Last week, a young lady distributed Kaine fliers in our neighborhood. She spoke with my wife and made what was, I'm told, a good pitch for her candidate.Fine. Most campaigns can do that.
But can they do this?
In today's mail, we received a handwritten postcard from the same young lady thanking us for our time (my wife's actually) and added, "I hope with some hard work we can earn your support."
A canned response, probably. But there is nothing more important in one-to-one marketing than the follow-up. And a handwritten note is a powerful method for making a sale. And you know what else?
It's rare. It's nice. It's even mildly flattering. It's everything a good marketing effort should be even when the targeted area, like the one where I live in Henrico County, will go overwhelmingly for Kilgore.
I congratulate the Kaine campaign on this strategy. It's not cheap and it's certainly time consuming. But it's damned good.
Mr. Leahy is an outspoken Republican, but I respect his candor. It would have been easy to dismiss the lady's efforts as insignificant.
When I was living in Ohio, in the weeks before the 2004 election, the Bush staffers utilized this strategy exceptionally well. I had young, energized Republicans ringing my phone off the hook and filling my recycle bin with Bush/Cheney 2004 materials.