts own a Blackberry, bank online, shop at Banana Republic, listen to public radio, and rent cars from Budget.

2. Social Security Set: Elderly Singles – This demographic reads books, paints, and draws, consults a financial planner, attends auto-racing events, owns/leasees domestic vehicle.

3. Urban Villages: Family mix w/strong family life – These families visit sea world, have mortgage insurance, play soccer/watch soccer on TV, listen to hispanic radio, and own/lease a Toyota.

4. High Rise Renters: Families/Singles – This demographic shops at BJ’s Wholesale club, has renter’s insurance, attends ball games, listens to Urban radio, and uses public transport.

5. Metro Renters: Singles/shared – These citizens travel by plane frequently, have renter’s insurance, play tennis, listen to alternative radio, and rent cars from Hertz.

B. Metro Cities:

1. Top Rung: Families in High Society – These high floaters participate in public/civic activities, own stock worth $75,000+, vacation overseas, listen to all-news radio, and own/lease a luxury car.

2. Urban Chic: Mix households living in upscale avenues – They order from Amazon.com, trade/track investments online, buy natural organic foods, listen to classical music on radio, and spent 30,000+ on last vehicle.

3. Milk and Cookies: Middle class families living in a metropolis – These families frequent fast-food/drive-in restaurants, watch the education channels and Cartoon Network, and own/lease a Nisson.

4. Inner City Tenants: Mixed company with global roots – They play football or basketball, have a personal education loan, go dancing, read music or fashion magazines, and own/lease a Honda.

5. Dorms to Diplomas: College students, singles and shared – These youngsters participate in a variety of sports, have personal education loans, own an iPod, watch MTV, and have an auto insurance with State Farm Mutual.

C. Urban Outskirts:

1. Boomburbs: High Society Couples w/Kids in suburbs – These families shop and bank online, visit disney world (Fl), listen to sports on radio, and own/lease an SUV.

2. Main Street U.S.A.: Mixed belonging to what Esri terms “traditional living” – Buy children’s toys, games, and clothes, consult financial planner, rent movies on DVD, and watch court shows in TV.

3. College Towns: Singles/Shared multiunit rentals – Work for a political party/candidate, bank online, attend college sports events, go to bars, listen to public, alternative radio, and own/lease a toyota.

4. Southwestern Families: Family Mix – These white, Amer. Indian, and Hispanic families – have a new car loan, play soccer, football, or softball, listen to Hispanic Radio, own/lease a Nixon.

5. Metro City Edge: Families in a metropolis – These just-off-the-city-limit-dwellers are lower/middle class, bank at savings & loan, go to the movies frequently, watch courtroom shows on tv, own/lease a Buick.

D. Suburban Periphery:

1. Suburban Splendor: Married-Couple Families in High Society – They enjoy gardening, hold a large life insurance policy, stay at Hilton hotels, listen to all-news radio, and read travel, sports and magazines.

2. Silver and Gold: Married couples w/ no kids – these upper class seniors go boating and fishing, own shares in bonds, attend classical music shows/operas, and watch the golf channel.

3. Midlife Junction: Mixed combination of middle-aged, middle-class americans – these people go fishing, own U.S. Savings bonds, attend tennis matches, read 2+ daily, sunday newspapers.

4. Military Proximity: Married Couples w/Kids in a college or military environment – they play basketball, go bowling, trade stocks/bonds/funds online, watch news and sci-fi shows in TV.

5. Home Town: Mixed group living in small communities – these small town/steady job types play football, go fishing, have a personal education loan, attend country music performance, watch syndicated TV, and own/lease domestic vehicle.

E. Small Towns
*Esri only has three lifestyles for this category.

1. Cross Roads: Lower/Middle income family mix – these families watch movies on DVD, bak in person, play volleyball and softball, read fishing and hunting magazines, and own/lease a Ford.

2. Senior Sun Seekers: Married Couples w/no kids and singles – these relatively independent senior individuals are members of a fraternal order or veterans’ club, own annuities, go fishing, read, or play bingo, watch game and news shows on TV, and own/lease a station wagon.

3. Heartland Communities: Mixed group of lower/middle class individuals – they work on their lawn, garden. DIY projects, own shares in mutual funds, order products from Amazon, watch cable TV, and own.lease a domestic vehicle. 

F. Rural Areas

1. Green Acres: Prosperous, married couple homeowners – they do gardening/woodworking, have home equity credit line, attend country music shows, watch auto-racing on TV, and drive 20,000+ mi/yr.

2. Salt of the Earth: Married-Couple families in small communities with settled jobs – they enjoy gardening and outdoor projects, own CD 6+ months, watch CMT, own a motorcycle.

3. Rural Resort Dwellers: Married/Couples w/no kids living in a small town – they do woodworking and furniture refinishing, have overdraft protection, do target shooting, watch rodeo/bull riding on TV, and own an ATB/UTV.

4. Rooted Rural: Married Couple Families with lower/middle income – they own dogs, use full-service bank, go hunting, fishing horseback riding, watch rodeos, tractor pulls on TV, Own and ATV/UTV.

5. Rural Bypass: Family mix of lower/middle income – they attend auto racing events, own CDs for 6+ months, go hunting, read fishing/hunting magazines, and own/lease a compact pickup.

If you have any questions about how Esri Tapestry Segmentation fits in with Voter Gravity data, contact us today!

 

Announcing New Feature for Campaigns & Additional Capital

Catching Up on Campaign Tech
Please take three minutes to read my new piece in The American Spectator titled, “Catching Up on Campaign Tech.” There’s a lot to learn from last month’s election in order to gain real momentum for 2014:
“Virginia’s gubernatorial elections just weeks ago offered the first test of whether the GOP had learned its lessons from 2012—and an honest assessment shows more work to be done. Democrat Terry McAuliffe scaled down Obama’s model, contracting with BlueLabs, an analytics and data company started by some of Obama for America’s senior analytics staff, and fundraising and get-out-the-vote firm NGP VAN to model and target Virginians. McAuliffe ultimately won by less than 2.5 percent.

Republicans need to do better.”

Announcing Voter Gravity Contacts

Winning elections isn’t just about contacting voters. It’s about building relationships with supporters, contributors, and other key contacts who may or may not be voters in your district.

Today we are excited to announce a brand new feature in Voter Gravity that gives campaigns and organizations the ability to integrate all of their data into one place.

The new Voter Gravity Contacts module gives you an easy place to store your campaign’s contacts, manage donors, and keep in touch with the people most important to your campaign.

The Contacts module is a lean tool today, and we will be adding new functionality to it in the coming weeks. Take Voter Gravity Contacts for a spin. Sign up for a free demo today!

Voter Gravity Raises Additional Capital

We’re really excited to share that we’ve recently raised $2 million in partial close funding with a goal of doubling that. It’s exciting to reach this new stage of growth, and we’re grateful for our friends, family, investors, partners, and users who have helped us get to this point.

Voter Gravity in Politico: GOP data firm adds big name

A new Republican technology firm has raised $2 million in new capital and is adding a veteran political hand to its board.

Voter Gravity, a campaign technology company building out a multiplatform voter contact tool, reported the partial close funding with the Securities and Exchange Commission last week, the firm’s CEO said.

Read the rest at Politico.com: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/12/voter-gravity-matt-schlapp-100644.html#ixzz2mWiFiAVJ

Catching Up on Campaign Tech

In the weeks following the 2012 elections, the post-mortems revealed how tech-savvy Obama’s re-election operation had been. The campaign built a revolutionary data-sharing platform and had more than 300 technologists and analysts on staff. In October of 2012, polls were showing a very close race, and the president’s approval rating hovered near 50 percent. So on election night, when battleground states began falling like dominoes into Obama’s column, and when Romney came up 126 electoral votes short, many people right of center were stunned.

Virginia’s gubernatorial elections just weeks ago offered the first test of whether the GOP had learned its lessons from 2012—and an honest assessment shows more work to be done. Democrat Terry McAuliffe scaled down Obama’s model, contracting with BlueLabs, an analytics and data company started by some of Obama for America’s senior analytics staff, and fundraising and get-out-the-vote firm NGP VAN to model and target Virginians. McAuliffe ultimately won by less than 2.5 percent.

Republicans need to do better.

Read the full article on Spectator.org.

37 Tweet Ideas for the Political Candidate

Maybe your political campaign is keeping you so busy you’re struggling to find time to keep up with your role in social media. You’ve just hit a wall and are having a difficult time generating content. Chances are, you may be over-thinking it.

The great (and maybe not so great) thing about Twitter is that pretty much anything goes. Not every single tweet needs to push your campaign forward in an obvious way. The whole point of Twitter for the political candidate is to enable you to connect with more people. But unless you’re personal, it will be just as hard to connect online as it is in person. So unless your post is wildly offensive or inappropriate, it’s fine to post. That being said, there are ways to fail at Twitter, so make sure that your tweets aren’t hurting your cause.

If you’re still struggling to generate content, here is a list of what to tweet:

  1. Infographics
  2. Inspirational Quotes
  3. “Today in History” facts
  4. Radio and TV interviews
  5. Occasional links to your donate page
  6. Opportunities to volunteer for your campaign
  7. Commentary on national and local news
  8. Shout-outs to friends, volunteers, and colleagues
  9. Links to your blog
  10. Links to your website
  11. Retweets
  12. Replies to people who mention you
  13. Political events you’re hosting
  14. Pictures of your family
  15. Comment on current events
  16. Questions to followers
  17. Platform points
  18. Pictures of your volunteers
  19. Local events that you’ll be attending
  20. Relevant articles
  21. Pictures of you
  22. Fun/interesting statistics
  23. Political events occurring in the area
  24. Pictures of your hometown
  25. Local business highlights
  26. The benefits of living in your town
  27. What you’d change to make “home” a better place to live
  28. Shout out to campaign volunteers
  29. Thank local businesses for their support
  30. Breaking news
  31. Press releases
  32. YouTube clips
  33. How-to’s
  34. Trending topics, if relevant (complete with hashtags)
  35. Vine videos
  36. Links to pictures on your Instagram
  37. Fun facts about your town/state

What Can Voter Gravity Data Do For You?

You’ve heard that Voter Gravity has an extensive voter database. But what exactly does that mean? Let’s break it down:
  • 175+ million voter records
  • Voter records across all 50 states
  • Vote history for last four to six cycles of all major elections
  • 90 million phone numbers
  • Addresses geocoded and updated every quarter
  • 65 distinctive consumer and demographic data points for voter profiles
  • Ability to keep a voter’s data when he or she moves, even across state lines
Our files come straight from local election officials, are merged into a master file where we check for up-to-date address changes and append them with phone numbers and consumer data points that are often predictive of voting behavior. This combination of official voter files with modern consumer data analytics makes the Voter Gravity file incredibly accurate and insightful.
The goal of having data is to take action. Here’s what you can do with the data at your disposal through Voter Gravity’s unique application:
  • Access voter records in your district 24/7
  • Link voter records with your Facebook friends (coming soon!)
  • Create walk lists in minutes
  • Create voter surveys and link them to phone banks and walk lists
  • Tag voters with unique attributes for your district
  • Create target voter profiles based on any combination of data points
  • Access voter data on any smartphone or tablet
Intrigued? Request a demo!

5 Ways to Keep Your Campaign Volunteers Motivated

In my last post, I gave you 14 suggestions for where to find volunteers. The volunteer process, however, is not only about who you can get, but also how you can successfully engage, manage, and propel dozens of volunteers at a time. Once you accumulate a team of enthusiastic volunteers, here are a few pointers on how to keep them enthusiastic and committed:

1) Make your issues clear so that your volunteers know what they’re supporting and can accurately pass along your main ideas to others. Just because people have volunteered for your campaign does not necessarily mean that they know the ins and outs of why you’re running and what you stand for. They could be there for any number of reasons – anything from a recommendation by a friend, to simply a supporter of the party ticket you’re running on. It’s your job to make sure that your volunteers are informed and their questions answered. 





2) Be kind. Most of these people will be working for little to no pay. They are (often) excited to actively support something they believe in, and will be driven by that excitement. Don’t ruin this by being rude. A little gratitude, a little show of friendliness despite your busy agenda will go a long way with volunteers. 

Take time to learn their names and recognize the work they accomplish. Note: how you treat your volunteers will inevitably get out into the community. The way in which you establish relationships now will reflect how you will govern once in office.



3) Show leadership. When I say be kind I do not mean be a pushover. People are following you and looking to you for direction so make sure you give them something to look up to. Your strength, conviction and character will stand out to your volunteers.

4) Give the volunteers a safe, clean, calm environment in which to work. Chances are campaign volunteers will be fielding calls, going door-to-door, calling people who may or may not be welcoming. It is your job to provide a place where your volunteers can come for answers to give to others, touch base, and relax after a long day of campaigning on your behalf. It’s a small way of showing gratitude to those who are working so hard to make you successful in your campaign. 

5) Make it fun. Just because there’s a deadline and an end-goal does not mean that you’re volunteers should be treated as soldiers or as robots. Use gamification techniques: turn tasks into friendly competitions. It’s often not as much about what you do as it is about what you don’t do. If you’re not prepared, if the volunteers feel like their tasks are of no added value, if you waste your volunteers’ time, then you will guarantee that the experience will fall flat. And don’t forget the pizza parties to keep up moral! A well fed volunteer is a happy volunteer.

14 Ways to Find New Campaign Volunteers

Asking people to volunteer on your campaign can be as difficult as asking for money. Many people need an extra push in order to spend their extra time helping you. The key is to actively recruit volunteers from a variety of places in your community. Reach out and and let them know that their time is valued and needed. I’ve listed 14 places to start looking for campaign volunteers, ranging from the basic to the more creative. Good luck!

  1. Begin with family. Parents, spouses, and your kids can be excellent sources of encouragement and help. Don’t hesitate to look to them – not just for advice and encouragement, but also for time. 
 

2) Friends. Just like anything, it is best to start with what (or in this case who) you know. Chances are you already have their support and encouragement. Friends are often motivated to help campaign simply because they like you. They’ll volunteer time and energy to help you make your campaign dreams come true if they know that you’ll find value in their support.
  2. Previous Volunteers. As with friends and family, this may seem like a no-brainer, but you would be surprised by how many things fall through the cracks if you don’t keep track of everything and everyone. People who have helped either your or your political party before are great resources since they will already know what they’re doing.
  3. College Students are another great pool of prospects to pull from. This is your chance to offer college students a chance to improve their resume and be involved with your campaign in a capacity that fits their specific needs. Find the presidents of the college party chapters, speak at their meetings, give internship credit and offer lots of free pizza. Boom.
  4. Volunteer Networks are always an option. People who are familiar with volunteering and campaigns will know what they’re doing and will probably need less training.
  5. High School Students often need to fulfill a certain amount of community service hours for their school or college applications. Working on your campaign will give them the time or credit they need, and will add more energy to your campaign.
  6. Homeschooled Students may not have the community hour requirements but there’s a good chance they’ll have more time on their hands. Or, if they spend as much time in school as public and privately schooled students, homeschooled students will have much more flexible hours. And they may bring along a sibling or two. Announce your need through local homeschool leaders, newsletters, co-ops, events, etc.
  7. Senior Citizens. Like homeschoolers, senior citizens have a lot of time on their hands, and chances are they want to feel useful and help out. Putting up flyers in senior citizen centers and making personal visits to recruit volunteers might be well worth your time. Think creatively about the jobs that they can best help you with and let them know that their time is valued and needed.
  8. Churches may also be a good place to look for volunteers since they are hubs of socializing and community. Ask pastors, youth pastors, or small group leaders how you can best get in touch with their congregations.
  9. Campaign Events. People who come to these events are already supporters or want to find out more about your platform. This is a great opportunity to gain supporters and volunteers who will donate their time to helping you win.
  10. Your Donor Database. Depending on the size of your campaign, the size of this resource may vary, but that doesn’t mean you can’t look to them for time. If they’ve already agreed to donate money to your cause, they may just be willing to donate time as well.
  11. Facebook. Hopefully you’ve already set up a page and are using it to get your name out there and create conversation. There are ways to create open events on your page and discover new supporters. Post pictures of your current volunteers as they work on your campaign and include a link to a form for new campaign volunteers.
  12. Local Businesses. Local coffee shops and restaurants are great places to advertise, not just for your campaign but also for volunteers. By placing notices in often-frequented places, you up your chances of reaching out to more people.
  13. Classified Ads. This last one may seem like a no-brainer, but it really shouldn’t be overlooked. It’s a simple way to get out the word and provide your information to people who may want to get involved.

Political Technology: Now We’re Faster & Even More User-Friendly

Every day, we release new updates to Voter Gravity. Here are a few big changes we’ve made recently:

1. Faster Maps: We’ve completely re-written how data loads onto maps to make them significantly faster. Also filters will load in real time. (Note: there is an issue with filters not holding when switching precincts. We are updating this function.)

2. Quick Login: If you have access to only one account, you no longer have to select that account before logging in. The system will log you in immediately after you enter your username and password.

3. Walklist Updates: Printed walklists now display the tags associated with each voter, so a canvasser will know more about that voter as they go up to the house. Admins can determine which tags appear on the walklists by going to Manage > System Tags and hiding any tags they don’t want volunteers to be able to see.

To keep up-to-date with the latest changes in Voter Gravity, visit our Support Portal. Here’s to using the best political technology to increase that person-to-person interaction, build meaningful relationships, and win!

Voter Gravity’s Mobile Canvassing App: Video Overview

Live conversations are one of the most impactful ways to generate votes for your candidate. The personal connection is always what we need to emphasize when campaigning. Today I explain how to utilize Voter Gravity’s mobile canvassing app to deploy walk-lists to your campaign staff and volunteer team in seconds: