How to Use P2P Texting for GOTV

Texting is an essential tool for getting out the vote this year. Are you using it effectively? There’s still time to learn how to win your election with texting.

This has been a wild year for everyone and campaigns in particular have had to innovate like never before. There are less than 70 days until the November general election, and even though we have seen a huge uptick in the number of people opting to vote by mail, many Americans will still prefer to go to the polls and vote in-person.

Besides helping people get to the polls, which is a challenge all on its own as many polling locations have closed or moved, it is vital for campaigns to continue fundraising and recruiting new volunteers. It may seem like a daunting task to do all of this simultaneously, but using peer-to-peer (P2P) texting with RumbleUp can allow your campaign to gain an edge over the competition by making it easy to manage several outreach programs at once.

How? By sending a simple, easy-to-write text message directly to every single person you want to reach. Purchase targeted cellphone lists directly through our in-portal data integrations and compose a message for each group that can be automatically personalized with dynamic fields. We know exactly what you need to succeed as a campaign because we have worked with over 700 campaigns in the past two years and shaped our platform around their feedback. RumbleUp was built for campaigns to win.

Who should your campaign be texting?

Before crafting the text messages, you should map out your audiences. Since COVID is driving a record number of first-time absentee and mail-in votes, you should text a broad audience of voters with a message asking how they prefer to cast their ballot this year. By doing this, you can then tag people based on how they plan to vote and be able to follow up accordingly.

Sending a message like this to an expansive audience early on will impart your campaign with vital information on how people plan to vote, which will allow you to design hyper-targeted GOTV efforts. By utilizing RumbleUp’s tagging feature, you can essentially track the status of each potential ballot by asking people questions and tagging them based on the information they share. Through an effective use of this feature, you will know exactly who to focus your efforts on in the final days before the election because you will know who your supporters are and who has already mailed/cast their ballot for you.

When should your campaign start texting?

NOW!  Top campaigns on both sides of the aisle have already refocused their efforts and resources towards P2P outreach and have been texting people for weeks.

The effectiveness of a GOTV text on election day is massively increased if it is not the first and only text a voter receives from the campaign. Do not just pop out of nowhere on election day! We recommend sending at least one or two texts in the weeks leading up to the election focused on engagement, and then sending three reminder-to-vote texts starting 7–10 days out. It is wise to combine an ask to vote with a helpful piece of information. Here are some examples of info people are generally grateful to receive:

• Polling date and location changes, confirming most recent information
• Acknowledgments of holidays or events
• COVID-19 rules at polling locations: Mask requirements, social distancing rules, elderly-only hours, etc.
• Offering/coordinating rides to polling locations

Starting early also gives you the best chance of recruiting a team of enthusiastic volunteers. Many people who want to help out may not be sure if it is still possible to volunteer due to COVID restrictions. Text your supporters and let them know about opportunities to get involved. With P2P texting, you can coordinate volunteer scheduling/sign up sheets, recruit new volunteers, empower your team to recruit their friends to volunteer, and most notably, offer your volunteers an activity that allows them to help the campaign from the safety and comfort of their own home: sending texts!

Similarly, you should begin your fundraising efforts with P2P texting early so that you can make good use of campaign contributions when it matters most. Don’t let restrictions on in-person activities slow down your fundraising. Even though traditional in-person activities like rallies have been canceled, it is entirely possible to fundraise during this time through the use of P2P texting by including links to donate in your outreach messages or taking advantage of our built-in text-to-donate feature.

How to win with RumbleUp

How can RumbleUp help you incorporate all of this advice and win your race?

RumbleUp’s new L2 integration and RNC Data Center integration make it easy for campaigns to purchase clean, comprehensive cellphone lists for any target audience. All you need to do is fill out the L2 or RNC Data Center request form available directly in the RumbleUp portal and boom, you are ready to start having personal conversations with the specific group of people your campaign cares about most.

Our platform also allows you to include any personal info with your audience data sets that can be automatically pulled into messages using dynamic fields. This makes it easy for you to personalize messages without needing to manually change the message for each person. These fields are frequently used to pull in information such as a person’s name, their nearest polling location, deadlines for mail-in ballots, links to specific web pages, an issue the voter cares about, and more.

Our flexible tagging feature allows your campaign to never lose track of a conversation and easily create new audiences by using tags to filter and segment people into different groups. Some examples of useful tags to use and apply include:

• Who has not responded to any messages yet (automatically tracked)
• Friendly respondents (these are your likely supporters!)
• Which voters returned their ballots (move them to your fundraising list!)
• Which voters still plan to go to the polls (they should be your focus on election day!)
• Who needs help finding new polling locations (have information ready!)

Along with the powerful toolset of features RumbleUp includes, we also boast the highest delivery rate of any P2P platform, the lowest spam rate, and the highest reliability of any P2P vendor in the industry. Not to mention our click-to-start signup, exclusive platform integrations, and amazing customer support team.

The Key Takeaway

Don’t let the pandemic discourage you from running a top-notch campaign this year. It is time to adapt and take advantage of the tools that exist for you to succeed. You can still have genuine interactions with supporters and run an effective GOTV strategy by taking advantage of all that P2P texting has to offer. RumbleUp is committed to helping you win. Sign up and start texting in as little as 15 minutes by visiting our website at RumbleUp.com or contact our sales team at sales@rumbleup.com and let’s chat about your unique race.

Related News:

• Dear Voter, Here’s Why Political Texts Are Blowing Up Your Phone  - WSJ

• Refused/Angry/Republican': How 2020 text campaigns learn from voters' replies - Reuters 
• Campaigns turn to texting as coronavirus spreads - Axios 
• Playbook : How did you think yesterday went? - POLITICO 

Special thanks to Lauren Datres for her contributions to this article.