Objective

Daniel Gade for U.S. Senate partnered with Campaign Inbox to increase its online grassroots fundraising through donor acquisition and effective messaging in both email and SMS communications.

Challenge

The Gade campaign sought to grow its housefile to out-raise entrenched Virginia Democrat, Mark Warner, by strategically targeting conservative donor prospects through several different acquisition methods. Leveraging both guaranteed break-even and traditional list rental agreements across a diversified slate of half a dozen list brokers allowed the campaign to reach millions of potential donors with minimal upfront cost and minimal risk.

For the campaign to see subsequent revenue from these acquisition efforts, it needed to convert new donor prospects through targeted email and SMS communications that built a sense of community for its housefile – a challenge that Campaign Inbox’s own ESP designed to reach the inbox was particularly well-suited to tackle.

Approach

Campaign Inbox’s aggressive yet low-risk approach to the Gade campaign’s donor acquisition program resulted in large growth of their donor housefile with immediate positive return on investment, as well as overall fundraising that far surpassed projections.

Campaigns with successful digital fundraising programs focus on donor acquisition in the early months of the cycle, as those efforts will be realized in the final 90 days of the election.

The Gade campaign’s trust in our approach of allocating budget for targeted, state-select prospecting before the primary led to a 119% increase in gross revenue in just 20 days after securing the nomination.

Results

 

Conclusion

Our approach resulted in a level of list growth, and in turn, an influx of contributions from grassroots donors for the Gade campaign’s online fundraising program that was well beyond the client’s expectations in a predominantly blue state, and that ultimately outraised a two-term Senator and previous Governor. By implementing a strategy designed to aggressively target in- state donor prospects leading up to the primary and then convert those donors post-primary through tailored messaging that fit the candidate’s voice and strengths.