The Thing about Email Solicitations... [View all]

[MineralMan]

Like everyone else on DU, I get a bunch of emails requesting donations to political parties and causes each day. For me, they all end up in my spam folder, because I've seen to it that they go there. I donate to individual campaigns based on their needs and my support for the candidate.

So, why is the DNC, the DNCC and other organizations sending out so many of these? There's a simple reason:

They work. Every one of those emails gets some donations from people who were motivated by the message of a particular email. For some donors, a dog reference might work. For another group, a doom and gloom subject line might work. Each email gets a response from a tiny, tiny number of people, compared to how many emails were sent.

The conversion rate for mass email campaigns is shockingly low. If you get a response from one in a thousand recipients, you're doing outstandingly well for cold email solicitations. That's an excellent return. But even a one in 10,000 response still brings in some money. Here's the deal: It costs almost nothing to send out millions of emails on a cost per email basis. Almost any conversion rate is worthwhile.

As part of my internet content business, I create email campaigns for my business clients. Typically, they're a series of five emails, sent one per week to a list of recipients. Each separate email is complete in itself, but the series feeds on previous mailings, too. I'm good at these campaigns, and they actually convert about 1 in 100 into solid leads for the business. My clients don't send out millions of them. Just thousands. One solid positive lead is worth a lot to the businesses who are my clients, because a new customer is worth a lot to them since what they're selling is very expensive . So, I get paid well for creating these campaigns, because my email campaigns produce excellent results. I'm good at it.

It's different for national political parties seeking donations. Their conversion rate is very, very low. But, there is a conversion rate, and the money those email campaigns bring in makes it worthwhile to continue that solicitation method. If you don't like getting them, just start marking individual emails as spam in your email client. Before long, all of them will go into your spam folder and you won't see them any more. The senders don't care. They know that people are doing that. They're working to get that tiny conversion rate, and don't expect any more than that.

If you get emails from Elizabeth Warren asking you to donate to something, she doesn't care if you donate or not. She didn't write the email anyhow. Someone like me did. I don't do political email campaigns, though. Just business ones, and in very narrow vertical markets. Things like packaging equipment and supplies and capital goods. That kind of stuff. I get results. So do the political fundraisers. Tiny conversion rates can add up to lots of money, though, when you're talking about millions of mailings.

Just mark the stuff as spam and you'll stop seeing so much of it. It's that simple. In the meantime, those email solicitations are raising money for the party. And that's a good thing. Campaigning is very costly. You don't have to donate, though. Others will, and they may donate in response to an email you thought was absolute crap. You never know.