A lot of people tell candidates that direct mail is dead. They’re wrong. Direct mail is king when it comes to winning many elections.
Sending mail to the voters is the best way for a candidate to mass communicate in local and down ballot contests.
It’s been this way for years and it is not about to change any time soon.
The reason why mail is king is simple.
You can send a piece of mail to every voter you’re targeting in your campaign.
This is not true for every other type of mass communication.
Let’s take a closer look by examining the voters of Newport Beach in Orange County, California which holds city council and school board elections in November.
There are currently 47,735 registered voters in the city of Newport Beach
Every one of those voters provided their addresses when they registered to vote.
As a candidate you can mail each of the addresses listed for these voters.
That’s 25,253 address for your campaign to mail that have multiple individuals living within in each single household
Mail vs. Text Messages
While you could mail to all 47,735 registered voters in Newport Beach, there are only 32,906 mobile telephone numbers available for those voters.
When you blast out text messages rather than sending out mail, you’ll be missing a little over 31% of Newport Beach voters here.
In a close race that could cost you dearly on Election Night.
Mail vs. Robo Calls
Robo Calls have fallen out of fashion in the last decade plus, but some campaigns still send them out.
However, you need to remember that the FCC prohibits robo calls being made to mobile phones.
You can only send robo calls to landlines, which not everyone has these days. In Newport Beach, there are only 13,791 unique landlines.
Calling only landlines here with robo calls would drop your penetration of the voter file by a whopping 71% compared to sending these voters mail.
That’s would be no bueno for your campaign.
Mail vs. TV and Radio
Advertising on television and radio is a political past time.
The airwaves are saturated in the weeks leading up to an election.
You may think that’s where you need to be up on TV and the radio. For most political campaigns this is not the case.
If you’re running in a race where the jurisdiction covers multiple areas and a lot of mileage, you might need to be up on TV or radio.
But if you’re running in a city, county, or school board seat, radio and TV won’t help you.
While a radio or TV ad may hit the voters in your district, it will likely hit many more voters outside of it who cannot vote for you.
Likewise, even the people in your district who see or hear your ad may not be who your campaign wants to communicate with.
The targeting of radio and television advertisements is often far too broad to be effective in a local race.
Conversely, mail can be targeted specifically at the voting demographic you’re attempting to reach.
Mail vs. Email
Email is an extremely inexpensive way to communicate, especially when compared to physical mail.
But getting emails to all the voters tends to be a problem, as our examples of Newport Beach proves.
There are only 28,486 voters in Newport Beach with email addresses associated with their voter registration.
While that does make up 60% of the registered voters, 40% of them would be left out of your campaigns emails.
Yes, you can touch this block of voters many times very cheaply, but you get what you pay for and email is easy to ignore.
Mail vs. Social Media Ads
There’s a belief that a candidate can concentrate all of their time on social media to win their election.
This is also a false belief. While many people are on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and X I’ve yet to see social media ads make a difference for campaigns.
Many marketers will try to convince you to “geo-fence” your district and target within certain zip codes. This works to some extent but your ads will be seen by many people who won’t or can’t vote in your race.
You also won’t be able to target by demographic factors all that well in this fashion. Meta allows you to upload mobile phone and email information to build custom audiences for your ads on Facebook and Instagram.
This is a better way to target your ads on those platforms, but it does not solve the biggest problem: getting people to stop their scrolling.
Doom Scrolling is a term because it’s what many people do with their phones when they are on social media. They are flying past things like political ads and only hesitating briefly or stopping for loner on posts that truly catch their attention.
That’s why it’s best to see social media like a freeway. People are driving by at 70 miles per hour so they don’t have time to soak up much information about your or your campaign.
Therefore, your social ads should be more like billboards. They convey your name, photo, and your slogan. Maybe they have a key endorsement or messaging point, but more than that can be a utter waste.
Why Mail Remains King of Political Marketing
A physical piece of mail requires a larger investment of attention from voters. It’s not a passive piece of advertising like a radio, tv, or social media ad that just show up.
When a mailer arrives, the voters must go and retrieve it from their mailbox. They will touch it and look at it at least once, even if it’s simply on the way to the trash can.
That’s why your name needs to be big, message clear, and imagery powerful on your mail.
It needs to pass the five second test with the voters before they toss it in the garbage. And if it’s an eye catching piece of mail (as I hope it is) then it may actually get a larger investment of attention from the voters.
I recommend that when you start your campaign, create a budget that spends heavily on mail.
Concentrate on raising enough money to get all of your mail out the door. And until you can pay to send all of your mailers, hold back on the other things.
Yes, those things may be cheaper than sending mail, but as I hope I’ve demonstrated, you’ll get exactly what you’ve paid for.
Put your focus on sending as much mail as you can as well as knocking on as many voters doors as possible.
This combination of voter contact activities is powerful and has led to many Election victories and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.