Dole/Kemp '96
As we entered the General election, the success we achieved in the Primary was rcognized by the campaign and the Internet was given a higher priority and greater resources for the General election. Our goal for the General election was to extend the successes of the Primary campaign and again beat our opponents. We focused on developing an even larger grassroots network and give it more practical value to the campaign. We increased dramatically the amount of content that was available online and developed a unique "customized" user interface to help voters get to relevant information more easily. The results were dramatic:
Customization
You see customization everywhere on Web sites today: "My Netscape," "My Yahoo!," "My AOL." Back in 1996, customizing a Web site for individual users was just starting to take hold in the commercial arena. We realized the potential for customization to do three things for a political campaign: 1) encourage more users to leave us their email address, 2) encourage repeat visits to the site, and 3) tell us more about the issues and demographics of our online audience.
When visitors first came to the Dole/Kemp '96 Web site, we asked them to "Customize this Site" to their interests. If they decided to customize, they were presented with a form requiring them to give us their first and last names, state, and email address. We also asked for mailing addresses and other contact information, but did not require it. In addition, we asked users to pick three issues that were important to them, asked if they were interested in joining any coalitions, whether they were interested in signing up for the campaign mailing list and whether they would volunteer. The user filled in the form once, and then proceeded on to the main page. (Click here to view the Customization page.)
The main page had a personal In-Box, showing users all of the materials that had been added to the site since their last visit. It showed them the issues that they said they were interested in, one click off of the main page. It also had a link to their state; if they clicked on it, they saw an analysis of the Clinton performance in their state as well as what Bob Dole's plans were for their locality and how it would impact their life. If they clicked on one of their issues, they would see the issue statement by the campaign as well as all the press releases or speeches the campaign put out related to that issue. Rather than have to dig through dozens of pages to find what was relevant to them, the voter was a click or two away from information they were interested in. The main page also had a Headlines Section, which was updated regularly to highlight different sections of the site. (Click here to view the Main Page)
Grassroots
Customization was incredibly successful, generating over 70,000 subscribers to our mailing list, targetable by state. Our mailing list was used for targeted political information as well as turnout and grassroots mobilization. We also generated 15,000 volunteers, over 1/3 of our national volunteer database, through the Internet. All of the volunteers recruited through the site were also farmed out to state offices to use in off-line activities.
Unlike traditional Internet mailing lists, we designed our lists to allow us the ability to deliver a specific message to multiple niche audiences. For instance, in California Senator Dole supported the California Civil Rights Initiative, President Clinton opposed it. With our list targetable by state, we were able to mail the thousands of voters in California specific information regarding CCRI and Senator Dole's position without involving other potential supporters in other states.
For turnout at events, we were able to mail targeted messages to encourage participation in events. For the Debate in Hartford, we sent a message to all the surrounding states with information about how they could get involved and show their support for Senator Dole. During his 96 hour tour at the end of the campaign, we helped turn out voters with stunning success. One of his events was a stop at a New Jersey diner at 2:00 AM. We emailed supporters from the surrounding states and asked them to show their support for Senator Dole. In the end, over 1,000 people showed up at the event. How many can we attribute to our Internet efforts? It's hard to say, but 1,000 people for any small political event is a success - at 2:00 AM, it was beyond compare!
Not only did customization help us achieve our goal of generating larger lists, it also helped increase return traffic. By the end of the campaign, we were receiving 500,000-750,000 hits a day. According to our host provider at the time, the traffic on the site had gone above and beyond even some of their most successful Hollywood sites in traffic (the company had hosted a number of large Hollywood sites such as the Mission Impossible movie Web site). In addition, we also learned much about the kinds of voters we were drawing online, based on the issues they selected from their customization forms.
Finance
We expanded on our success in the primary by offering people an opportunity not just to pledge online, but to use their credit card and complete their donation online. By the summer of 1996, we felt that a critical mass of users would have Web browsers capable of handling a secure donation and we offered that as an option. Our donations tripled over the primary results. In the end, we raised over $55,000 online. We had stated publicly that we would not use our email lists for finance "spam". What we did do was follow up with voters on a regular basis, keeping them engaged in the campaign. Over time, many of these people became donors.
Communications / Press
Moving into the General election, we focused on ways that the Internet was uniquely situated to help convey the Senator's message. For Senator Dole, his 15% tax cut was a critical part of his comparison with Bill Clinton, who had raised taxes more than any President in U.S. history. In order to show voters how much they would personally save under the Dole tax plan, we created an interactive tax calculator. We asked voters a few questions, like how much they had made last year, the number of children they had, etc. When they submitted their answers, the site would return a page outlining how much money they would save from a Dole tax cut. It was something made possible by the Internet. In the past, you would have had to produce pages and pages of tables to try and tell people with any accuracy how much they would save - something no campaign would ever do. Using the Internet, the voter comes online, fills in a couple of fields and in seconds knows how a tax cut could affect their life.
The tax cut was just one part of the Dole economic plan. In the past, economic plans, crime plans, and the like were large policy documents that never saw the light of day. They would be handed out to reporters at the announcement of the plan. Press would proceed to skim it, maybe read through it, and write one article about it. That was the end of months of policy work. Given the demographics of the Internet in 1996, we knew that we needed to provide the online voters with more than the 30 second soundbite - they were far better educated than the general population and needed to be treated as such. We also knew that we had developed extremely comprehensive Economic and Crime plans. By putting these plans online, we were able to distribute them widely to a self-selected and educated online electorate. Even if voters don't read through the entire plans online, having them there shows the level of substance behind an issue position and gives the candidate a place to refer people for more information.
Voter Support
After leaving the Senate, Bob Dole made a commitment to run the campaign's voter support operation like his constituent service operation. If a voter called the campaign headquarters, they would get their call answered. If a voter sent in a piece of mail, they received a reply. We encouraged our voter support operation to save money by driving people to our Web site rather than relying exclusively on the fax or mail. When students called in looking for information for their high school civics projects, they were sent online. The result was an unquantifiable cost savings as well as better service for the voter. They ended up going online and seeing not only what they were looking for, but much more. How much money did we save? How many fewer faxes or pieces of mail did we send out? Unfortunately, those numbers were not tracked. How many new volunteers or email list subscribers did we get because a voter who called in visited our Web site? Again, it's impossible to tell. What we do know is that it was precisely these kinds of efforts at integrating the Internet into all aspects of the campaign that made our online strategy so successful.
Results
At the end of the campaign, we had over 75,000 people on our mailing list, while the Clinton/Gore team had fewer than 10,000. Why? Because we focused on political considerations, not technical ones. Bill Clinton's site employed more "bleeding edge" technologies like Shockwave, but it was precisely those kinds of things that hampered the message. We knew that when a voter went to a candidate's site it was to learn about the candidates and maybe get involved, not to look for a "cool" Web site.
Senator Dole did not win the election, but was widely recognized as having brought the Internet into the political mainstream. By the first Presidential debate, the online campaign had proven to be so successful that Senator Dole had the confidence to close his debate remarks by inviting the audience to go online and visit the site. The day following his announcement, the site received over 2 million hits and traffic remained at 500,000 hits a day for the duration of the campaign. The fact that a candidate of Senator Dole's generation felt confident enough and saw enough value in the work we did online is a testament to its quality and the impact it had on the campaign.
(Robert K. Arena, Jr. - Director of Internet Strategy - 1996)
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