Long Valley Independent Rich Reilly Shows How To Use Internet Marketing

Here in beautiful Long Valley NJ we are in the midst of a pretty hotly contested race for 2 seats on the Township Committee.  One of those seats looks like it is going right back to current Mayor Kevin Walsh but the other seat looks like a battle.  There are 2 Democrats running, but well in Morris County that's a bit of a challenge (that was nicely said, right?).  Howard Popper is the other Republican running and this spurred another Republican (that's what I was told) to run as an Independent and his name is Rich Reilly.

Now not going into who I'm going to vote for (secret ballot kind of thing), Howard Popper made what looks like a huge error in dropping a negative direct mail piece Personally being involved in politics I know and understand what it means to go negative, but in this town that's a  risk because people here don't like to see their dirty laundry, right or wrong.  The other mistake Popper made was sending a direct mail piece which of course yours truly didn't read.

So how does Rich Reilly respond?  Simple with an email blast that goes point by point to show how Howard Popper was stretching the truth and running a negative campaign.  This is BRILLIANT.  The email which may be the last word on the direct mail piece can live forever and get circulated among friends while the direct mail piece that Popper sent out is most likely ending up in the trash heap.  I friggin LOVE THE RESPONSE and it also came very quick.

Continuing the response on the internet is really the way to go where people can have an ongoing conversation.  Reilly's website could have used a little help because this Firefox user couldn't read the mouse print.  One more trick he could use is post the email response on his website and for the next 5 days run some Google and Yahoo ads geo-targeted to Long Valley to drive people to the response.  Nicely done, Rich.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Comments

[Carol]

This is a great post,it certainly makes good point with step by step instruction. Really i appreciate this.

[Mike]

Eric,

The negative campaigning has really gone way too far. At this point, can you really blame Popper, though. This is his third attempt with running for Township Committee. Apparently, desperate times call for desperate measures. I loved Reilly's quick response as well.

Great blog!

Mike

[PardonMyFrench]

The quick response via email was awesome and yes going negative has its place in politics; this town though really doesn't like it though!

Eric

[J, Smith]

Only Reilly and Nedd have time to be on the internet all day. After all Reilly doesn't have a job. If you sceam out a window more people will hear you than see reilly's email. You internet guys think the whole world is on the net all day like you get real, most people have to work and take care of thier families!

If Reilly is so sure that a negative campaign is so wrong, then why isn't he denouncing the Walsh Reilly signs? Because he wanys to win at all costs.Despite all the rhetoric he has to lach on to kevin walsh's popularity in order to secure his fortunes.

But notice the first editorial in the OT this week was about Reilly's buddy Craig Ryno saying that his letter the week before was a total fabrication! Reilly is a weak candidate and his idea of governing equals nothing but spending. That Cola Crap is all kevin nedd.

Mr.Ort was right he probably wrote his email in his underwear!

[PardonMyFrench]

Hey I do some of my best work in my underwear.

Facts of life are that direct mail is a terrible medium for the vast majority of Americans; there is a certain demographic that responds to it but a blind mail dump is a terrible use of funds. The email response is much better because you can react quicker and it lives forever while the final resting spot for a direct mail piece is your garbage can. When was the last time you gave a direct mail piece to a friend? Guaranteed that email has been forwarded on to other people.

An email response to a direct mail is a brilliant strategy especially this late in the game. It works and it is life in a high speed connected world.

Thanks for the comment. See you around town.

Eric

[J, Smith]

YA Eric, all the Popper supporters agree with you because you said so!

Who gets the emails,the faithful? Once again everybody who gets involved in politics thinks they are Dick Morris and when you speak the whole town is listening?

[PardonMyFrench]

Wow J. Smith not sure what got you so fired up on my posts or comments. How would you like someone to respond to a direct mail piece with 2 days to go? Email was the best solution. It cuts across all demographic profiles and is by no means some new high tech medium. Everyone uses it and it is just not the faithful whoever you are referencing. I'd be more than happy to refer you to studies that you can look at online that proves these points.

Happy to talk with you live. I don't hide in the internet or real world and be happy to chat, And if we spoke during the week you'd see that I don't spend all day in my underwear :-) See you around town.

Eric

[J, Smith]

I don't get a guy like you! Is there directory of email adresses for all the people of Long Valley? No.The only emails Reilly has are the people that support him.These are the faithful. Once again I'll help you through
this, not every one uses email. Is it hear now and used heavily in business. Yes, but not at home the way the telephone is. Therefore this post about reilly answering Poppers negative email is totally ineffective. Please don't take anything i say personal I am just debating you on the effectiveness of this post, I dissagree, but then again it is only my opinion!

[PardonMyFrench]

Nope - not upset, but at least I have an idea why you might be so fired up at my original post.

I have no idea how friends of Reilly got my email address. Now, I'm not complaining because you too can send me an email since I'm fairly easy to find online (as you can tell :-) I don't know how they compiled the emails, but to assume because you get an email from them that you are of the "faithful" is probably a decent size leap of faith. And J. Smith, you can buy a list of emails in Long Valley. They are commercially available and if you got permission you can buy them from national committees. Trust me, for 15 cents a record you can send out emails. Again, I have no idea who is on the list or how they got my email other than someone giving it to them or they looked me up online.

I do see why you got fired up. If you assume that the emails were sent to friends, you could draw the conclusion that I'm a friend. Then when I make a post that's linked to a town message board, you start the debate. That's a reasonable conclusion, but I never signed up for the email.

Please take my post as it was written. I provide online marketing and strategies for national and state level Republicans and when I saw a response on email at such a local level, I thought it was a great tactic. Anything more than that is a guess and if people linked to it, well that's ok because that's what happens when I make posts.

I did enjoy debating with you and not upset at all, though being anonymous does put me on guard. If you want to drop me an email just to say hi or come up to me in town please do. I didn't take anything you said personally. Take care. See you around.

Eric

[Joe]

Eric,

Did you see the 2nd email Reilly sent out shooting down Popper's claims in yet another misleading mailer that arrived in yesterday's (Sat) mail? I have to be honest. I was impressed with the lightning speed response too of Reilly's team.

[PardonMyFrench]

Yes it was very impressive that the second email was out so quickly. Again a brilliant response to a direct mail piece.

Eric

[J, Smith]

Some one on the message board said they deleted all of your emails as spam which means that they weren't even read or passed on like you said.

What is the percentage of people that respond to snail mail or email?

I think it is very small, I run a small buisnees and I use various forms of direct marketing and I will tell you the return response is small in comparison to the amount of inquirys I send out

This isn't about marketing its about politicking! I say that more than 95% of your email blasts are sitting int the deleted file.

I recieved none of them, and i heard that you sent out a picture of reilly with a circle with a slash through it. If this is true how effective was that.

[PardonMyFrench]

Umm I didn't send out any of those emails and had nothing to do with them. If you are equating me with the Reilly campaign as I wrote above, that's a mistake.

Politics and marketing have intersected. Direct mail, email, tv ads, road signs, etc are about marketing a candidate. Why do you think the major state parties are moving up/have moved up their Presidential Primary dates? Don't tell me you actually believe it is for a state to have a say in the election. You are way too cynical to believe that.

No candidate today at any level ignores marketings. Give this article a read found in this week's Newsweek (yes I'm quoted in there) http://www.newsweek.com/id/67920/page/1

Now, I'm more than happy to sit down with you over beer, coffee, etc any day to discuss email versus direct mail and other internet marketing techniques you'd like to learn about. It is difficult to carry on this conversion from comment to comment.

Eric

[J, Smith]

I think that there is huge difference between politics and retail sales.
The housewife will buy the perfume and throw away the skunk!

The link to this blog site brags how effective this email blast is in getting out the vote. We will know in a little while. Hang in there Eric.

[J, Smith]

Reilly loses with the email blast, Although you may have had lists those lists turned to spam for most computer users. What was failed to be mentioned here was the demograghics of the people you were emailing.

[Back To The Kitchen]

So, how is the self congratulation orgy going now that Reilly got smeared?

Still think that scanning your opponents negative ads and emailing them to people who might have missed them is a brainstorm?

[PardonMyFrench]

As is the case for most political campaigns, direct mail or email did not cause a candidate to win or lose. Take a look at the numbers again from the vote. Do you really think email or direct mail caused the numbers to come out the way they did? Of course not. It was messaging and the fact that two Democrats were taking votes too. How many Democrat votes would have gone Reilly's way?

As I've written over and over again, the tactic of using email to respond to direct mail was the only solution that they had to respond. It probably cost them next to nothing to respond via email. So yes in the future that's the way to go.

Direct mail responses are going way down while the costs to send are going up. As I offered J.Smith, I'd be more than happy to sit down and explain political marketing and online marketing over a beer or coffee. Instead of just leaving anonymous comments why don't you take me up on my offer?

Eric

[TruGuRu]

Um.....I guess we can't say idiot anymore, but the advice on this blog is hysterical. Popper owned the debate for this entire campaign. First Reilly school ethics role, then his spender history.

All Reilly did with the email blast is spend the last bit of attention bandwidth among the voters debating the minuteae of why he is a big spender.

Three page downs down after they scan in the Popper mailers, there is the brilliant come back! He said bills are coming November 17 !! It's only assessments! LIES!

Reilly's lametrust spent the last week fighting Popper's battle. So of course Popper won.

[TruGuRu]

Um.....I guess we can't say idiot anymore, but the advice on this blog is hysterical. Popper owned the debate for this entire campaign. First Reilly school ethics role, then his spender history.

All Reilly did with the email blast is spend the last bit of attention bandwidth among the voters debating the minuteae of why he is a big spender.

Three page downs down after they scan in the Popper mailers, there is the brilliant come back! He said bills are coming November 17 !! It's only assessments! LIES!

Reilly's lametrust spent the last week fighting Popper's battle. So of course Popper won.

BTW, this was all psychogically planned by the Popper side due to the knoledge that Kevin Nedd can't let a single thing go. They probably dropped little quibble points in so Nedd would amplify the topic with turnaround.

[PardonMyFrench]

The advice on this post was using email to respond to direct mail. Not necessarily what was in the email or the plans behind it. Ignoring email, online advertising, and other digital tactics is a mistake. Politicians have made mistakes with messaging for years.

Eric

[TruGuRu]

Okay, I can live with that. The media is good, the message was disastrous.

But, come on, email isn't some Incredible Breakthrough concept.

Plus, there is already a lot of heat coming on because people were ticked about accounts they strictly had for school stuff, football, lacrosse, etc were suddenly spammed with Reilly political stuff. And, it should be pointed out, Reilly's campaign manager is the husband of the BOE president Michelle Skurchak, who is also an officer in the football club, surely in possession of a lot of these confidential lists fro PTA, school crises, etc.

People have been complaining about this list abuse on the Long Valley Community Forum at www.thebuzzer.com and other places...

[J, Smith]

Eric, I think that there has been enough said Good Luck!

[TruGuRu]

My favorite was the email from Walt Cullen where he scanned and circulated his yellow piece of anonymous bile and claimed it had just landed in his mailbox!

[PardonMyFrench]

Tru,

Those are all valid points and things I wasn't aware of when it comes to using the email list. Thanks for pointing them out. I look forward to seeing you around town.

Eric

[Truth]

J Smith and TruGuru enough of your lies. The emails WERE brilliant and the message was right on target. And jones, quit implying that cesspool website you run representative of Long Valley.