The E-Campaign and Grassroots Intensity

We’ve done a number of online campaigns for organizations ranging from non-profit advocacy groups to political candidates.  With each of those efforts, we could tell pretty early on the grassroots intensity that existed by the amount of response and activity we were able to generate online.

For example, the response rates to emails about tax hikes far exceeds those for, say, tort reform.  A Facebook campaign for the “Fairness Doctrine” explodes, while a similar campaign for most political candidates just does so-so.

While obviously not scientific, it is a good, early measure of the overall intensity that exists for certain issues and candidates.

The reason we write this is because the intensity we have seem over the past seven days for the potential Illinois gubernatorial candidacy of former state Attorney General Jim Ryan has been extremely strong:

• We garnered more than 1,000 Facebook fans in less than a week.  That’s almost equal to what each of the other Republican candidates have garnered during the several months of their candidacies.  And our fans are extremely engaged:  commenting regularly on our posts, driving the majority of traffic to the campaign Web site, signing up for the petition drive, and contributing money.  What’s more, the Facebook page has garnered more than 4,000 page views during that seven day period.
• Our initial email received an “open rate” that exceeded the typical rate for a “cold” list by about 700%.  This shows that, after seven years out of the public spotlight, the candidate is still recognized and people wanted to hear what he had to say.

The consistent flow of volunteer sign-ups on our Web site is atypically strong for a candidate who hasn’t even announced — and we see a large influx of visitors to the site from search engine queries.

We’ll keep you updated as this campaign progresses, but if the online activity is any indication — there is significant energy and intensity for this campaign.