While every candidate won't have the cachet of the office of the President, most candidates can structure an experience that will provide insider access and can be shared with a few supporters. Whether it's a private dinner or breakfast or some other activity, this is an effective fundraising technique as well as great way to build awareness for the campaign.
Here are a few tactics used by the Obama campaign that you should also use to make the most of this type of approach.
1) Make the email message personal. Notice the use of the President's first name.
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Dinner?
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Dinner with the President
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2) Test your email subject lines. The Obama campaign has used at least two different subject lines, which they can test and determine which resulted in a higher percentage of opened messages. Subsequent email messages will use the subject line that performed best. The two subject lines that we saw were:
a. Dinner?
b. Dinner with the President
3) Develop a specific landing page on your website. This is the page that supporters will be directed to when they click on a link from the email message announcing the contest. Make it easy for supporters to donate and participate.
4) Specify a limited time during which supporters must act. The Obama campaign is running this contest for about two weeks.
One other key element to making this approach successful is a large email list. Social media presence is also valuable, but without a large email list, it is nearly impossible to achieve the results you want.
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Website Landing Page
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So, would you like to have dinner with Barack?
No donation is necessary and you have until June 30 to sign up. Who knows? Maybe Barack will be getting some good advice over dinner from you!
Looking for a new twist on fundraising? Take a lesson from the 2012 Obama campaign. Have you seen their "invitations" to dinner?