Political Campaign Letter Writing Tips

Letters to the editor is a powerful way of getting your campaign message across and influencing public opinion. While you are likely get a few letters from close friends and supporters, it helps to have an organized letter-writing campaign to local newspapers and publications to help shape the issues and your public positions. A letter-writing campaign can be assigned to a volunteer to organize. All they need to do is to find volunteers willing to write pro-candidate letters.

Some campaign letter writing tips:

• Keep the letters to a single issue, if possible. When doing so, highlight differences between candidates.


• Not every letter has to be politically issued-based. Even letters that highlight the candidate's favorable personal traits are useful.


• Try to keep a list of the issues and the volunteers who will write about them. Provide a list of (email) addresses to the local publications.


• Do not supply your writers with a 'sample letter'. A few minor talking points of facts is fine, but the letters should be written in the supporter's voice, with their own spin on the topic. Canned letters sound phony, particularly if several are published at the same time on the same topic.


• 'Negative' letters can backfire. If writing about an opponent, encourage your letter writers to stick to facts and policy rather than personal attacks.


• Suggest that the writers to mention the campaign website, if they choose.


• Start sending letters as early as possible. Especially in local papers, a letter is very likely to be published during 'slow' news period.


• Many papers have a holding period where they will not publish letters from the same person within a certain period of time. If a volunteer is willing to write multiple letters, have them be staggered throughout the campaign.


• Don't have everyone wait until the week before the election to write in. Newspapers are typically flooded with letters right before the election, and it's very likely many will not get printed.


• If possible, reprint the best letters or quotes on your website. Only do this after the letter has been published.


• If someone you don't know writes a letter on the candidate's behalf, have someone from the campaign contact them, thank them, and see if they wouldn't be interested in further involvement with the campaign.

Letters can lead to positive write ups, which is good fodder for a newsletter email or social media post. This may bring them back to the site to read up on what is happening and, possibly, make a political donation.

An effective, long-term letter writing campaign is an excellent investment. In most cases, you'll see a flood of pro-candidate letters appear right before an election. Astute readers will see them for what they are. But when someone has been hearing good things about a candidate for months, they should be more readily influenced.

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Business Database: The Link to a Successful Campaign

A successful telemarketing campaign is dependent on several factors. These factors can affect the over-all performance of the telemarketers, the market they are targeting, their sales pitch, and even the products and services being offered. This is especially true, especially in B2B leads. A contact list can help reduce the impact of these factors, since it has all the tools you need to get the job done.

Now, what are these factors that should be considered? To start with, we can talk about the telemarketers themselves. Stress is a very real threat in their environment. In a workplace where success can be a very thin margin, it takes a lot of effort on the part of the people manning the phones to succeed. Doing that would require that some form of aid is available for them to make split-second decisions or look up on some information they need fast. A contact list does just about that.

The target market is also a major factor in a successful telemarketing campaign. We've certainly heard a lot of stories of telemarketing services failing to deliver what they promised. Frankly, it can't be helped. Times have changed. People are not as enthusiastic in cold calling them as they were in the past. Actually, convincing them that you're a legitimate advertiser is an achievement by itself already. Now, it's the remaining half that is the toughest part to do. You have to convince them that they need what you're offering. It's not funny since the success rate of doing that is pretty low. That's the truth.

The sales pitch also contributes in large part to the performance of the campaign. A good selling pitch increases interest. A bad one merely irritates the listener. That's why a lot of effort is spent in formulating a script that would send the message across, yet sound as normal as having an ordinary conversation with a friend. It takes a lot of skill from telemarketers to make it natural, with no hint of it being 'canned' or scripted. A good agent can get the message across, with the listener wanting to know more from you. It's a good sign that your talk is a success. And contact list is an invaluable tool for that.

One more thing that needs to be considered whenever we're dealing with telemarketing is with the products and service being offered. In the first place, if they are not going to make anyone happy in buying them, then what's the point in selling them? Although we've seen a lot of bogus products circulating around for a long time, it doesn't mean that we should stop using telemarketing to market our offers.

The thing here is that you should look at the products or service carefully before you take it upon yourself to sell them. Not knowing the exact nature of what you are offering can greatly affect the performance of a campaign. Negative word-of-mouth can seriously damage the reputation of your offer even before the campaign ends. So it would be a good idea to choose what you have to sell. You also have a reputation to keep, right?

Now, to get all these tasks done, you'd need to use a reliable business database provider. They're the firms most telemarketers turn to for contact list needs, as well as additional information on the market they're planning to sell their products to. These save not just your time, but also a lot of effort in compiling the necessary data. And whatever time and effort you save, you can then use it to concentrate on the core functions of your business.

Alice Clark is a sales and marketing consultant specializing in business contact database management. Alice invites you to visit http://www.contactdb.com/ to learn more about business contact lists and databases.