Political SMS Marketing

16 President Election: Top 10 SMS Marketing Words

2016 Presidential Election SMS - Top 10 Most Frequently Used Words

If we learned anything last year, it’s that people loved hearing about how candidates were using SMS marketing during the 2016 presidential election. This topic was so popular with Tatango readers that three of the top ten mobile messaging blog posts of 2016 were about how presidential candidates during the 2016 election were using SMS marketing.

In an effort to give Tatango readers more of what they want, we at Prosper Group analyzed all of the SMS messages sent by each candidate during the 2016 presidential election. With this data, we were then able to determine the top 10 most frequently used words that appeared in each candidate’s SMS messages.

Being that the 2016 presidential election marked the first time both the Democratic and Republican general election campaigns ran truly robust, data-driven SMS marketing programs, this information is extremely valuable to anyone thinking of running an SMS marketing program for a political candidate, no matter what political party they’re associated with.

Interested in running an SMS marketing program for a political candidate? Don’t just take our word for the popularity and effectiveness of using SMS in an election. Check out what the New York Times said below about how text messaging has become the go-to vehicle for presidential campaigns when they need to get a message out.

The killer app for the 2016 presidential campaign is not an app at all. It is not even new. Texting — that 1990s-vintage technology — has suddenly become a go-to vehicle for presidential campaigns when they need to get a message out as widely and quickly as possible, and with confidence that it will be read.

Source: New York Times – Texting Comes of Age as a Political Messenger

If you’re not subscribed to Tatango’s email newsletter, now would be a good time as we’ll be publishing a series of blog posts over the next few months that analyze how each candidate used SMS marketing during the 2016 presidential election. Subscribe now by clicking here.

To see which words were most frequently used by each presidential candidate in their SMS messages, see below.


 

Donald Trump

Donald Trump SMS Messaging Word Cloud

Below is a visualization of the top 50 words used by Donald Trump in his SMS messages during the 2016 presidential election. These words are taken from the SMS messages he sent voters between March 11, 2016, and Nov. 8, 2016. The larger the word appears below, the more times Donald Trump used that word in his SMS messages. For a list of the top 10 words that Donald Trump used most frequently in his SMS messages, see the list below.

Notes: Both presidential candidates sometimes used merge tags, or subscriber segmenting, allowing them to personalize their SMS messages to voters. By using these advanced SMS marketing features, Donald Trump was able to dynamically change the content of his SMS messages based on the SMS recipient. It’s because of Donald Trump’s use of this SMS marketing feature that the following words may not be exactly the same for each recipient, or have the same frequency in his messages.

It’s also worth noting that Donald Trump used MMS marketing pretty heavily during the 2016 presidential election. By using MMS marketing, this allowed Donald Trump to send images and videos to his mobile subscribers. That being said, the following visualization and top 10 most frequently used words list below doesn’t include any of the words that Donald Trump used in either the images or videos he sent. That being said, when Donald Trump used MMS, instead of SMS, he was able to send up to 500 characters, which allowed for many more words than an SMS message, which is limited to 160 characters.

Donald Trump - 2016 Presidential Election SMS Word Cloud

Donald Trump – Top 10 Most Frequently Used Words

  1. trump (51)
  2. we (40)
  3. I (40)
  4. hillary (38)
  5. will (35)
  6. your (34)
  7. contribute (34)
  8. debate (27)
  9. our (26)
  10. here (24)

 

Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton SMS Messaging Word Cloud

Below is a visualization of the top 50 words used by Hillary Clinton in her SMS messages during the 2016 presidential election. These words are taken from the SMS messages she sent voters between March 11, 2016, and Nov. 8, 2016. The larger the word appears below, the more times Hillary Clinton used that word in her SMS messages. For a list of the top 10 words that Hillary Clinton used most frequently in her SMS messages, see the list below.

Notes: Both presidential candidates sometimes used merge tags, or subscriber segmenting, allowing them to personalize their SMS messages to voters. By using these advanced SMS marketing features, Hillary Clinton was able to dynamically change the content of her SMS messages based on the SMS recipient. It’s because of Hillary Clinton’s use of this SMS marketing feature that the following words may not be exactly the same for each recipient, or have the same frequency in her messages.

It’s also worth noting that Hillary Clinton used MMS marketing pretty heavily during the 2016 presidential election. By using MMS marketing, this allowed Hillary Clinton to send images to her mobile subscribers. During the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton, unlike Donald Trump, did not use MMS marketing to send videos to voters. That being said, the following visualization and top 10 most frequently used words list below doesn’t include any of the words that Hillary Clinton used in the images she sent. When Hillary Clinton used MMS instead of SMS, she was able to send up to 500 characters, which allowed for many more words than an SMS message, which is limited to 160 characters.

Hillary Clinton 2016 Presidential Election SMS Word Cloud

Hillary Clinton – Top 10 Most Frequently Used Words

  1. hillary (61 )
  2. chip (55)
  3. your (32)
  4. jess (32)
  5. we (27)
  6. trump (27)
  7. now (27)
  8. reply (23)
  9. our (23)
  10. HFA (21)

 

Key Takeaways

Below are some of the key takeaways that we had at Prosper Group, based on each presidential candidate’s use of specific words in their SMS messages. If you see a key takeaway based on the specific words each candidate used most frequently in their SMS messages that isn’t listed below, please let us know in the comments section.

1. Everyone Spent a Lot of Time Talking About “Hillary”

The word “Hillary” was one of the most frequently used words in both Donald Trump’s and Hillary Clinton’s SMS messages. That being said, Donald Trump used the word “Trump” in his SMS messages nearly as frequently as he used the word “Hillary”, with the word “Donald” also being frequently used. It’s interesting to note that while Hillary Clinton frequently used the word “Hillary” in her SMS messages, she used the word “Trump” much less frequently and she used the word “Donald” hardly at all in her messages.

2. The Campaigns Stayed on Message

During a political campaign, it’s critical that a candidate stay on message, and that includes what they send their mobile subscribers. For Hillary Clinton, that message is represented by using the word “women” in her SMS messages, and for Donald Trump that message is represented by using the words “crook” and “wall” in his SMS messages.

3. There’s a Big Difference in How Candidates Asked for Donations

Text message donations were huge during the 2016 presidential election! While Donald Trump used words like “contribute” or “donate” to encourage voters to make a mobile donation, Hillary Clinton used words like “chip in.” This is a reflection of Hillary Clinton’s more casual overall approach and tone in her SMS messages, compared to Donald Trump’s SMS messages. For example, the word “hey” is another frequently used word in Hillary Clinton’s SMS messages.

4. Clinton Had Jess – Trump Had Trump

Are you wondering why the fourth most frequently used word in Hillary Clinton’s SMS messages was “Jess”? It’s because many of Hillary Clinton’s SMS messages didn’t come from Hillary Clinton, they came from Jess Morales Rocketto, the digital organizing director at Hillary for America. You can watch a Skype interview here with Jess Morales Rocketto (“Jess”), where you can hear about how Hillary Clinton used her to make SMS messages from the campaign feel more personal.

Donald Trump relied less on campaign staff to send messages, and sent many of the SMS messages himself, signing the message with “DJT”, which is the eighth most frequently used word in his SMS messages. At times, the campaign used Donald Trump’s adult children to send the messages, but it was nowhere near the frequency with which the Hillary Clinton campaign used “Jess”.

 

Interested in learning more about how SMS was used during the 2016 presidential election? First make sure you’re subscribed to Tatango’s email newsletter, then check out some of Tatango’s most popular blog posts about the 2016 presidential election and the candidates’ use of SMS marketing below. If you’d like to reach us at Prosper Group, you can contact us here.


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