Consultant Case Study Trying To Be Everywhere At Once
Telephone townhalls extend a campaign’s reach without breaking the bank By Devin Steinberg
Those running for office have a dilemma: They need to
reach as many people as possible but can’t waste time or resources—which are limited for us all—on chasing votes they will never win. Many campaigns have chosen to use virtual or telephone townhalls as a solution. These events allow the candidate to personally communicate with thou- sands of voters across vast geographic areas without
extensive travel. On top of the initial contact, the built in-polling and data acquisition tools allow campaigns to collect e-mail addresses, target voter demographics and spur fundraising. Broadnet’s TeleForum is powering many candidates’
telephone townhalls in 2010. Here are two examples of how it works and why.
Tom Campbell, 2010 California Republican Gubernatorial Candidate
Objective: Former U.S. Rep. Tom Campbell, faced a sig- nificant challenge when he endeavored to run for Califor- nia governor in 2010 (although he has since decided to run for the U.S. Senate). Campbell’s two leading opponents, both billionaires, each contributed $19 million towards their respective campaigns. Without the same sort of per- sonal wealth, Campbell entered the race at a financial disad- vantage and needed a strategy that would not only help to subsidize his efforts, but would introduce and engage him with the vast population of California voters. Weighing the amount of personal attention required against the time nec- essary to travel across and throughout the state, a cost and results effective resource was paramount to bridge the two in order to establish name recognition and ultimately gen- erate the votes necessary to keep him in the hunt for the Republican nomination.
Solution: Utilizing the new media firm Engage to de- velop and facilitate its strategy, Campbell’s campaign imple- mented TeleForum powered by Broadnet as a key element of its overall plan. With its virtual townhall style meeting format using telecommunications technology (often re- ferred to as a “telephone townhall”), a wealth of features designed to empower audience participation and its pow- erful post-event reporting, TeleForum’s solutions met sev- eral campaign challenges instantly. Beginning in late June, Engage launched Campbell’s
TeleForum strategy, reaching out to high volume lists of voters segmented by county. Engage and Campbell pro- duced nine large-scale events throughout the second half of 2009, dialing more than two million California vot- ers, resulting in over 265,000 live participants. Beyond preventing an exhausting and impossible travel schedule, these virtual events enabled Campbell to accommodate
18 Campaigns & Elections | Canadian Edition
substantially larger audiences than would be possible in person, both logistically and financially. Data provided in post-event reporting was analyzed for participation dura- tion and patterns to identify areas of the state requiring more focused campaigning, including where best to tar- get future TeleForum audiences. It also highlighted key groups for follow-up tactics to bolster fundraising. Each TeleForum was planned and promoted to focus on
a specific issue or set of issues most prominent in the me- dia and as revealed by results of the event’s real-time voter polling. In an effort to enhance his connection with par- ticipants, Campbell spent the large majority of each Tele- Forum maximizing its Q&A. His philosophy to take any type of question or comment and provide thorough and often lengthy responses, even engaging in back and forth dialogue with the question’s originator, was a unique ap- proach that proved very effective. To further extend communication, Campbell’s website
was heavily promoted throughout each TeleForum. For budget and healthcare, two issues most relevant to Cali- fornia voters as revealed by event polling data, Campbell drafted detailed plans for each, making them available by download on his website. Using TeleForum to drive traf- fic there resulted in substantial e-mail traffic from voters, served as a great way to educate them on Campbell and his position on specific issues and to build a targeted voter database by opt-in. Campbell’s TeleForums realized a 13 percent participa-
tion rate. Average response to direct mail is 2 percent. The campaign would have had to send more than 13 million pieces of direct mail to generate similar attention. Result: TeleForum effectively drove awareness of and significant fundraising for Tom Campbell and is help- ing to bolster other tactics being used in his campaign,
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