Election 2020: Political Fundraising Emails Broken Down By Billion Dollar Copywriter

Hey, I am Stefan Georgi, a direct response copywriter, entrepreneur, marketer, Do a bunch of stuff and today I want to go through a lot of the kind of political campaign emails I've been getting and dissect them. So we're gonna do that. I'm at a hotel room in Scottsdale here for the week. So that's why you got the kind of weird background. And if you don't know who I am, which is totally cool, most people don't like, you know, this is the credibility part where I show you that, you know, know Business Insider has talked about me as a freelancer Grow, which is part of cnbc, has some cool features on me and I was recently featured in Forbes of a whole big thing about me and how I'm good at knowing how to sell products and stuff like that. I got like the I know how to sell, blah, blah, blah, Cool. Anyway, so it's like maybe the credibility. Oh, why you should listen to me. That's why. Now this is my promotions tab in Gmail. So there's a bunch of random stuff in here, both political and non political. But I'm getting so much stuff I want to go through and see if I can evaluate some of these. We'll start with subject lines and what makes a good one versus a bad one. So in order to do this, actually what I should really talk about is what is a good point of an email subject line from a marketing perspective is to create curiosity. Well, really is to get somebody to open the email, right? It's as simple as that. Like you want somebody to open the email and the way you generally will do that is by, I guess you could say there'd be curiosity, urgency or maybe a direct value proposition. So if we say curiosity, you'll look at that like some of these email type of like a health type of emails. So like, let's see here, if we find. I don't think here, add this to coffee or tea to eliminate constipation from coffee poops. But you know, that is sort of a not a bad subject line actually for being like a kind of like spammy email. Because you've got curiosity, right? Like what am I supposed to add to coffee or tea? We also have kind of like a promise, you know, direct benefit in it of eliminate constipation. There's not an urgency. If they had said eliminate constipation now or fast or whatever, then you could have that as well. So obviously this isn't a political, you know, email, but still kind of interesting, right? Okay, so what you tend to find with like, kind of campaign emails is it's a very mixed, mixed bag. So this first one up here from the firm name is Barack Obama Update. And the subject line, by 11:59 tonight, this one has. It's actually not a bad one. I give this. If I'm going to rank this, I give it like a 7 out of 10, 7.5 out of 10. Because there's like an urgency, implied urgency. There's a little bit of curiosity and that you're wondering, well, what by 11:59pm tonight. Although I think you also kind of realize that they're gonna ask for money. So I don't love that part of it. I mean, I think it's kind of seems obvious if we look at. Let's look at Barack Obama Update team. We were getting really worried, but grassroots donors stepped up and answered President Obama's call to action. So we were getting First, Republicans were spending millions to attack Democrats and advanced the Trump agenda. But donations had stalled and we were starting to lose hope. Then President Obama asked you to make a commitment to elect Democrats up and down the ticket. Now donations have gone up. We're still short of our end of quarter goal, the final one before the election, and we're running out of time before our midnight deadline. Deadline midnight tonight. I am asking you to believe in Joe and Kamala's ability to lead this country out of these dark times and build it back better. President Barack Obama donate now. Goal 250,000 forex match. And I kind of have some other stuff here. I mean, honestly, we'll come back here and I'll come back to some of these emails. We'll look at the copy. Let's start our subject lines though. So that was the one from Obama was not bad. This one from Supreme Court Watch, AG Holder has been saying this for years. To me, this one's a bit weaker. I'd probably give it a 5 out of 10. There's some curiosity, but if I don't really care about Eric Holder, then why am I opening it? If I don't know who Eric Holder is or who AG Holder is, why am I opening it? And even if I do know who he is, do I really care what he's saying? I mean, I know Supreme Court Watch, this is not a bad firm name because of what's going on right now. And like the, you know, the death of Justice Ginsburg and like the of RBG and the kind of what's going on, I mean, people might open for that reason. Alone. But this subject line doesn't do a whole lot for me. I think Gary Peters, Today's the day. It's one of the most important days of my campaign is very bad. I'd give this like a 2 out of 10. Why? Because what's in it for me as the reader and even the kind of snippet of text you can see here. It's one of the most important days of my campaign. So why do I care about your campaign? Unless I'm like a die hard supporter of Gary Peters. I know who Gary Peters is. Like why would I. I don't care about this. Why am I gonna open it? Right. Got back through old coffee poops here. This guy lost 97 pounds in six months with the help of this. Get a lot of weird emails. I don't think your name is on AG Holder's list yet. There's still time to add it. So I think this is kind of interesting. I still don't love it, but it's more personalized. There's a little curiosity. I kind of feel like I don't like this. There's still time to add it though. Because why do I. I don't know if I want to be on some Attorney general's list. Like that sounds kind of sketchy. I mean maybe that'll get me to open it. Let's see. It's kind of even weird that they're mailing out from AG Holder and then it's like some of this weird stuff here. But yeah, it's also funny you like donate. I have a friend, she's running for. For Congress in West Virginia. Hillary Turner. She's a Democrat and I gave her a contribution. But just so you know, for people watching this video, like honestly I'm pretty like middle. Like I'm kind of like. I try to be pretty bipartisan. I get some on Facebook. I get targeted by Republicans a lot. The most seasoning emails that were coming from Democrats because I donated to like a Democrat candidate and. But I guess it's funny. I don't know why I brought that up. I guess just to say that's why I get these are mostly from Democrats. But it's crazy how much they sell your information. It's nuts. Debate night alert. Did you see tonight's debate? I think this one's actually decent because it's so topical. That's another kind of component from a subject line that can get people to click right. If you see saying this topical. Can't talk. It's like seven in the morning. And I said coffee like, half an hour ago. But very topical. And people want to talk about the debate and they're on Facebook and they're talking to their friends and they're arguing and we're all divided anyway, so I actually think this one works. Did you see tonight's debate? Because people were like, yeah, I saw it. And they want to interact or engage. I actually think that's pretty decent. Another from Gary Peters. Did you see this? Pretty boring. Pretty bland, like, no, but I don't really, unless I'm a hardcore Gary Peters fan, don't really care. Kamala Harris. Read tonight's debate. I actually don't really think is. Yeah, it's topical, so it'll get some decent open rate, honestly. But I just think it's like, sort of a little generic. Of course, there's Joe Biden just said. I hate. I don't like this front name. Or from him. I prefer if it was Joe Biden, frankly. Or saying more curiosity driven. Were you watching Stefan? Same thing. Okay. Are you seeing. I mean, everyone trying to do. You know, I get what they're doing. They're trying to be topical here. I still kind of liked. Did you see tonight's debate? Because it's the most clear question where it's a yes or no answer from Nancy Pelosi. Trump debate backfires. I don't think this one's that good. I feel like it's like a. I don't know. It just doesn't seem like it really answers the question. What's it for? Me? I don't think there's really curiosity there. It's sort of just like a bland statement. Chuck Schumer. I'm reaching out. Kind of just like. Great. He Shock. Thanks, man. Eyes of what Mitch doesn't understand. Meh. Let's find some more good ones. This one really sucks. The Democratic Unity fund has never been more important than it is right now. Okay, cool. I mean, it's clear in that subject line that you're gonna ask for money. And, like, I don't, like, really, you know, why am I gonna give it to you? Like, I don't know. Like, it doesn't really. There's no value proposition. No curiosity, anything that. Gary Peters, Another crappy one. Just got off the phone with my team. I think this one's okay. Presidential debate. Will you watch just because of, you know, be more topical. Here's an urgency one from Nancy Pelosi. Critically important. Please read before the debate. Urgency at least, right? There's urgency here. Not really curiosity not really any kind of direct benefit. A little bit topical. Let's go to the next page here. This is a girl I donated to. She's. Or a woman shouldn't say girl. Someone I know from back in college and she has some good emails. It's now or never. There's urgency to it. I don't think it's her best email, but, you know, I think it's. It's okay. Tom Perez, I need you to read Obama's message before tonight's debate. Stefan. Well, I don't care what you need, right? Oh, yeah, this one was good. Amanda checking in. I actually like this because it's so, like, it looks like it could be from a friend or something like that or somebody or someone you do business with or whatever. That's why I clicked on it, because I was like, oh. I was like, I know this is probably another political one. And then this was actually a. You know, the other thing is really, I just do wonder if, like, for these candidates, the process of asking for money all the time, like, of course I get it, right? They're trying to raise money, but it's still transparent. I mean, how do you know, how do you expect people not to be alienated by the political process? And I think you could do, I wonder about, like, doing more, like, emails that build relationships and then maybe having a really soft call to action in some of them. But for more of your emails, it's a whole different thing. But, like, I feel like, for example, somewhere saved, I saved these ones from Pete Buttigieg. They've all gone to spam. But basically, if you look at, like, even with, like, you know, Pete Buttigieg and his campaign, like, I opted into his list when he was running, you know, a candidate because I wanted to see their email marketing, which is probably another reason why I get all these emails. But it's like, you know, kind of comes in and it's like, hey, yeah, you opted in. Did you give us money yet? We could use more money. And it's like, I do wonder about, like, if you were like, hey, thanks for opting in. Like, we're trying to do these amazing things and change America, blah, blah, blah. You know, what I need to know from you right now is what's your, like, what's the number one thing issue that you're concerned with? Or what's the number one thing you want to see from your candidate? Like, please reply and let me know. Literally, just doing that for reply in there would increase his deliverability long term by so much because like what happened with Mayor Pete, it's probably out of my spam now. But basically after the first email too, they all went to spam. But to get people to reply to your first email and like talk to you, then it's way less likely it's gonna go to spam and much more likely that's gonna inbox and then from there you can like. Awesome, thank you. So glad we're, you know, we're really focus on this issue too and like we hear you and we want to change it. You know the best way you take action. Here's three things you can like canvas, you can do this and you can donate. And like you're donating. Here's what happens with the money, blah, blah. And then start hitting up people for donating more. I'm very curious to see. Again, I could be wrong because maybe the first, I mean there's the side of it that's like the first email is going to have the highest inbox rate probably. So asking for money in that one maybe makes the most sense. But I'd be curious to see. I don't think anyone's had the balls to test it. I'd love to see what happens if you did. The first email is like a reply all. Tell me about your issue, get them more bought in and feel more connected to you and then ask for money. I'm really curious which one would actually be more effective from a fundraising perspective. But I don't think anyone has done it. But let's look at a couple more out raised in Michigan. This is for Gary Peter. I don't know how the f I'm on Gary Peters list because I don't know who this guy is, but maybe I should. I'm not trying to sound ignorant, but just telling you the truth. So out raised in Michigan, don't really care about that. The key is Mark Kelly. Don't really care about that. Jimmy Carter Read Donald Trump. If you really don't like Donald Trump, you might read that one. But meh. Nancy Pelosi flying from yesterday just to me it's like not no curiosity, no urgency, no benefit, anything like that. Howard Dean democrats still need 14 more people from Poway to donate before tomorrow. I don't hate this because I grew up in Poway. I don't live there anymore. So it's like not the records are super flawed and dated and stuff like that. But this idea of seeing your specific city or region is probably effective. There's a lot of specificity there. I think that One may have some be effective for people. I would guess that that email was doing better for that reason. Let's go through a couple more here. This is a fucking terrible one. Side note, part of my language, but I remember seeing this being like, what the hell is this? This is a long email about why I'm running for U.S. senate. I would really appreciate if you read the whole thing. Like, ugh, like what is what A way to knock at somebody, to get somebody to not open your email. It's crazy. Okay, like you're telling me it's long and I'm busy, so I don't have time. It's why you're writing for U.S. senate. I don't really care why you're running for U.S. senate. And then you was like, I would appreciate it kind of weekly asking me to read this long email about you. It's like, no. Very easy for me to say no. So what could you do instead? I mean, it'd be like, I'd be like, maybe like. I mean, I'd do like a way more curiosity driven one. Like, like, I don't know, maybe like this is not a great example, but like, you know, like three, like three national security secrets US Senators won't tell you. You know, if the email is about national security, something like that would be really. It could be interesting. Or like, you know, like which. Which senators just booked a trip to Russia? Yeah, I mean, I don't know, just interesting stuff like that things are going to be more topical, but also that are going to be more curiosity inducing. You can still talk about why you're running for Senate, but like, this is just really, really, really bad. One more Gary Peters just doing his thing. This one. I don't know what's going on. This was. Okay. I don't know the market for this, like the target market, but like response pending. Should we stop Mitch McConnell? Because I guess if you're really riled up about everything with the Supreme Court and you're like, yes, and you click on it so I can see it having some value. The GOP is when all the stops kind of boring. Lame. I don't know why I'm on this. Newport cigarettes, coupons. I don't know. Somebody opted me in. I've been getting emails from them recently. It's pretty brutal. We wouldn't ask if it weren't important. Nah. Especially from a left enemy graph. I just feel like I'm not getting a lot from that. Barack Obama and Kamala Harris want to meet you. Stefan. I think this is Sort of. Okay. Because at least there's a. What's in it for me? Right. There's a benefit we've talked about on this one. Yeah. So I don't know. I mean, there's a bunch of ones. So the other thing too, of a lot of these here is like, let's look at this one. I really wonder. I'd just be curious to see the testing on this too. I'm sure they've tested it because I get having the donation stuff here. But it's like, how annoying is it that every time you open an email, it's just immediately you see this, which technically this could be called above the fold. Right. And with that we mean like if you go, somebody goes to a page or like a video and you want them to watch it, then this video shouldn't be pushed down below where they have to scroll. The video should be up higher. Right. And so same thing here where not a video with a donate on one hand, you want it up high so people see it and will click. But at the same time it's like so transparent every time that you're asking to donate. It's really curious because like, so from a direct response marketing, like a health standpoint, let's go back to one of those health offers, which I just saw a bunch in here. Let's find one of these health ones real quick here. And that's gonna be a boring one probably, but this might be really short. Okay, so how to lose £20 in 30 days. No, I don't know anything about. I guess this is going from blood sugar fit because I'm in health marketing, so I buy different supplements and you get emailed, sent emails, but even this one, you don't have the link above the fold. And I actually think that's better. Right. Because if I'm overweight and I want to read about diabetes and belly fat and all that kind of stuff here, I. And then there's, you know, two drops of most fat like crazy burn fat, fat, changing your diet, whatever. But so like, it's interesting. Cause in health emails, I'll have good health marketing emails. It's actually below the fold. But in these political ones, they're consistently above the fold. Brian's the guy in my mastermind. I'm guessing he has a call to action. Yeah, it's all the way down here. It's a long email from Brian, but I think that makes more sense. Cause at least I'm reading from Brian and building a relationship. I mean, the big thing with these political campaign ads or emails, from my perspective is that there's no relationship building at all. And I think that's kind of a missed opportunity because like, you know, like, yeah, sure, money. But it's like, I just, I'm just curious. It's hard for me to believe and again, I'm not, I'm not an expert and you know, maybe it's like dating and other sales. It's like this like sheer numbers game, right? But I'd just be curious to see a candidate really try to build like rapport and relationships. Like I remember hearing a while ago that like in Trump in the 2016, 2016 election, like Trump didn't ask for money in a bunch of his emails, but like, guess what? He built this like pretty like this kind of tribe of very fanatical, like fans. And I'm curious if there's not a correlation there. So anyway, food for thought. Hopefully you get some value from this email or value from this video. Again, my name is Stefan. Georgia. Make sure if you like this I'm gonna put on YouTube probably. So make sure that you like comment and if you don't like it too, comment. Let me know what you think. Subscribe to my channel. Feel free to share this as well and you can always check me out. StefanPaul Georgi.com Subscribe I'll even show you what that looks like. StefanPaul Georgi Subscribe. That's again, my email list. My email list is a lot better than these. I very rarely sell you anything, but I provide a lot of high level, kind of like actionable advice, content, copywriting tips, entrepreneur tips, mindset tips, very honest, really personal. You have to apply to be on my list because like I really give you like I really, I really bring it. Like the most recent one here. Let's look at the short stack in business, which is one I just sent out. I don't see. I don't give away somebody's stuff here, but plain trying to find the one that came from me specifically here, but because I don't want to blow up somebody else's stuff. Yeah. So this is what I sent yesterday about how, you know, during my health supplement company, the first one I started, I was kind of having a tough time and like not successful. And I realized that I could, there was a poker analogy I could use and basically it relates to poker tournaments. And so I was good analogy and a mental shift and that's it, right? No links, no anything like that. So, you know, if you want to get really interesting emails for me like that that help you with mindset and business and copywriting and freelancing and how to make money and all other stuff that's important. How to have better relationships with the ones you love. Then yeah, go to stefanpauljorget.com subscribe and you can apply for my list. And once you're there, you can check out my actual website, kind of see what I got going on. And we'll exit POP here because I want you on my list, because I want to talk to you. And yeah, and then you go to my blog too. You can see a bunch of really cool stuff here, like stuff about Facebook. Procrastination is a good thing. Really interesting story. So anyway, check it all out. Thanks for watching. Make sure you again, like subscribe, share and talk to you soon.