How to Make Independent Expenditure Direct Mail Work for You
Direct mail may not sound like an exciting medium for your independent expenditure at first blush, but if used correctly it can be one of the most effective ways to make a difference. Research regularly shows that when it comes to persuading and increasing turnout in elections, direct mail is one of the most tried-and-true methods in the campaign toolbox.
Building a strong independent expenditure direct mail program isn’t that different from some of the tips and tricks we’ve included in other posts. At the end of the day, it’s about being strategic and finding ways to think outside the box. But there are a few key things to think about when you’re running a direct mail program for an independent expenditure:
Make digital and direct mail work in tandem
Our enthusiasm for direct mail is sometimes met with raised eyebrows. We get it—there are flashier ways to engage voters these days. But there are plenty of ways to make your piece of mail stand out. And your independent expenditure direct mail doesn’t have to be disconnected from the digital sphere—mail and digital can be the perfect complements to each other.
Make sure your messaging is consistent across mediums so it resonates with voters even if they only see one piece of mail and don’t get served a digital ad. If you are using a fun or eye-catching theme like a custom gameboard or hand drawn illustration, make sure you’re utilizing that theme within your digital program, and vice versa. If you have the time and budget to do so, you can even test out a message for your independent expenditure with a small social media ad buy before rolling it out in mailboxes. This allows you to see how people respond to Facebook ads to determine if you should send a piece of mail with the same messaging.
Check the candidate’s social media page
Campaigns will often spend a fair bit of time polishing the messaging on their official communication channels. As such, these channels don’t tend to be the best place for independent expenditures to go if they are looking for a candidate’s more controversial stances on an issue.
These types of issues are much more likely to be on the campaign’s social media page. Make sure you check with your lawyer, but in many cases an IE can pull information and photos from Facebook pages to use in their direct mail program. And make sure to check the responses to comments too–if you’re lucky you will find a candidate’s take on an issue that you wouldn’t find on their official channels. If a candidate shares a crazy conspiracy theory on Facebook, for example (something they likely wouldn’t discuss on their “issues” page on their site), this could make for a great opportunity to poke fun at them for being out of touch.
Don’t become a political problem
Yes, you are not allowed to coordinate with the campaign as an independent expenditure. But there’s a difference between what you can and can’t do legally, and how voters see things. If your independent expenditure sends out a piece of mail that includes false or misleading information, voters aren’t going to hold a PAC no one’s ever heard of accountable for it. Voters are going to blame the candidate that you’re supporting.
This should be common sense, but make sure you double check that your communication is free of inaccuracies or misleading statements that could spark controversy. Local journalists love to write stories about how a shady money group is saying or doing something that’s not above board. Since most folks don’t really understand independent expenditures anyway, all these stories just come across as icky to voters. By maintaining integrity, your independent expenditure can minimize the risk of becoming a political problem for the campaign.
Know your lane and what value you bring
We say that successful independent expenditures should fill the gaps that the campaigns themselves can’t cover and target key constituencies that the campaigns don’t have the resources to go after. Before starting a direct mail program for your independent expenditure, you should take some time to think about what holes exist in the work that the campaign is doing.
In short, you want to know what your independent expenditure’s lane is. Is the campaign focused on older homeowners and high propensity voters, and you want to boost turnout among a key audience that has a special connection to the candidate. Is the campaign focused exclusively on suburban women, and there’s not enough going to voters of color? Whatever that lane is for you, you should know what it is and how it will provide value to the overall campaign effort.
Try to get the most bang for your buck
Direct mail for independent expenditure is different from direct mail for the campaign. On a campaign, you have a vote goal, and you have to come up with a mail budget that helps you get enough votes to achieve that vote goal. For an independent expenditure, knowing the vote goal is important, but at the end of the day how many voters you communicate with really comes down to what you can afford. Usually, these programs will say that they have $20K to spend and want to get the most bang for their buck.
So how do you determine where you should put that money? Well, if you have polling that tells you your key persuasion or GOTV audiences, you use that. For smaller efforts, your targeting may be based on publicly available polls. Other times, you’ll have to rely on just good old-fashioned guesswork. This means that you may need to talk to voters on the ground to see what communications they’re getting, and you need to read between the lines about who the campaign is talking to and who they aren’t.
Your group may even have your own natural consistency to talk to. You may be a trusted voice in the disability rights community, for instance, and you can add value by running a program talking to your audience about a candidate because these folks already trust you.
Make sure you’re reaching the right audience
Targeting the right audience is key, but as we’ve mentioned you don’t want to just target the same voters the campaign’s already mailing and duplicate their efforts. So how do you know that you’re not just doing the same thing if you can’t coordinate?
Well, if you’re lucky, the campaign will say publicly, here’s who we’re targeting with our direct mail program, but in our experience that doesn’t usually happen. The next-best thing you can do is try and put yourself in the campaign’s shoes and think about what you would be doing if you were running the campaign.
You may be supporting a candidate in a multi-candidate field, and you know the campaign’s resources will be dedicated to persuasion and introducing themselves to voters. This candidate may have a strong base of support in the LGBTQ+ community. If that’s the case, you may consider running a GOTV effort to voters in the LGBTQ+ community to make sure they turnout to vote.
Talk with the member of your coalition
While this needs to be run by your lawyer, in many cases IEs are allowed to coordinate with each other. That means that data sharing can be much more important for independent expenditure direct mail programs than it is for the candidate campaigns. That’s because when candidate’s coordinate with each other, they are usually just combining resources to achieve multiple goals with the same piece of mail on turf that overlaps.
In the case of independent expenditures, it’s much more likely that they will have the exact same goal, to either support a candidate or knock a candidate they don’t like down a few pegs. Coordination and delegation can make the combined effort more efficient so make sure you’re talking regularly with your coalition and you know who’s doing what. For instance, one member of your coalition may be targeting younger voters, one senior voters, one parents, etc. which allows you to divvy up audiences without a lot of unnecessarily duplication.
Make sure you have a good lawyer
Sure, compliance can get confusing for candidate campaigns, but depending on the state, it can get really confusing for independent expenditures. You want to ensure you have a good attorney who understands campaign finance laws and regulations. Make sure you know the disclosure requirements, expenditure limits, and disclaimer language to avoid any potential issues.
As mentioned above, local reporters love to write stories about how an independent expenditure didn’t file the right paperwork, and if that issue is egregious enough it can become a political problem. This is easy to avoid by hiring an experienced attorney and making sure you’re working with an accounting firm that knows how to file your reports accurately and on time.
Do you have more questions about ways to get creative in leveraging the power of direct mail in your independent expenditure campaign? Reach out—our team would be happy to help!