How GOTV Texting Can Change Your Campaign Outreach

GOTV texting has become one of the best methods for getting out the vote, but what exactly does it entail?

In the run-up to elections, most campaigns focus on fundraising, media relations, the perfect debate points, and “How do we take down our opponents who are making our country worse?”

While these are critical areas that help win elections, voter turnout is the most determining factor. Elections are won and lost by less than 1% because a strong candidate’s voters did not show up on election day.

This is where get out the vote (GOTV) strategies come into play. 

GOTV: What is it?

Before we dive into the world of GOTV texting, let’s understand what is GOTV.

GOTV, or get out the vote, refers to initiatives and efforts to encourage supporters or electorates to vote. Political campaigns, nonpartisan organizations, nonprofits, and advocacy groups use various strategies to increase voter turnout. This entails encouraging people (supporters in partisan campaigns and eligible electorates in non-partisan cases), developing a voting plan, and assisting people in reaching ballot centers.

What is GOTV texting?

GOTV texting is a popular medium used by campaigns in their get-out-the-vote initiatives. Through text messaging campaigns reach out to voters and encourage them to support their preferred candidates.

Here’s why texting for GOTV is popular:

1. It is cost-effective: Sending thousands of text messages is much more cost-effective than knocking on thousands of doors or phonebanking.
2. It is scalable: You can easily add an entire voter list to your GOTV texting plan at the last minute. However, try doing that with other outreach methods; you might have a logistical nightmare.
3. It is time-saving: Text messages can reach thousands of voters within minutes. 
4. It has great reach: Texting has one of the highest reach, considering most people are constantly on their phones and are bound to look at and read their text messages. 75% of Americans check their phones within 5 minutes of receiving a notification.

Does GOTV texting actually work?

I think a more important question to ask here is, “Can GOTV texting be singularly responsible for increasing voter turnout and changing the game in an election?”

The answer is no. Voter turnout results from multiple factors, such as a candidate’s likeability, voter sentiment, advertisements during the campaign, election promises, etc. However, strategies and outreach such as GOTV texting aid the process of voter turnout. Here’s how:

1. Accessibility: It helps campaigns share valuable information that voters may not have known before or they can now keep handy on their mobile devices. 
2. Efficiency and scalability: It helps voters and campaigns coordinate the voting process better. 
3. Engagement with hard-to-reach voters: GOTV texting can engage voters and volunteers in two-way conversations at a time convenient to voters. It makes conversations more candid and genuine. 
4. It helps collect data points, helping campaigns understand the voters who interact with their content, the issues that matter to them, and more.
5. Targeted messaging: You can send GOTV text messages to different segments based on their unique concerns and interests.

Read Also: What is Voter Apathy & How Reachouts Can Beat Turnout Fears 

What can GOTV texting do?

Wouldn’t it be better to engage voters in face-to-face or phone conversations? It seems like a more personal, meaningful conversation, especially for sensitive topics such as voting. 

Yes – these other outreach methods have many positives to offer to campaigns. So, what is unique about GOTV texts that make them one of the most popular means of outreach? Here’s what I’ve learned:

GOTV texting can be a third touchpoint

In a multichannel outreach campaign, GOTV texts can serve as an additional touchpoint to raise voter awareness, remind them of important deadlines, and share valuable resources. Many campaigns initially reach voters through phone calls, emails, and door knocking, only to use texting to follow up later.

Have longer conversations with GOTV texting.

Phone calls and other outreach methods can effectively impact voter turnout. However, campaign goals, costs, etc., can limit their length.

With texting tools such a peer to peer texting, where volunteers and voters can engage in a back-and-forth conversation, all your voter’s doubts, questions, and apprehensions can be addressed.

Send links with GOTV texts

With GOTV texting, you can send location pins to your voter base’s nearest polling station. If you want to further educate them about a candidate, you can share links, newspaper articles, and more.

Texting links helps your audience reach more engaging content such as videos, websites, reels, TikToks, etc. You can share survey links to understand how many of them plan on voting. 

Lastly, instead of bombarding voters with long text messages or lengthy calls, sending links can help you be concise. The voters can explore the links on their own to learn more.

Political text message examples for GOTV

Here are some GOTV texting examples for different use cases that you can use for your campaign.

Voter registration drives

Absentee/Mail-in ballot requests

Polling location information

Early voting reminders

Event invitations

Get-Out-The-Vote reminders

Reminder to return ballots

Day-of voting encouragement

Political text messaging service for GOTV

Once you know GOTV texting is the right outreach method; you should look for a text messaging service with features that support your goals.

At CallHub, we’ve developed texting tools that campaigns love! When you are looking for a texting service, look for these features to boost the effectiveness of your messaging.

Here’s what we offer for GOTV texting:

• Peer-to-peer texting
• Mass texts/text broadcasts
• Relational organizing

Let’s learn more about these features for GOTV texting.

Peer-to-peer texting

Peer-to-peer (P2P) text messages allow text banking volunteers and voters to engage in two-way conversations. 

Voters can reply to your message to ask doubts, seek clarity, or get more information.

Peer-to-peer texts have solved the biggest problem for political campaigns – how to have texting conversations at scale.

An example of peer-to-peer text messaging

With CallHub, you can combine the efficiency of mass texts and peer-to-peer texting. Using our Fast P2P feature, you can reach out to voters at scale while maintaining the authenticity of a one-to-one conversation. You can send thousands of initial messages in one-go, and then agents respond to replies as they come in. Volunteers can use CallHub’s mobile app to access messages no matter where they are!

Read Also: How to Start a P2P Text? We Studied 400+ Campaigns to Know 

Text broadcasts

Text broadcasts or mass texting allow you to send thousands of messages at the click of a button. This is an excellent tool for GOTV since most messages are sent at the last minute. 

Mass texts ensure any information is relayed in a timely, instant manner. With CallHub, you can set up your GOTV texting campaign in less than 5 minutes without worrying about compliance. The CallHub texting platform is TCPA compliant and offers 10 DLC numbers to increase delivery rates.

Relational organizing

Relational organizing is based on the premise that the people you know best are most likely to influence you. Some studies claim that relational organizing increases likelihood of voting by 8.3 percentage points!

CallHub’s relational organizing tools let volunteers access their phonebooks and mobilize their contacts—and it is free! How does it work? Voter lists are matched with your volunteers’ contact books. Everyone they know is assigned to them for outreach.

These texting tools offer excellent features to boost delivery and engagement. Let’s take a look at them.

GOTV texting: Features that will help your campaign

To boost your GOTV text campaign, here are some features to look into:

• Auto send on P2P
• Convert to MMS
• Trackable links
• Auto reassign
• Saved responses
• Profanity Filter
• Automated responses
• Retry nudges
• Workflow Automation 

Let’s explore each in detail:

Auto send on P2P texts

Combining the best parts of P2P and mass texts, auto send on P2P helps campaigns simultaneously send the initial text message to thousands of contacts. Volunteers can converse with them when the text is sent, and people begin replying.

It moves beyond the previous limitations of P2P, where volunteers had to individually send initial text messages to every contact while staying compliant. This tool is especially useful when short on texting staff and would rather have your volunteers engage in real conversations.

Convert to MMS

Convert to MMS is a brilliant feature for campaigns that want to save costs on their long text messages. While the character limit on regular SMS texts is 160, MMS increases it to 1600 characters!

On CallHub, you can simply upload a media file with your texting script, and your message will be converted to MMS.

Trackable links for GOTV texting

CallHub offers link shortner and tracker to all its customers to track link opens and interactions. Why does it help GOTV texting? When you send these links out through texts, you will know which contacts have interacted with your messages and those who have not. You can customize the URL to showcase your campaign’s brand and improve visibility.

You can design retargeting campaigns based on this information.

Auto reassign

As campaign managers, we understand that some information and conversations are time-critical. Also, when voters are left hanging without a reply, they will likely lose interest in your conversation.

This is why CallHub introduced the auto reassign feature that reassigns messages to other available agents when a volunteer or agent is offline. This ensures that no message is left unattended.

Saved responses

Many conversations in a texting campaign are similar, so agents might have to retype the same answers repeatedly.

To save them from this effort, text bankers or managers can create saved responses that they can view and select to respond easily. The next time a volunteer has to send out voting instructions or an event address, they can simply choose a pre-saved reply and hit send.

Profanity filter

Unfortunately, GOTV texting volunteers and agents came across multiple abusive and disturbing text messages during the campaign. This significantly impacts morale and confidence. 

To protect them, CallHub has introduced the profanity filter feature. This feature hides abusive text messages and assigns them to a designated (ideally senior) agent. This protects your volunteers from triggering texts and ensures their morale isn’t hampered.

Please note that our Profanity Filter is AI-powered. Hence, it understands the nuances of an incoming text. We don’t filter texts based on only keywords.

Automated responses

Automated responses are replies triggered automatically for particular keywords. This feature is helpful in text broadcast campaigns to ensure voters get timely responses when you are seeking confirmation before sending the right information.

Retry nudges

Incase your messages fail to deliver because your contact was unreachable, we have a feature for you. CallHub’s ‘Retry’ feature lets you set up retries that you can control by defining the time between your retries in minutes and number of attempts. 

Workflow automation

In large campaigns, it is difficult to track multiple outreach steps, retargeting texts, etc. In such cases, workflow automation is a savior. You can plan your outreach on CallHub in advance to avoid communication gaps. For example, if you want to set up a follow up text messaging campaign 3 days after calling a voter, you can set up your workflows to automatically trigger the texts.

Ready to begin GOTV texting?

We’re as thrilled as you are! GOTV texting will be a game-changer for your campaigns. Begin your journey today with CallHub’s texting tools. And the best part? You get $6 to start your campaigns when you sign up!

Featured Image Source: cottonbro studio

Shiksha Sharma

Shiksha Sharma is a Content Marketer with over 5 years of experience in the B2B SaaS industry. She has extensively written about software that helps organizations work easily. Her areas of research include politics, nonprofits, advocacy, and business.