Ayanna Pressley

Ads
Creative
Development
Email
Texting

She is a bold, activist leader focused on making progressive change.

Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley serves Massachusetts’ 7th Congressional District. She is a bold, activist leader focused on making progressive change and serving her constituents in Congress. From introducing bold legislation to speaking out and holding the occupant of the White House accountable, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley always centers her community and the MA-07 in her approach to legislating.

The Challenge

Our web development work and our fundraising program across email, texting, and advertising represent Congresswoman Pressley’s unique voice in Congress. By collaborating closely with the Pressley team and cultivating a digital program and digital assets that are authentic to the Congresswoman’s activist leadership, we’ve built a successful fundraising program for the campaign.

For our email, ads, and texting programs, we create content that genuinely connects with supporters while optimizing for grassroots donations and engagement.

In looking to expand our fundraising sources, we also launched the campaign’s texting program in the 2022 cycle, utilizing both broadcast and peer-to-peer messages to reach supporters while still staying true to the Congresswoman’s voice and perspective.

The Approach

We run a comprehensive direct donate and acquisition program.

We continually run direct donate ads that test both evergreen content (focused on Ayanna’s profile or re-election) and more timely content (focused on her issue advocacy or high-leverage moments in the news). The goal of our direct donate ads is to run at 100%+ immediate ROI, as well as bring in new highly-engaged donors to our email list.

Designed and developed a new, engaging website.

We worked with the A-Team on a collaborative moodboarding and design process to help the client team hone in on visuals that match their needs. The result was a fantastic design that frames Ayanna as an inspiring national political figure while maintaining the commitments to community and district. The campaign operated at a rapid clip, requiring fast turnaround whilst being mindful of the desire to future-proof the new website. We built a flexible, impactful website that can grow and scale alongside the Congresswoman’s accomplishments.

View Website

We build our list with the most engaged supporters we can find.

In terms of acquisition, we build our list with the most engaged supporters we can find. While how quickly names pay themselves back is a key performance indicator for our acquisition program, we’re also interested in building a large list that can be tapped for organizing or to drive national and in-district conversation around important issues. We always use past performance of the Congresswoman’s digital program to decide how to spend the next dollar of acquisition budget, which ensures that we’re investing in the best possible acquisition sources.

We run an authentic and high engagement email program.

We work closely with Congresswoman Pressley’s campaign to run an authentic and high-engagement email program, from constantly monitoring the news to look for opportunities to take action or raise revenue to meticulously planning the email strategy for the announcement of Congresswoman Pressley’s re-election campaign. Our overall email strategy includes testing different fundraising approaches, including planned goal emails, emails focusing on specific issues and legislation in Congress, and breaking news/rapid response sends.

This strategy — along with increasing the number of email sends overall — has increased both our fundraising metrics and overall key performance indicators.

We personalize content and fundraising asks.

We also managed the process of standing up and implementing a new CRM for the Congresswoman. By changing CRMs, we’ve been able to personalize content on a more granular level, communicating differently with supporters depending on if the person lives in-district, in-state, or if they are a national supporter. We also now have the flexibility to personalizing the fundraising asks we present to people, scaling it to their individual highest previous contribution.

We developed an ROI-positive texting program from scratch.

Though shortcode applications can often take a long time to be approved, we utilized a peer-to-peer message strategy, acquisition, and a 10-digit long code to build our texting list and engage with supporters while navigating the process.

With both our P2P and our broadcast messages, we create content that’s informative and engaging, making use of tweets, graphics, GIFs, and other content featuring the Congresswoman’s voice. We work with the campaign to make sure our texting program stands out from the crowd, and we utilize rapid response moments not just to raise for the Congresswoman’s campaign, but to support and elevate important causes, such as sending our audience a student debt cancellation guide or raising for abortion funds. As a result, our program has resonated with our audience and seen strong results, remaining ROI-positive throughout its first year.

68%

email list growth

We Expanded the A-Team

Our paid acquisition ads and organic list-building tactics have increased the email list by 68%, increasing our fundraising and organizing capacity. We’re using in-depth analyses of the new names we acquired to inform our ongoing list-building strategy.

ROI+

bringing in new donors

We Recruited New Donors — While Running At a Profit

Over the course of our first eight months working with the A-Team, we invested tens of thousands of dollars in direct donate ads, which ran at an overall profit. In addition, these ads also recruited thousands of new donors, who will give to this program again and again.

2x

increase in average revenue raised per email

Our Content is Compelling

By increasing our use of personalization, growing our email list, and taking advantage of rapid response moments, we capitalized on every opportunity to engage our supporters. This strategic shift has succeeded in driving up our average revenue raised per email.

$85K+

raised over text

Launched a successful texting program

Since starting the Congresswoman’s texting program, Middle Seat has raised over $85k for an ROI-positive program. While navigating the shortcode application process, we leaned on a long code, peer-to-peer texting, and a mixed approach for mobile direct donate and acquisition. In our first year managing the texting program, our list has grown to over 3,100 people across the country.

The Impact

Our email, ads, and texting programs have taken Congresswoman Pressley’s digital fundraising to the next level while always centering our content in her authentic voice. By working closely with the campaign, we’ve built a collaborative partnership and our services always capitalize and reflect on the incredible work Congresswoman Pressley is doing in Congress for the MA-07.