Patty Murray’s Reelection Campaign

November 9, 2010
1 Comment

Introduction

Patty Murray's Signage

Our Knovolo office happens to be across the street from the main campaign location of Washington State’s incumbent Senator Patty Murray.

One day the way back from lunch, we noticed that her office was promoting a short code, and we checked it out.

The Basics

Organization	People for Patty Murray
Call to Action	Text PATTY to 68398 for mobile campaign updates! This was promoted on her Facebook and Twitter profiles, but strangely, nowhere to be found on her main website.
Date	2010 Miterm Elections
Description	This campaign used a short code to engage supports with text messaging
Mobile Services Provider	Tatango
Location(s)	Washington State
Mobile Technologies Used	SMS, Short Code

Mobile Technology Rating

SMS
	The 2 or 3 updates we received per month were relevant and timely. Most of the messages we received had a link in them, which in principle is a good idea because that enhances the mobile user experience from plain text to a webpage where you can have colors, pictures, and other goodies.(However, none of the pages were mobile-friendly. ALL LINKS IN SMS MESSAGES should point to MOBILE PAGES. More on this below)
Short Code
	The use of the short code 68398 was very good. We text and we get the right message back. It was used well. We would have awarded 5 stars if they’d purchased a custom short code that was relevant to Patty Murray. Short codes in the US are 5 or 6 digits long: PATTY (72889) and MURRAY (687729) would both make great custom short codes, though this is much more expensive.
Mobile Web
	There was no mobile web component to this campaign at all. Despite including several links in SMS message, not one pointed to a web page that worked well on a mobile phone. Since people read text messages on their phones, links to desktop sites that aren’t adapted for mobile should never be placed in text messages. This is a common mistake for companies dabbling in mobile for the first time.
Mobile Contributions
	This was also non-existant. The extent of the mobile engagement in this campaign was very limited. Supporters who texted in should be able to do more than read text messages and receive desktop website links. They should be able to contribute and sign up to volunteer from their phone, as well as browse campaign platforms and news.
Mobile Volunteer Recruiment
	Political campaigns can always use more volunteers, but there was no way to find out what was needed or how to sign up for open shifts from the mobile standpoint. Occasional text bids for volunteers all pointed to the desktop site or a phone number. This is a good example of partly understanding mobile.

Final Rating: 2.5 stars (ok, we’ll round up)

The short code and texting program is certainly a step in the right direction, and props to the Patty Murray campaign for thinking about mobile: this was something her opponent, Dino Rossi, didn’t have. However, Murray fell short in both tailoring to mobile phone web browsers and adequately engaging constituents on the mobile arena.

Posted in Mobile Marketing Review, Political
Tags: Mobile Marketing, Politics, Reviews, Short Code, SMS, Text Messaging