Telephone Town Halls have become one of the leading ways to simultaneously communicate with thousands of people across the country. Campaigns and organizations have been using Telephone Town Halls for years to connect with members and voters. We at Stones’ Phones have developed new techniques to increase attendance and participation on your event by advertising on mediums such as websites, direct mail, cookied Internet ads, and Facebook Connect.
Website Sign-up
We recently worked with the Steve Grossman for Governor campaign in Massachusetts that set up a link on their campaign website allowing people to sign up for Telephone Town Halls. The campaign was able to capture dozens of additional names and phone numbers that they added to the Telephone Town Hall call. They were also able to follow up with the new names about getting involved in the campaign.
Web sign-ups are also significantly more reliable participants than people who only receive the outbound call. People who signed up online are on average 2.5 times more likely to pick up the call and also remained on the line 3.2 times longer than those who did not.
Direct Mail Alerts
The day before Telephone Town Halls we do a pre-call alerting potential participants that they will be called the next day. While this has been proven to increase participation, there are other ways to alert people in addition to the pre-call.
In 2012, we worked with No on I-1240, an initiative in Washington State to protect public schools. The campaign sent a mail piece that informed voters they would receive a call on a specific date and time inviting them to the Telephone Town Hall. This combined with the pre-call resulted in a higher than average participation rate.
Cookied Internet Ads
Modern technology allows advertisers to track what sites people visit and deliver advertisements to a specific audience. Using this technology, we can target people who are likely to be interested in your cause or candidate.
Ahead of a Telephone Town Hall for Fair Elections for New York, the group advertised the event featuring Governor Andrew Cuomo as a cookied Internet ad. People could simply click the ad and go immediately to the online sign-up page for the event.
Facebook Connect
Facebook offers a tool called Facebook Connect that allows campaigns and organizations to match phone lists against numbers that users have put on their Facebook pages. This tool is typically used after an event to thank people who joined the Telephone Town Hall with an ad on Facebook. Organizations can use this tool to increase participation before an event by matching their member list against Facebook Connect to send members targeted ads.
Our team can work with you to develop ways to make your Telephone Town Hall as effective as possible. To contact us, email info@stonesphones.com.