If you’ve been following the 2016 presidential election, you’ll have realized by now that text message marketing is playing a huge role in each candidate’s mobile marketing strategy, especially given that 19% of voters prefer being communicated to via text message. So much so that Bernie Sanders even created his own text messaging app. Not only are political candidates using text messaging to reach and engage voters on their mobile phones, they’re also using text messaging to solicit and collect mobile donations. This includes Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton.
To opt-in to receive text messages from Hillary Clinton, you have two options. The first option is to opt-in from the Hillary Clinton website. A screenshot of the website is below.
The second option is to text message “HFA” to 47246. In text message marketing lingo, “HFA” (Hillary for America) is the campaign’s SMS keyword, and the phone number 47246 is the campaign’s dedicated SMS short code. A dedicated SMS short code is a 5-6 digit phone number that is used exclusively by a brand, or in this case, used exclusively by a political candidate. Below are some of the dedicated SMS short codes that have been used during the 2016 presidential race.
- Ted Cruz SMS Short Code – 55022
- Hillary Clinton SMS Short Code – 47246
- Donald Trump SMS Short Code – 88022
When someone texts “HFA” to 47246, they’re opted-in to receive text messages from Hillary Clinton. As you can see in the text message below, the response text message from the short code 47246 asks news subscribers to reply with their email address and zip code to stay involved.
As you can see in the text message below, you can either respond to the text message with your zip code, your email address, or both. After responding with your zip code, email address, or both pieces of information, you’re asked for your name.
After responding to Hillary Clinton’s short code 47246 with your name, you’re asked to chip in $1 to “say you’re with Hillary”. To chip in, they provide a mobile website link, as you can see in the text message below.
When you click on the link in the text message from Hillary Clinton, you’re taken to the following mobile donation page. Hillary Clinton is using a credit card based donation platform, where her Democratic rival, Bernie Sanders is using a mobile phone bill based donation platform. This means that Bernie Sanders supporters can make a donation directly to their mobile phone bill, without having to type in their credit card information, which is obviously much less cumbersome for donors. It’s for this reason that Hillary Clinton asks text message subscribers to only chip in $1 at the beginning. This is because it’s more important for the Hillary Clinton campaign to acquire their subscriber’s credit card information for future donations, then what the actual initial donation amount is.
Once the Clinton campaign has acquired a supporter’s credit card information, future solicitations for mobile donations are much easier, as that supporter’s billing information will have been saved by the campaign. This means that for future donations made by a supporter on their mobile phone, the campaign will not require them to re-enter their credit card information, making the process much less cumbersome than the first mobile donation they made.
For FEC requirements on collecting political mobile donations, click here.
Interested in making a mobile donation to Hillary Clinton, but don’t want to opt-in to receive text messages from her? Text “DONATE” to 47246 on your mobile phone.
So what kind of text messages can you expect from Hillary Clinton if you opt-in to her text messaging campaign? Her campaign actually sends out a variety of messages on different topics, using both SMS and MMS messages. When Hillary Clinton reached the number of delegates to win the Democratic nomination for president, she sent out the following MMS message to all her mobile subscribers. As you can see in the MMS message below, she is also asking for supporters to donate to her campaign by clicking on the link in the message.
What’s interesting to note in the MMS message below is that it’s customized based on each subscriber’s first name, which was collected during the opt-in process. Pretty cool use of a subscriber’s first name to make a message more personal, right!? FYI – The first name used during the opt-in process was “Derek”.
When you click on the MMS image sent by Hillary Clinton, it expands the image on the subscriber’s mobile phone. You can see this expanded image in the mobile screenshot below.
Like other 2016 presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton is also using text messaging to promote her branded merchandise, such as her limited-edition magnet. You can see this in the text message sent from her short code 47246 below.
When endorsed by current president, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton sent the following MMS message to mobile subscribers. In the message, Hillary Clinton encouraged mobile subscribers to click the link in the message to watch the president’s full endorsement on their mobile phones.
After clicking the link, Hillary Clinton supporters were taken to the following mobile enabled website, with the full video of Barack Obama’s presidential endorsement. On the mobile enabled website, they also encouraged supporters to join their team by entering their email address and zip code in the mobile form.
Hillary Clinton is also using to text message marketing to engage voters, with her use of MMS autoresponders for her “throwback campaign”. As you can see in the Instagram photo below, the caption reads: In honor of #ThrowbackThursday, text “THROWBACK” to 47246 for an exclusive, never-before-shared #TBT photo of Hillary and Bill.
When someone text messages the word “THROWBACK” to the short code 47246, they’ll receive an MMS message with an image from Hillary Clinton’s past, in addition to a description of the throwback photo. You can see an example of one of these Hillary Clinton throwback MMS message below, with her and Bill Clinton from their wedding in 1975.
When you click on the MMS image from Hillary Clinton, you get a larger version of the MMS image. You can see this larger MMS image of the Clinton’s below.
Have questions about how Hillary Clinton is using text message marketing to reach voters and collect mobile donations, or interested in running your own political text message marketing campaign? Contact Tatango to learn more, or discuss your political text messaging options.
