The power of email

At the last general election the most influential online communication channel was email. Private email lists at both a national and constituency level allowed parties and their candidates to reach, motivate and mobilise their activists to work offline, be it canvassing, telecanvassing, stuffing envelopes or whatever.

Although much interest has been shown in recent years in the political application of Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, microblogs and social networking sites, I suspect that they will be an online side-issue. They are the latest fads, but are unlikely to be a persuasive tool. Rather, once again I suspect it will be email. As part of a long-term relationship marketing approach email can persuade voters to change their opinion of MPs, and possibly therefore influence their voting behaviour.

Within an hour of today's formal announcement one MP emailed about the relevance of the campaign to their constituency, and one party leader had emailed me too. Given the the lack of trust about politicians perhaps the most interesting email I received was from another MP, who regularly consultants with constituents via email. They noted that they would not be using their email list during the campaign. Because they wish to attract voters of all parties and none to sign up, this MP did not want the list to be seen to be a partisan tool. My suspecion is that by using it as a regular two-way interactive tool as an MP probably increases their vote anyway, and to use it as a campaigning as opposed to representative tool would probably undo all the good it has done.