1. Work with the county DEC to define the target audience, objective, and the ask. (e.g., text all Democrats in the county with textable phone numbers who are not enrolled in Vote by Mail to ask them to enroll or re-enroll)
2. Collect the following information and submit to county chairperson for approval:
- Description of the intended recipients and projected numbers determined from the summary of the texting LIST in VAN
- Proposed text message(s) and the number of characters in each message
- Estimated Cost
- 1.25 cents/recipient for each 153-character segment sent SMS;
- single segment texts can be 160 characters – after first segment it becomes 153 per segment;
- if your text contains an image or a symbol like an accent or tilde it must be sent MMS= 3.375 cents and that allows 1600 characters.
- Launch date and time, duration of the campaign and the end date.
3.Finalize messages, survey questions and answers, response scripts, and tags to record the results of each conversation.
- Text messages should
- Address voter by name – Hi Dave!
- Identify organization sending the text (Lee Dems here)
- Provide required opt-out option (STOP to Opt-Out)
- Provide information and always an ASK (action)
- Link to Supervisor of Elections – to enroll in Vote by Mail
- Question – Will you enroll? Will you vote in November?
- Create Tags and Response Scripts to go with each text campaign.
- Standard tags include:
- wrong number
- moved
- confirmed ID
- hostile
- deceased
- not supporting Dems
- volunteer
- Standard tags include:
- Response Scripts tell texters what to text back if a voter replies. Some will be standard; others will be campaign-specific.
- Each Response Script can have an “auto-tag” attached.
- These tags automatically go back into VAN as canvass results, activist codes, or survey question answers after the campaign
See Sample Text Messages, Tags, and Response Scripts