Direct mail should be a staple of every campaign. Not only is it very effective if targeted correctly, it is also read much more widely than any of our usual leaflets. It helps us gets our message across to more people about why our candidates are the best choice at election time.
Different people have different issues that are important to them and whilst a particular issue may be important to one individual or area, it may not matter much to another. So we send individually addressed letters to voters.
Direct mail and postal voters
The doorstep is far and away the best place to recruit postal voters. I make it a rule to never go out on the doorstep without a wodge of postal vote application forms for our supporters to fill in.
Mailings to our supporters asking them to sign-up for postal votes are also a good way to recruit new postal voters. You can even pre-fill in the form for them with their name and address using a mail-merge file from Connect.
We all know how hard it can be to get our supporters to the polls on election day. We also know that if someone has a postal vote, they are TWICE as likely to vote. That’s why signing up your supporters to postal votes has to be a top priority.
Here are our templates for you to use based on the fact that another General Election could well happen at any time: postal vote recruitment letter – PagePlus and PDF.
Download postal vote forms from: www.yourvotematters.co.uk/how-do-i-vote/voting-by-post
Our website is crammed full of useful resources to help you recruit more postal voters. Take a look at our postal vote action pack.
Your direct mail
We’ve received some great examples from teams across the UK who’ve been delivering direct mail since the General Election:
- Fantastic thank you letter and focus from Sheffield Central – PDF
- Two great examples of recruitment letters – one from Mid Dorset and North Poole (PDF) and another from Carshalton (PDF)
- Following on from our crime pack, the team in Hazel Grove are currently delivering a crime survey (PDF) with a piece of targeted direct mail (PDF)
If you’ve got a great example, please do share it with me and you may see it in next week’s email.