{"id":2001,"date":"2017-01-04T07:44:45","date_gmt":"2017-01-04T07:44:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.capitalnumbers.com\/blog\/?p=2001"},"modified":"2026-04-13T08:55:04","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T08:55:04","slug":"lessons-in-effective-email-marketing-presidential-elections-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.capitalnumbers.com\/blog\/lessons-in-effective-email-marketing-presidential-elections-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons In Effective Email Marketing \u2013 Presidential Elections 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018Emails\u2019 \u2013 was included in a recent <\/span>article<\/span><\/a>, \u201c5 words that explain 2016.\u201d This probably isn\u2019t surprising. If you have been following the presidential elections, you might agree with how Bernie Sanders aptly surmised, \u201cThe American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s talk about the effect of emails on this year\u2019s election. Before we lose all your interest, rest assured that we are not going into another relentless analysis of how the Clinton Email scandal, and it\u2019s dizzying coverage, shaped the results of the election. We are instead going to talk about emails that silently changed the course of the election.<\/span><\/p>\n

Email has become the gatekeeper of our online identity. Think of it this way, how many forms and services do we sign up for by inputting our email? This has made email, if used correctly, one of the most efficient marketing tools of any industry, as is clearly reflected in our survey data.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

– Marcel Becker, Core Product Director at <\/span>AOL<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite unprecedented access to sophisticated digital machinery, emails were still a very important tool in the arsenal of almost all candidates. It still stands poised as arguably the fastest, most effective way to reach a large demographic. More importantly, it\u2019s noninvasive. People make a conscious effort to open an email and read through it at a time when it\u2019s convenient to them.<\/span><\/p>\n

If political campaigns can work with emails through their rigorous and real time TATs (Turn Around Time), we should be learning a thing or two from them. Let\u2019s have a look at the kind of patterns that emerged from the presidential candidates trying to leverage emails to their advantage.<\/span><\/p>\n

#1 Keeping It Personal<\/b><\/p>\n

Keeping emails personal happen on many levels. Though many experts think that the presidential candidates missed a lot of opportunities when it came to personalization, they still hit a lot of the right points at a lot of right places.<\/p>\n

Both the Clinton and Trump campaigns made sure that their emails appeared to be coming from a \u00a0specific person, be it the candidates themselves or their surrogates, making them appear to be a personal email. The Trump campaign also used the first name of the recipient to address all emails, following the best practices of email marketing. <\/span><\/p>\n

Another level of personalization came from using data to micro-target demographics. Data gave both the campaigns a detailed understanding of small groups in demographics. They used it real time to frame their content, for their design and their CTA\u2019s (Call To Action).<\/span><\/p>\n

#2 Keep Them Guessing<\/b><\/p>\n

We all know the importance of subject lines and their role in click rates. The campaigns understood this as well. They made sure that most of their emails had subject lines that were intriguing.<\/span><\/p>\n

For example:<\/span><\/p>\n

The best Trump performers, during the period of Sept. 20 to Oct. 20, was an email marketing campaign with the subject line, \u201cAmerican Won Last Night,\u201d deployed on Oct. 10. Following the second debate, the emails reached an audience of 2.4 million, with an inbox rate of 61 percent and a 28 percent read rate.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Source: <\/span><\/i>DMN<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The best-deployed email marketing campaign for the Hillary Campaign, between Sept. 20 and Oct. 20., read in the subject line: \u201cSorry to send this.\u201d Launched hours after the leaked tapes of Trump’s groping remarks, it reached 2.5 million people and produced an inbox rate of 90 percent and a read rate of 24 percent.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Source: <\/span><\/i>DMN<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

#3 Keep It Urgent<\/b><\/p>\n

A noticeable strategy being used, particularly by the Trump Campaign, involves evoking a sense of urgency. <\/span><\/p>\n

An article on <\/span>not imperative<\/span><\/a> notes, \u201cPer <\/span>week, 40% of Trump emails referenced the number of days left until the election. This is further augmented by use of emphatic subject lines such as, \u2018We\u2019re Being Overrun\u2019 and \u2018I\u2019m fighting for YOU.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Here is some valuable insight from the overall email marketing campaigns of elections 2016.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"cn_blog_050117-1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Make the best use of email marketing for your brand by personalizing your content, and micro-targeting your audience. To know more, contact us at http:\/\/www.capitalnumbers.com\/contact_us.php<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Emails\u2019 \u2013 was included in a recent article, \u201c5 words that explain 2016.\u201d This probably isn\u2019t surprising. If you have been following the presidential elections, you might agree with how Bernie Sanders aptly surmised, \u201cThe American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails.\u201d Let\u2019s talk about the effect of emails on …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":2003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[718],"tags":[746,913,914,916,919,965,966,1005,1277,1281,1310,1312,1330],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.capitalnumbers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2001"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.capitalnumbers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.capitalnumbers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.capitalnumbers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.capitalnumbers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2001"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.capitalnumbers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18981,"href":"https:\/\/www.capitalnumbers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2001\/revisions\/18981"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.capitalnumbers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.capitalnumbers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.capitalnumbers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.capitalnumbers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}