By CHRISTOPHER MASSICOTTE, NGP SOFTWARE

Often, the first check a new political candidate writes is for a constituent relationship management (CRM) system.  The CRM database in recent election cycles has become the foundation of everything else the campaign does. Information gathered from field, email, and online activity is used to raise money and identify votes. Campaigns are now buying information on potential voters and donors. Databases are the most valuable tools a campaign has in its arsenal for gathering information on voters: how they feel about certain issues, how they voted, who they contribute money to, and when they volunteer. This information helps paid staff organize a campaign to collect the votes it needs to win on Election Day.

NGP Software provides campaign technology solutions to Democratic candidates and their allies. For more information, visit www. ngpsoftware.com. Data is a campaign essential: the more you know about a voter or volunteer or donor, the easier it will be to convince them to vote your way, volunteer, and give your campaign money. Campaigns are collecting large amounts of seemingly irrelevant data about voters. For example, the Republican Party has a database of voters that even tracks shopping patterns. They know the married mother of two who goes to church every week and shops at Wal-Mart is more likely to vote Republican than the married mother of two that does not go to church every week and shops are Target, and that these two voters could very well live directly next door to each other. The messages they see during the campaign season will be microtargeted to them based on the information that has been collected.

When your campaign is considering a CRM system the fi rst question to ask is, “How will this system help me achieve my goals?” Why are you going to contact people, track them, or keep their data? Do you need the database to perform campaign fi nance duties, voter contact, or both? And fi nally, what do I do with all this data?

This section answers those questions, and discusses how your campaign can use CRM for its field and fundraising activities.

I.               The Field Campaign

 Did you know that you can take your data on a neighborhood walk? CRM doesn’t necessarily have exclusively online or mail-driven implications. Some of our clients’ biggest success stories using CRM come a lot closer to home – in your own neighborhood, to be precise. If you have been in the political game for at least a few months of an election cycle, then you know that doorto- door canvassing and neighborhood walks are a perennial part of politicking. Over the past few years, canvassing technology has evolved from stacks of 3×5 cards to scanning barcodes and instantly updating databases through mobile devices.

For example, consider the relatively widely-used method of placing a barcode for each person you want to contact on a walk sheet. Scanning that barcode allows you to see – and update – his or her information. With this system, you can note that Ms. Wright is concerned about a casino that may be built in town. You can use that information to generate a letter that addresses her specifi c interests: “Like you, the last thing I want to see if for us to build a casino in our town.” If Ms. Wright is undecided, then you can generate the additional line, “Thank you for considering my campaign.” Or, if she supports your candidate, “I’m really appreciative that you want to put a yard sign on your lawn. Expect it to arrive within a week. I encourage you to vote on Election Day.”

 Let’s look at an example of how a field campaign can effectively use CRM to accomplish its goals.

C A S E  S T U D Y  A

Pay raises, campaigns and field efforts

The Problem

The Mike Veon for State Representative campaign in Pennsylvania combined canvassing with CRM and email during a very contentious primary in 2006. Veon, the Minority Whip of the State House, was instrumental in passing a substantial pay raise for state legislators that was passed in the middle of the night on the last day of the session. When the story hit the news, people were outraged. Caving in to voter anger, the pay raise was repealed by a 202 – 1 vote. Who was the lone dissenter? Rep. Mike Veon, who strongly believed that the only way to attract good candidates to run for offi ce and to cut down on corruption, was to pay them competitively to what they would earn in the private sector. This prompted several candidates to run against him both in the primary and in the general election. His position was a complicated one, but if explained correctly to his constituents, it was possible that they would understand.

The Tactic

 Because the district was a small (just around 30,000 voters), the campaign was able to send paid canvassers and volunteers into the field to knock on every single door in the district and ask people about what concerned them this election. By far the biggest concern was the pay raise – specifi cally Veon’s involvement in passing the pay raise, and then his subsequent lone vote against repealing it.

The campaign knew they had to focus their efforts on this group of people who cared very much about the issue. They used a web-based voter contact management system that allowed them to track various demographics including issues important to voters. The contact management system allowed the campaign to send customized letters and phone calls to voters to explain the votes, while avoiding the issue altogether when it did not matter to the voters. It acknowledged that Rep. Veon wanted to make it economically feasible for people other than the super wealthy people to run for political office. If you pay your representatives enough to hold public office, then you make it more attractive to them. This results in a better quality of representation.

 This line of reasoning contained more nuance than the message that pay increases lead to a huge defi cit, but the Veon campaign took the chance, and won the primary challenge. Seventeen other incumbent state legislators lost their primary challenges including the sitting State Senate Pro Tempore. The website PoliticsPA.com said of the Veon campaign, “It was the best, most well-oiled fi eld program that we have ever seen.”

Cost and Needs

A web-based voter file system is usually priced according to how many voters you have in your universe. A 30,000 voter district will cost roughly $500 per month, where as a nationwide voter fi le system can cost in the millions.

Lessons from the Field

The Veon campaign understood what they had to do. They contacted each and every voter three times! Those who cared knew the reasons for the votes. The biggest issue after that was making sure that their supporters got out and voted. The GOTV program consisted of door knockers and phone calls to every identifi ed positive voter in the district. Unfortunately, because of general voter anger, the inability to control the GOTV operation during the general election, and the strong campaign run by his general election challenger, Rep. Veon was unsuccessful in his re-election bid. This proved, however, that the work done in the primary was effective.

II.              Fundraising

2004 was a turning point in the way campaigns used technology, and the Howard Dean campaign has become the inspiration for many smaller campaigns. When it comes to fundraising, the fi rst thing campaigns need to realize is very simple: you’re not Howard Dean.  Just putting a “click to donate” button on your Website will not immediately result in millions of dollars. Understand that, and you understand your limitations.

Even with the Internet, fundraising still takes work, just like it takes work to raise money over the phone or at events. You still have to give people a reason to contribute to your campaign. You’re not selling them a product; you’re selling them the idea of good government – an idea that tends to change, depending upon who you talk to. Work on making your website and email signups part of everything you do. At every event, at every campaign stop, ask people for their email addresses. Ask donors who give over the phone to send out an “ask” via email to their personal address books. Set up personal fundraising pages for your supporters so they can track their own progress. When you empower your supporters you generate enthusiasm that no number of paid campaign staffers can match. Most important of all, do not use technology simply because it’s available or it’s new and fl ashy. Really think about how you can apply it to your specifi c campaign and set goals of what you hope to accomplish through the use of that technology.

Now, let’s discuss putting principles of CRM into practices during the campaign fundraising season.

 C A S E  S T U D Y B

 Combining email and offline fundraising

 In the 2004 election, a New Jersey Member of Congress was holding a fundraiser featuring former President Bill Clinton. The event was put together on very short notice and the vast majority of the tickets were sold online. The fundraiser was to be a luncheon and attendees would have their pictures taken with the President and would receive a signed copy of President Clinton’s autobiography, My Life.

The Problem

The staff that was throwing the event was told by the Secret Service that all guests had to arrive prior to the arrival of President Clinton. All of the guests were told to arrive promptly at 12:30 p.m. and that the President was scheduled to arrive at 1pm. One day before the event President Clinton’s scheduling offi ce informed the campaign that due to a scheduling confl ict President Clinton would be arriving an hour earlier. The staff quickly realized that they had to contact every single guest to ensure that nobody arrived late. These guests paid a lot of money to see President Clinton and if they were not informed there would be a lot of angry donors, and the last thing you want is an angry donor.

The Tactic

In order to quickly inform and ensure that all guests (over 500) received the information it was decided that an email would be sent to those who were registered to attend the event. There simply was not enough time to call every single guest in the time that they had. Using their CRM the campaign was able to send an email to only those registered for the event, and to any of their guests that they registered as well. The CRM system that they used allowed them to see who did and who did not open and read the email that was sent. By 6 pm that day, those that did not open the email (only about 75) were called to confi rm that they knew about the time change. It took a lot less volunteers to call 75 people than it did to call 500. On the day of the event only one guest arrived late because she hadn’t been informed.

Costs and Needs

A Web-based fundraising database that includes the necessary finance disclosure capabilities can run from $250 per month for a local campaign to several thousand dollars per month for a Presidential campaign.

III.            Too Much Information

Historically, people have said that you can never go wrong by collecting too much information. The atmosphere changes on political campaigns. Too much information can muddy the waters. The most important element is not collecting as much information as possible, but segmenting it in the right way, so that the fi nance team only sees the fi nancial information, and the volunteer coordinators only see the volunteer information. While collecting information is incredibly important because it allows the candidate and the campaign to relate to people in a more personal way, you want to make sure the right people see the right information.

The fact that John Green has a spouse named Gertrude and a son at Yale, may seem unimportant, but it can actually be useful. Several years ago, I worked with a candidate who wanted this type of information on his call sheet, so that when he talked to John Green, he could pepper the conversation with questions like “Oh, how’s Gertrude doing?” or “How’s little Johnny doing at Yale? I don’t know if you remember, but I was a professor at Yale way back when.” While knowing these bits of information seems creepy at fi rst, people are more apt to relate to candidate than when the campaign approaches them through a purely political context. And if they are more apt to relate to you, then they may be more inclined to go out there and vote for you.

At the same time, a good CRM campaign is not about people uncomfortable with your knowledge about their personal habits and choices. You don’t want to walk up to a shopper and say, “Donna, I know that you love yogurt. I know that you like fruit on the bottom. I brought you some yogurt, with fruit on the bottom.” Rather, you want to just show Donna a picture of the yogurt she likes. The same is true when working with voters. You don’t want to tell someone what she believes or feels. You want to show her the possible candidate for her.

In some cases, it is more important to listen to people than to get your message across. Most people involved in politics are not just voters. We care more about votes than our own lives and more about politics than our families. But most Americans simply want to vote to fulfi ll their civic duty, and then they go about their lives. Listen to voters, and then readjust your message going out to them. At the end of the day, people want to vote for a nice person, someone a lot like them. The Democrats ran into this problem in 2000 and 2004. People wanted to have a beer with George Bush, not Al Gore or John Kerry.  Voters were not interested in what they had to say because they didn’t like the way that information was delivered. The same advice rings true for both Republican and Democratic candidates: data will lead to a political tidal wave. You can’t ride the wave unless you bring a surf board. If you’re not prepared to ride it, then the wave is going to swallow you whole.

IV.            Sometimes a list is not just a list

Today in politics, people buy contact lists that match up email addresses with the voter fi le. Simply emailing these voters looks a lot like spamming. But there are ways to use a list well. One of these lists is a radioactive ball of energy: you can either use it in a way that blows up in your face or you can use it in a way that will power your campaign straight through to Election Day. Using your list to send out mass emails every week – with no update, no survey, nothing – blows up in your face because spamming makes people angry. Even the blogosphere rants about campaigns that do that. It’s just not the best way to use email.

First, choose what you want to know about your lists. For example, say your campaign is hosting a fundraiser tomorrow night with Bill Clinton. In an instance like this, use your list to fi nd out who are the best people to invite? The most likely answer is people who have contributed to the campaign in the past, people who can afford to pay for an evening with President Clinton. You cannot afford to waste time and effort trying to reach out to people who can’t afford it. You want to fi nd people who live or work close enough to attend. You want people who aren’t dead. How am I going to do a search for these people? I’m going to ask the database for people who have given me over a thousand dollars at one time, people who live in my state, and people who are still alive. I am going to generate a list with these criteria, and then I will call, email or snail mail them. Generating a list of this kind all depends upon the kind of data you collected. If you haven’t put any of this information into your system, then don’t expect to get any of it out of your system.

Best Practices

1.     Don’t spam. – Collecting information about people requires some kind of contact with them –whether in person, on the phone, or online. Don’t forget to ask people the best way to reach the. May we contact you? Is a door-to-door visit best? Should we add another phone number for you? What is your email address? Would you rather be mailed?

 Make sure your databases has a “do not mail, do not call, do not email” button. We add a feature to that. We want it to say in parentheses, “permanent.” If somebody says to that she doesn’t want to receive our newsletters, then don’t let your staff go back later and uncheck the box. The only way to uncheck the box is if that person signed up again on the Website.

2.     Simply having a database is not the magic bullet. – Despite all the promise of a good CRM system, a database is not a magic bullet. It is not going to automatically win you the election – even if it is from a reputable company. Rather, what you do with that database will, in fact, help you win that election. This takes an investment of time, discipline, and energy. It requires dedication not just in keeping it up to date but also in coding, tracking contributions, researching which solicitation are the most effective, and knowing which issues make people give.

On occasion, a client will come to me and say “my database is not working.” I’ll ask the staff to look at it, and when we cannot find any technical problems, I’ll ask the client “when was the last time somebody accessed the database.” The answer is often two weeks ago – if not longer. We conducted a survey of all of our clients and the successful majority is on the database, online, for 30 hours a week. They constantly entered contributions or any other information that can possibly know about the voter, volunteer, or donor that might help them encourage their supporters to contribute, volunteer, or tell their friends to vote. Success comes from knowing all of this and more, and being able to target specifi c people quickly – whether through email, or phone, or by posting an entry on a well-traffi cked blog.

3.     Take Good Care of Your Data – Data requires constant activity. Most campaigns designate at least one staff member or volunteer to manage the database. The key is to fi nd the right staff member or volunteer for the job. Different people contribute different things to an organization, and campaigns are no exception. So many people are willing to be involved, but not everyone is right for every task. A 75 year-old mathematics professor, for example, might not make the best door-to-door canvasser. However, he would love to keep a track of contributions, keep the database up to date, and stuff envelopes generated the canvassing efforts.