Any email marketer will tell you how effective the email channel can be and you’d think that the three main UK political parties would be using the channel to entice voters ahead of this week’s general election in a big way. From my experience, however this doesn’t seem to be the case.
Being in the email marketing industry I was curious to find out how easy the sign up process would be and what messages I’d receive from each party once signed up.
So how did the UK parties score on collecting email addresses and supporter information at sign up?
Labour – On Labour’s official site they have a clear option to ‘Sign up for campaign news’. On my laptop this is slightly below the fold so this could be moved up to make sure it’s seen by all. You simply fill in your email and then are taken you through to a landing page where they cleverly capture more data – first name, last name and postcode. A short privacy statement is given so I know what will happen to my address. All in all they seem to have got the sign up process sewn up but they should include an option to capture an email address on every page – it’s missing on their ‘Our policies’ page.
Liberal Democrats – The Lib Dems have included a ‘Sign up for Email News’ option on every page of their website. On some pages however it’s above the fold and others it’s shown below the fold. Perhaps they tested different locations to find a place that worked best on each page to attract the most sign ups? It can sometimes differ page to page so you should always test this. At sign up they also capture more data but not too much to put you off. The thank you page which is displayed after is well designed and encourages users to go back to the site.
Conservatives – On the Conservative’s website you are given the option to ‘Sign up for David’s weekly email’. Using his name provides more of a personal touch and by stating the email frequency helps to control expectations . Subscribers need to know if you will send daily, weekly or quarterly. In addition to collecting – email, first name, last name and postcode they also asked for a mobile number. The Lib Dems did this too but the Conservatives win on this occasion by telling the subscriber what their mobile number will be used for with an incentive that the texts will be free – ‘We will send you free text alerts if you provide your number’.
Ok, so that’s the sign up process but how good are their email marketing messages?
Well, I only received an immediate welcome email from the Labour Party thanking me for signing up. Seven days later… i finally got a welcome email from the Lib Dems – too little too late in my opinion but at least they sent me something, unlike the Conservatives who promised me a ‘weekly email’. Nothing so far..
You’d think after the success Barack Obama had using digital methods as a means of engaging with voters that the UK’s parties would have learnt a lesson. All the parties do seem to have embraced social media each having their own Twitter and Facebook sites however collecting supporter information and communicating directly via email doesn’t seem to rank that highly in my experience anyway! But will the email marketing results be reflected in Thursday’s poll? Let’s just wait and see…
Super-Duper site! I am loving it!! Will come back again – taking you feeds also, Thanks.