Mark Udall for Colorado

The Challenge: Breaking through the clutter of the end of quarter fundraising season to maximize contributions before the FEC deadline

The Solution: Organized EOQ fundraising campaigns that didn't just ask for contributions before the deadline, but gave specific and tangible appeals for donations that directly related to activities in the race. In addition, one successful drive allowed supporters to provide specific input about how their contributions would be used.

Rep. Mark Udall (D-CO) was locked in a tight race for Colorado's open U.S. Senate seat against Republican Bob Schaffer, an oil & gas company executive. The Udall campaign branded its opponent as "Big Oil Bob," and developed much of its messaging around Bob Schaffer's ties to industry just as energy prices peaked to record levels in mid-2008. An array of right-leaning organizations (including Freedom's Watch and Club for Growth) joined oil & gas industry executives to spend over $13 million on television and radio ads targeting the Udall campaign. This considerable outside spending posed a significant challenge to the Udall campaign, but also provided an opportunity to motivate its base to contribute toward paid media "response" efforts.

Since most federal campaigns conduct major online fundraising drives in advance of FEC reporting deadlines – especially in the early phases of the race when "real" campaign news is often at a minimum – we helped the Udall campaign create two campaigns in the first half of 2008 that were creative and tangible enough to break through the clutter. These campaigns were designed to maximize both the total money raised and the number of donors that would appear on the upcoming report, while also reinforcing core campaign messaging.

For Q1, the "$42,750" campaign (http://www.blackrockonline.com/pollies/udallbigoil.html) asked online supporters to "match" oil & gas contributions to the Schaffer campaign. We featured a side-by-side fundraising graphic that would list Shaffer's "Big Oil Bucks" on one side, with the money raised from supporters on the other. Imagery was chosen to reinforce campaign messaging and provoke an emotional response from supporters, with Shaffer's side represented by a gushing oil derrick and Udall's side represented by a clean-energy windmill. This fundraising graphic was used in several subsequent e-mails, which reinforced the contrast between the two campaigns' energy priorities and allowed supporters to track their progress toward reaching the $42,750 goal. After it's success in Q1, we reprised this campaign at the end of Q2 (more on results below).

Building on the success of the "$42,750" campaign, we followed with a "Be Your Own Media Consultant" (http://www.blackrockonline.com/pollies/udalltv.html) campaign in Q3 that uniquely allowed supporters to shape their donations based on buying ad time during specific TV shows (e.g., Oprah, Today Show, etc). We listed the ad rates for running ads on particular shows, and once the supporter had selected the shows they wanted to fund ads on they were taken to a contribution form with the amount pre-populated. So while we urged supporters to match the Club for Growth's recent media buys in the race, we gave them the choice of where their contribution would be allocated.

The Results: Mark Udall won his election to the Senate thanks in great part to robust online fundraising, which topped $1 million.

Both end-of-quarter e-mail fundraising drives were extremely successful, far exceeding our expectations given the campaign's modest e-mail list size. The "$42,750" campaign ahead of the Q1 reporting deadline raised over $63,000 for the campaign, and proved so successful that we brought it back at the end of Q2 as well. The e-mail campaign even attracted earned media attention by the Senate Guru, a blog frequented by political insiders (http://www.senateguru.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=70).

The "Be Your Own Media Consultant" fundraising effort was the primary driver in generating over $200,000 in online contributions that came in before the Q3 FEC deadline.

In both cases, our online supporters responded favorably to fundraising appeals that didn't just ask for contributions before the deadline, but that gave specific and tangible appeals for donations that directly related to activities in the race and, in the case of the media consultant campaign, allowed supporters to have input on how their contributions would be used.