House Minority Leader Dick Gephart (D-MO) will deliver the Democratic response to the president’s State of the Union address on TV Tuesday night as usual. But at the same time, his speech will be simultaneously broadcast on a Web site.
And, visitors to (http://democraticleader.house.gov) will have been driven there by a rich-media e-mail that went out Sunday.
A total of 45,000 e-mails were transmitted. Some 22,000 came from a double-opt-in rented e-mail list. The remainder were gleaned from Gephart’s list of subscribers to his e-mail newsletter, “Gephart Report.”
The e-mail, which was a video clip of Gephart inviting people to the Webcast and giving a sneak preview of his response, included three calls to action: to click through to visit the Web site; to watch the Webcast; and to subscribe to the newsletter.
The registration form for the twice-monthly newsletter asks for e-mail, name, address, state and postal code.
“We’ve done political campaigns before, but this is the first time anyone has used rich media in the e-mail and rich media on the Webcast, said Jay Stevens, director of strategic alliances at Mindarrow, which streamed the audio and video and delivered the e-mail content.
“In the last election, some people tinkered with using e-mail as a method of reaching constituents,” Stevens said. “But at the end of the day, for a tenth of the price of a postage stamp, they can deliver an e-mail to the constituent base.”
Gephart’s response will be archived on the Web site.
Mindarrow, which will track responses to the e-mail, is in Aliso Viejo, CA.
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