It’s no surprise that with a recent poll finding that one in five voters (19%) said the best way to reach them was with a text message, that presidential candidates for the 2016 election are using text messaging. Not to be left behind, Bernie Sanders is using text messaging to communicate to his supporters. Just how fast is Bernie Sanders’ SMS campaign growing? According to his digital organizing director, Claire Sandberg, within hours of their live streamed houseparty event, which drew more than 100,000 supporters nationwide, Bernie Sanders had received nearly 50,000 mobile phone numbers from supporters texting “WORK” to 82623. That’s almost a 50% opt-in rate!
Based on his SMS marketing success with the live streaming houseparty event, Bernie Sanders’ SMS short code 82623 has made appearances at almost all of his events. The image below is a scoreboard display at a Bernie Sanders rally in Portland Oregon, encouraged attendees to text “BERNIE” to 82623. The image at the top of this post is also from the Portland Rally.
Bernie Sander’s SMS short code 82623 is also showing up online. Below is an ad to join the political revolution by texting “BERNIE” to 82623 to sign up for important mobile alerts from the campaign.
And of course Bernie Sanders is using Twitter to promote his SMS campaign, as you can see in the tweet below, using the hashtag #TeamBernie
So what happens when you text BERNIE to 82623? I thought you’d never ask. Check out the screenshot below of the opt-in process for Bernie Sander’s SMS campaign. It’s interesting to note that Bernie Sanders is collecting his supporters’ zip codes after opting into the SMS campaign. Why is this important for a political campaign? Besides national events like debates, the majority of presidential campaigning is done state by state, and city by city. By collecting subscribers’ zip codes during the opt-in process, Bernie’s campaign team will be able to mobilize supporters based on their location. For example, more than 27,000 Bernie Sanders’ supporters turned out last week in Los Angeles for a campaign appearance, after supporters in the area received a text message promoting the event.
What surprised us most was Bernie Sanders’ use of MMS, which we’ve never seen a presidential candidate up till now use. MMS allows the Bernie Sanders’ campaign to send both static images, videos, and our favorite, animated GIFs. The below MMS was sent by the Bernie Sanders’ campaign to promote his appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres show on NBC. How cool is that?
