Colin Parent
Case Study
Role: Digital Advertising Strategist, text message strategy and outreach
Deliverables: Digital advertising strategy and targeting with overlapping text message program
The Outcome: Reached 8,400 voters via text messages and 11,600 via digital ads. Colin Parent was elected with the most votes in a field of five in a pick two race.
The Challenge
Colin Parent was running for re-election to the La Mesa City Council in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since traditional outreach methods, like canvassing and meet-and-greets were severely limited, Colin needed a strong digital strategy, phone and text message program in order to reach voters virtually.
Our Approach
We worked closely with Colin and his campaign team to develop an overlapping text message and digital advertising campaign. Since all other political campaigns were dealing with the same COVID-19 shutdowns, we knew that there would be a lot of competition for voters’ attention. In addition, we knew that most La Mesa voters would be voting in advance, so we needed to talk to voters well before the actual election day.
We developed a Google search ad campaign and a three-level advertising funnel on Facebook and Instagram to share an evolving message with the voters. After that, we created a text messaging strategy that supplemented the digital advertising plan and offered us another touch point for our digital targets. This also gave Colin an opportunity to have one-on-one conversations with the voters. Our relational text message model allowed us to really build relationships with voters.
Reached 11,633 voters on Facebook
Reached 8,400 voters via text messages
29.8% engagement rate with text messages
The client gained most votes in the race
The Impact
Colin was successfully re-elected to the La Mesa City Council and gained the most votes in this “vote for two candidates” race. Since traditional outreach methods were mostly unavailable, the digital campaign played a significant impact in the race. We were able to reach 11,633 voters on Facebook/Instagram and the Google search ads gained 6,451 impressions. We sent altogether 36,103 text messages and the overall engagement rate was 29.8%. During the duration of the campaign, 9.6% of the contacts confirmed that they were going to vote for Colin.
