140 likes | 247 Views
Text Message Registration Reminders. Chris Kennedy and Michelle Mayorga Rock the Vote June 19, 2008. Rock the Vote in ‘08 Mobilizing Young Voters. Register 2 million 18-29 year olds. Online via Facebook, website Partnerships (AT&T, grassroots) Street teams, concert tour, events
E N D
Text Message Registration Reminders Chris Kennedy and Michelle Mayorga Rock the Vote June 19, 2008
Rock the Vote in ‘08Mobilizing Young Voters • Register 2 million 18-29 year olds. • Online via Facebook, website • Partnerships (AT&T, grassroots) • Street teams, concert tour, events • Artist Advisory Council • Increase turnout for 3rd major election in a row. • Peer to peer turnout reminders • Text message reminders • Voter education Already, more than 650,000 18-29 year olds have used our online tool to register to vote, and nearly one million voters of all ages!
RTV Mobile Programs • Registration Reminders • GOTV Text Messages • Event Alerts • Short Code - txt “VOTE” to RTVOTE • WAP Site (English & Spanish) • Wallpaper • Ring Tones
Mobile List Demographics Total Opt-Ins: 70,000+
Experimental Design • Randomize our mobile opt-in list (ages 18-29) into treatment and control groups. • Treat with a text message reminder 0-3 days before state’s registration deadline. • Validate registration status of participants via Catalist voter file match back and compare treatment to control group.
Example Messaging - Pennsylvania 1A. This Monday is PA’s voter registration deadline. Register at rockthevote.com/PA or call 877-868-3772 to check status. Please fwd. 1B. Are you registered to vote? If not, do it at rockthevote.com/PA or call 877-868-3772 to check status. PA’s deadline is this Monday. Please fwd. 2A. Today is PA’s voter registration deadline. Register at rockthevote.com/PA or call 877-868-3772 to check status. Please fwd. 2B. Are you registered to vote? If not, do it at rockthevote.com/PA or call 877-868-3772 to check status. PA’s deadline is today. Please fwd.
Why Might It Have Worked? • Low awareness of state registration deadlines. • The contact rate of text messages is essentially an instant 100% - this makes it ideal for deadline notification. • Text messages normally come from close friends and are presumably a highly trusted information source. No spam.
Caveats • Results apply to young people who were already motivated to download registration form • Excluded 17 year olds from analysis • Requires large mobile list to increase registration in a significant manner • Presidential primaries may be different from other elections
Additional Analysis • NC, KY, and WV Results Pending • Net Votes in Primary and General • Which day is most effective? • Check if this is mainly re-registering movers. • Would text message reminder work without a primary deadline? TBD. • We still don’t know the best messaging to use.
Other RTV Mobile Experiments • GOTV Testing • Email vs. Mobile vs. Email + Mobile • Short Code List Building • Converting opt-ins to registrations • Direct Mail Registration + Text Reminder • List Engagement Strategies • Determining what percentage of list is active