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Debby Blumer was running for State Representative of the 6th
Middlesex District in Framingham, Massachusetts, in an open seat
Primary. She was faced with an opponent, Chris Petrini, who seemingly
had all the advantages: he was a high profile attorney who was
heavily involved in local politics, was well known and well liked.
Debby was the underdog in this race.
Due to Debby's low name recognition, it was decided that a three-phase
telephone contact campaign utilizing a blend of automated calls
along with live calls would be the most effective. An Identification
Phase, Persuasion/Re-identification Phase and a Get Out The Vote
Phase (GOTV) were conducted. Automated messaging was used in the
Identification and GOTV Phases.
During
the Identification Phase, a live to automated telephone contact
strategy was implemented that allowed for optimizing voting preference
identification while still maximizing production and the number
of voters contacted by the campaign. This strategy blended automated
calls with live identification calls dependent on the number of
times an answering machine was detected by the dialer system.
If an answering machine pick-up was detected four times for the
same household, then the automated pre-recorded message was delivered
to the answering machine with live answers still being handled
by live telephone operators.
During the GOTV Phase, a blend of live and automated
calls were made to all favorables identified in previous phases
using a 25-second message that encouraged voters to get out and
vote. Again, the strategy for blended automated to live message
delivery was determined by the fourth consecutive attempt to an
answering machine.
Debby Blumer personally recorded the automated identification
message, and based on the demographics of the targeted Primary
voters, a professional female telephone operator was selected
to record the automated Get Out The Vote reminder.
The automated telephone campaign was designed to heighten Debby's
name recognition, to tell voters about her goals and accomplishments,
and most importantly, to highlight Debby's intention of being
a Full Time State Representative. Petrini, her opponent, intended
to keep his law practice, and this highly publicized difference
between a part-time versus a full-time representation was the
foundation of Debby's campaign message and appeared in all her
communications. The use of this distinction spurred the local
paper to write a couple of articles about the issue. Once her
opponent discovered the inclusion of this theme in Debby's automated
calls, he wrote a press release opposing her claim. The opponent's
counter argument actually backfired and further strengthened Debby's
position as a hands-on community activist who would fight Full
Time to represent Framingham in the State Legislature.
Debby's message demonstrated her confidence and expertise as
a potential Legislator. The telephone message was carefully coordinated
and reinforced in all campaign communications.
For the GOTV automated calls, the goal was to thank voters for
their support, remind them of Election Day, that their vote mattered,
and to motivate as many favorables and/or recipients of the previous
automated message to vote for Debby.
During the Identification Phase, the automated message blended
with the live identification calls not only resulted in a solid
identification of voting preference on 62% of the completed calls,
but the automated portion allowed an additional 13% of voters
to be contacted. Overall, 85% of the targeted voters were reached
during this phase. Likewise, for the GOTV Phase, the message was
delivered to 85% of the identified favorables.
Despite being categorized as the "underdog," Debby Blumer won
the Primary Election with 63% of the vote. This resulted from
strategic message development, distinguishing between full-time
versus part-time representation, and the blend of live and automated
telephone calls. Ultimately, by using the personalized, pre-recorded
automated message, Debby was able to increase her name recognition,
sensitize voters to her platform, and deeply penetrate the targeted
voter base. All of this was achieved despite an initially bleak
campaign prediction.
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