House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt won a 16% open rate to an e-mail promoting his response to President George W. Bush’s recent State of the Union address.
Gephardt (D-MO) made history by simultaneously appearing live on the Internet and on TV to present the Democratic response to the president’s speech.
A rich media e-mail directed viewers to a Web site to watch him. Of the 16% who opened their HTML e-mails, 30% clicked through to see the speech, said Jay Stevens, director of strategic alliances at MindArrow Systems Inc. in Aliso Viejo, CA, which streamed the audio and video and delivered the e-mail content. There’s a viral element, too: More than 7% hit a “forward-to-a-friend” button in the e-mail.
“The Democrats have been slower than the Republicans in using the Internet,” said Nels Benson, Gephardt’s director of information systems. “I almost feel that I’ve been the lone guy screaming ‘Let’s do this!’”
A total of 45,000 e-mails were transmitted two days before the speech in January. Some 5,000 went to subscribers to the congressman’s e-mail newsletter The Gephardt Report. The remainder were gleaned from a NetCreations double-opt-in e-mail list Gephardt rented.
The e-mail featured a video clip of Gephardt inviting people to the Webcast and giving a sneak preview of his response. It included three calls to action: click through to watch the Webcast following the president’s address; visit the Web site (dickgephardt.house.gov) anytime; and subscribe to the newsletter. Forty-two percent of the recipients viewed the e-mail to the end, according to MindArrow.
A separate e-mailing went out the week before Bush’s address to publicize a different Gephardt speech (on the economy) that was also Webcast. It reached the e-newsletter subscribers and pulled a 10% response.
“[The e-mails and Webcasts are] getting people’s attention,” Benson said. “We’ve received a lot of e-mail from people saying ‘good job.’”
MindArrow has provided e-mails for political campaigns in the past. “But this is the first time anyone has used rich media in the e-mail and on the Webcast,” said Stevens, who believes it has long-term ramifications. “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.”
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