Thank You….

On November 3, 2010, the day after election day, I received an email from Doug Gansler with “Thank you” in the subject line. Doug Gansler is the Maryland Attorney General. I got excited because I’d never received an email from Doug Gansler or his campaign before. After reading the email I learned that this was because it was the first one that he or his campaign had sent out in 12 years of campaigning for elected public office.

The email does a great job of thanking his supporters and outlining why he is thankful. Gansler won an uncontested general election yet still managed to garner “the most votes of any candidate in Maryland history in a non-Presidential year”. That’s definitely a reason to be thankful. The email goes on to list some the accomplishments during the last four years and in the fifth (second to last) paragraph come a call to action.

I hope you will keep tabs on our progress by visiting www.ganslerformaryland.com, where you can get the latest news on what we have been doing on behalf of Marylanders and even offer your help.

To be fair, the header image is hyperlinked. However, had this not been the first-ever email blast, I don’t know that I would’ve read this email long enough to see to the link in the body. Since this is the first-ever email blast, I’ll try to cut it a little slack. For a first email it makes sense that it drives traffic to a campaign website but the language is very weak. Unless you’re a politechal junkie you’re not going to go to ganslerformaryland.com on your own “to keep tabs” or “get the latest news”. Nevertheless, the link is in there, which made me click on it to check out the website.

I was curious to see what would happen if I went to douggansler.com. Sure enough I was redirected to ganslerformaryland. It still baffles me how candidates who spend so much time and money on name recognition offline seem to ignore the importance of name recognition online, but that’s a subject for another blog post.

Now you’re probably wondering why it took so long for his campaign to start sending email blasts. I don’t have the answer to that but that’s a valid question. You’re probably also wondering if I’ve received any other email from the campaign. It’s been 3 months since election day and 3 months since I received this first-ever email blast and I’ve yet to receive a follow-up email. Having managed campaign email programs, I know how reluctant candidates can (and should) be to send too many emails.

However, I’m pretty sure that it’s time for a 2nd email.