I recently signed up to be on Pete Buttigieg's email list. Not for any political reason. I just wanted to see how strong his email game was.

The first email did reach my inbox.

It also happened to ask for money.

Makes sense, right?

If you’re Mayor Pete…

It’s safe to assume that your prospects are never hotter than they are on Day 0.

Why?

When someone visits Pete’s website for the first time…

It’s probably because they heard something about him in the media that stood out (whether good or bad)…

So they Googled his name…

Clicked on a link to his website…

Then spent some time reading more about who Pete Buttigieg is.

After that…

A percentage of those folks agreed to join Pete’s email list…

And, for the ones who did join…

We can reasonably guess that they did so because they liked what they saw on Pete’s site.

Their disposition was overall “Pro Pete”…

And, with that being the case…

Why not just seize upon those feelings of good will…

By asking for a donation in the very first email you send to prospective donors?

I’m sure this works and gets the Buttigieg Campaign a TON of cash on Day 0…

But, is it the best long-term strategy?

I’m actually not sure.

Here's why:

By asking for a donation in the very first email you send out to your new subscribers…

You get a lot of cash…

But you also ensure that the vast majority of people don’t respond or engage to your initial email at all.

The reason that’s a problem…

Is because in a high-volume game like a presidential campaign…

Where candidates amass massive lists…

The potential to end up in the spam folder is HUGE.

To take Mayor Pete’s emails, for example…

I got the first one asking for money…

But then, when I checked my spam folder this morning…

I saw that every single email his campaign had sent since then…

Went straight to spam.

I’d have to imagine I’m not the only one who had this experience…

Which makes me wonder if an alternative strategy for Mayor Pete might not be more effective.

What if in the first email his campaign sends out after someone opts-in…

There’s no request for a donation at all?

Instead, it’s a very personal email.

Something with a subject line like “From Pete”…

Or “NAME, I’ve got a question”…

And then in the email…

It talks about Pete Buttigieg’s “why” behind the campaign…

Why he’s running…

Why he does what he does…

Why he is the way he is at his core.

Then, at the end…

Instead of asking for cash…

The email asks the recipient to “hit reply”…

And to share with Pete the one single campaign issue that is most important to them.

The email could even make it clear that their response can be one single word…

Like “Taxes” or “Healthcare” or “Trade” or “Jobs” or whatever else…

That way, the reader doesn’t have to feel like responding is a big suck of their time.

If the Buttigieg Campaign did this…

They would be sacrificing their Day 0 dollars…

But they might also legitimately increase their deliverability by 20% or more…

Which would mean that the next several dozen emails the campaign sends…

Would be much more likely to inbox for all the people on his list (including me)…

Instead of going to their spam folder, like what's happening now.

This alone might lead to a whole lot more campaign dollars for ol’ Pete.

Or, here’s another option…

Even if Pete’s campaign felt like not asking for donations in their first email was too risky…

They could still do a hybrid…

Where the first email shares Pete’s “why” and connects with subscribers emotionally…

Then, gives them two asks:,

To make a donation to the campaign and help Pete fight the good fight…

 But also…

 

To reply back and share the one campaign issue that is most important to them.

You get the best of both worlds this way.

Yes, you get donations from some people…

But you also increase deliverability.

Plus, by simply asking subscribers to respond…

You make them feel “heard”…

Which is one of the fundamental goals of any political campaign (and marketing in general).

One more interesting note about this:

While I was writing this blog post…

I uncovered an AdAge article from June of 2016…

And it talked about how, at the time of writing…

The Trump campaign hadn’t asked for a single campaign donation in his emails.

Now, of course Trump is very wealthy…

And he self-funded a lot of his campaign…

But this report (which was based off data from Return Path)…

Found that even after Trump started accepting individual donations in general…

He still didn’t ask his email list for money.

So why is this interesting?

Donald Trump has a VERY strong connection with his base.

In fact, that’s a huge part of what helped propel him to the White House…

And I think it’s interesting that instead of constantly emailing his base and asking for their money…💰

His email marketing strategy was much more focused on simply connecting with them…

Then, getting them to attend rallies or volunteering to Get Out The Vote.

Trump connected with his prospects' hearts…❤

While Hillary and Bernie's emails went straight to the wallet.

Interesting, right?

Okay, that’s it for now.

I could write a TON more on this subject…

And maybe later I’ll turn this blog post into a full blown podcast episode that I publish online.

For now, though…

I’ve gotta get going with my day.

I’ve got this guy named Jude Charles meeting me at my office at 9 am…

Then, we’re spending the entire day doing a “Road Mapping” session…

Where we map out my story, my mission, my purpose, my why, etc.

I feel like I already know a lot of this stuff…

But I still wanted someone help me dig deeper.

Plus, what’s cool is that after this Road Mapping session…

The next step is for me to hire Jude to create a whole video series around it.

Kind of like a “Docuseries”…

Where I’m able to share a lot of what I do…

Through a visual storytelling medium.

Should be really cool!

– SPG

P.S. This post originally came from an email I sent to my private list. If you want to see more stuff like this from me, you can apply to join my list using this link.