Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash
This is a guest post by Kyle Middleton, former Director of Email & SMS for the Harris For President campaign.
The dust has settled after the 2024 cycle, and digital campaigners are finding ways to adjust to the new political environment. It’s pretty clear Democratic enthusiasm was down heading into the new year, but it’s starting to pick up as Donald Trump enacts his agenda and Democrats latch onto Elon Musk as their new villain.
Campaigns are rebuilding, and this is a critical moment to think strategically about the next few months and years as we look ahead to the Midterms and 2028. Below is a list of recommendations for digital campaigners as they start looking ahead:
1. Test new messages
This probably seems obvious, but it’s still important to name, especially in a moment like this. There is new information coming out every day, and it’s difficult to know what Democratic donors are gravitating to on any given week — which makes it more important than ever to test your messages. Before rushing headlong towards the latest Trump/Musk headline, consider testing your content against a top-performing message you’ve already sent to your list this month.
2. Keep your lists warm
The boom and bust cycle of political campaigns usually means programs throttle back their volume after Election Day. While it makes sense to slim down your program, especially for political campaigns, you still want to make sure you are keeping these audiences warm as you prepare for the next moment. You also never know when rapid response will happen, and letting your list get cold means you will be missing out on capitalizing on those moments.
Testing your messages will also help you find out what is resonating most with the people on your list and allow you to deliver the most engaging content, which in turn will keep your list warm when enthusiasm is lower.
3. Improve your deliverability
This is a great moment in time to evaluate the health of your program. If you are testing your messages and also experimenting with some engaging non-fundraising appeals (people have a lot of thoughts right now — send them a survey!) you should be able to use that content to help you repair any deliverability issues you may find you have after the sprint to Election Day.
Maybe there are certain domains that have been giving you trouble for the last few months, but you just didn’t have the time to address them in the heat of the cycle. Now is the perfect time to isolate them and begin doing some rehab work.
Maybe your deliverability is in a really good spot, but there are places on the margins where you can be doing better. For large organizations, improving the open rates of your Top 5 domains by even 5% could mean the difference in hundreds of thousands of dollars over the next year as you rebuild.
Interested in a deeper dive into deliverability? You can watch the recent webinar I did with Action Network on Youtube here.
4. Continue list acquisition
You may think that it’s counterintuitive to keep doing list acquisition now that Election Day is over. But regardless of if you are a political campaign or organization, one thing we are seeing now more than ever is that acquisition doesn’t ever really end. In fact, it can help you strategically to continue focusing on building your list while things are slow. You’ll have more time to intentionally onboard these new people and warm them up. And more importantly, when a rapid response moment happens, you will be uniquely positioned to leverage your growing active list and all of the new acquisitions you’ve been talking to.
5. Share what you learn
There has never been a more important time for Democrats to come together and push back collectively against the Trump administration. And that includes sharing our digital strategies so we can all run better and more effective programs. Whether it’s a message that is really resonating with donors this week or a new format that is taking off on your list, find ways to share these insights with other strategists.
Test new messages you see other people using often or a new format you see that you’ve never tried before. Imitation is the best form of flattery, especially if it’s working well for everyone!
In the days and months after November 2016 it was difficult to get programs back up and running again. Our old messages and tactics were less effective, and we had to do more testing and figure out what the people on our list actually wanted to hear. But eventually we found new messages and formats that worked, and we found new candidates and causes to support that helped us build momentum heading into 2020. This time around, our tools are smarter, and so are we — we just have to keep pushing forward.
About the Author
Kyle Middleton (he/him) is the previous Director of Email & SMS on the Harris for President campaign. Over the past decade, Kyle has helped campaigns both big and small reach users in unique and meaningful ways. During his time on the Harris campaign, Kyle honed his skills in email deliverability and audience segmentation to help create the biggest and highest-raising email and sms program in democratic campaign history.