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News and Analysis from the Aristotle Team

Archive for the ‘Data’ Category

Product News: VoterListsOnline.com

Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009

VoterListsOnline.com is Aristotle’s 24/7 online voter database – simply register (for free!) and you have instant around-the-clock access to purchase and dowload highly customizable voter data. You can select and target through a comprehensive selection of demographics including: political district, political party affiliation, gender, ethnicity, marital status, wealth, educational level and presence of children.

If you’ve visited VoterListsOnline.com before, you’ll notice that we’ve gotten a bit of a facelift this week – but that’s not all. We’ve also made a series of upgrades and additions to our core VoterListsOnline system. We’re pleased to offer you our most comprehensive, innovative voter data product to date.

With the new VoterListsOnline system, you can:

- Easily edit your search as you go – if you’re building a query and need to make a change in one of the steps, you can go back and make the change without having to rebuild your query from step one.
- Generate counts much more quickly.
- Search using geo-spatial selects and hundreds of additional fields.
- Save all query and export templates for easy access next time you login
- Purchase Premium Fields, including:
          Home purchase/mortgage/refinance information
          Presence/ages of children per household
          Magazine subscriptions
          Hunting/fishing licenses
          Charity contributions
- Additional polling options – including Targeted Random Sampling and Normalized Sampling
- Access your “shopping cart” to purchase more than one file at a time.

We hope you like what you see! If you have questions, issues, or feedback we’re here 24/7 at vlosupport@aristotle.com or 800.243.4401. We want to hear from you.

- The Aristotle VLO Team

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Twix and Grassroots? The AI Candy Blogger Explains It All

Monday, May 11th, 2009

I am back from a fabulous vacation visiting family and drinking microbrews on the West Coast. Two weeks of the Pacific Ocean and rainy weather of the Pacific Northwest and I’m refreshed, renewed and ready to get back to work.

One of the things I did while I was away and visiting with my mom was to attend a luncheon held by a small business networking group, of which she is a member. On that particular day, each member was to give a 30 second infomercial about their business, using candy (or any other consumer product) to reinforce the message.

As the unofficial candy  blogger of Aristotle, I got to thinking about how I would sell this business, and what candy I would use to do it. Of course! A Twix bar. Here’s my pitch:

First, you need a base. A Twix bar has a cookie base that provides the back bone and stability for the entire operation. At Aristotle, data is our backbone. You can’t run a campaign without knowing who’s out there and who to talk to. Our complete national voter file is the solid foundation you need to start any kind of campaign.

Then, you transform that base into something useful. Twix adds a thick layer of caramel to turn a boring wafer cookie into a sweet treat – we add software to manipulate your data to achieve your goals. Our 360 database and software is what turns a huge list of names and addresses into a useful tool for winning your campaign.

But without the chocolate coating, the whole candy bar just falls apart – and without the expertise of our consulting team, you’ll be running a messy campaign, too. Our professional services department will help you to use your data and software to the best ends, tying your whole campaign together and getting the best results.

Now, I’m hungry. Good thing there’s a second candy bar in the package!

- Francoise

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Innovate, Re-think, or Perfect

Wednesday, March 18th, 2009

Working at Aristotle requires knowledge and appreciation of all aspects of political involvement. Our client base includes hundreds and hundreds of names from the campaign, PAC, and grassroots markets. When you get a chance to step back and look at the big picture, it is extraordinary.

The campaign market is where Aristotle is able fund and experiment with new political technologies and tactics. Innovation is the result. Campaign management databases, new Web applications, a national voter file, and online fundraising tools are all Aristotle innovations spawned in partnership with our campaign clients.

The grassroots market takes those innovations and re-thinks them, in order to find some larger political potential. The campaign management databases, campaign web sites, and online campaign communications tools targeting voters became stakeholder databases, grassroots web sites, and online advocacy communications tools targeting elected officials. Aristotle created the computerized zip-to-district matching process — the missing link, so to speak — for this to happen.

The demand for perfection, meaning reliability and usability, comes when working the PAC market. Adoption of new things is careful and selective; they have rules and regulations, of course. PACs drive reliability and usability back down the chain, but they are the beneficiaries of campaign and grassroots innovations, imperfect as they may be. The compliance database application shares DNA with its voter-centric and legislator-centric cousins. And, the online solicitation Web site is the union of online fundraising and online advocacy Web applications.

So, what is next? One never knows what Aristotle and its customers will innovate, re-think, or perfect.

It is a great feeling to know that whatever it is…we will be in the middle of it…and, I will get to talk about it with a lot of terrific campaign, grassroots, and PAC professionals both here and abroad.

- Scott

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Political Targeting… and Ike

Monday, March 16th, 2009

We all have a passion- whether it’s your child, a charity, damn good beer- there is something in us all that drives us in life. I began to discover mine at the age of 3. Yes, a little weird but what can I say, I’m ambitious….

My grandmother used to tuck me in at night with grand stories of her life in the early 50’s. She remembers how she bought her first pair of heels- which by the way, I do not remember mine. Grandma worked for the campaign to elect President Eisenhower. And while my other favorite story is somewhat controversial, my Grandma was a hottie in her day and modeled for General Electric’s television show..hosted by Ronnie…Reagan that is. Ronnie was a flirt and brought her flowers and took her to lunch. I could have been his granddaughter!

Since those first few stories, I’ve fallen for the rush of the election night war room, the design of a mail piece and the script of a television ad for campaigns. I love statistics, fundraising and compliance- I am an official political nerd and proud. I have collected pieces of campaign literature over the years and a piece of every campaign I have spent time with- 45+ in 11 years. I have even convinced my husband to name our pets after Presidents. The picture is of our new puppy, Ike.

So where is the post going- well to 2010 of course! It is going to be a huge year for the Senate and House elections. 19 Republican Senate seats and 17 Democrat Senate seats are up. Of the 19 Republican, 5 are retiring- a huge chance for Democrat pick ups, especially in Florida, Ohio and New Hampshire. And it is not to early to be paying attention!

Why am I talking about this to PAC and Grassroots professionals? Because being successful in PAC fundraising or energizing a grassroots network of employees doesn’t mean a thing unless it influences something- and that something in this post is elections. You aren’t writing a $1,000 PAC check just to write one. You don’t activate an action alert on an issue that is somewhat important.

Political Targeting goes hand in hand with your PAC and Grassroots program. While it is wonderful so many organizations are politically correct (read sarcasm) and try to give equally to both parties, you are wasting your PAC contributor’s money and Grassroots Network time. Time and money are the two most important things to any person and you have to make it worthwhile to them.

Pay attention to the races- stay involved. Where can you get the most bang for your buck? Where can your network truly help a candidate who gets your issues elected? You can capitalize on successful campaigns by getting involved early, maximizing your resources in specific races and taking a stand in a race by endorsing one candidate over the other. At the end of a campaign, if your candidate wins, you have earned a political ally and a great marketing piece for your programs. If that candidate loses, the victor gets it and understands that this is politics- call the winner and congratulate them. Ask for a meeting and show them why your company is important in their district. Play fair and you come out a winner at the end of the day.

If you’d like to talk more about Political Targeting, please contact me- I would love to help your organization maximize what resources you have already in place!

- Theresa

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11.3% Match Rate for Volunteers on Twitter?!

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009

Chris Kennedy, research analyst for Rock the Vote and blog mastermind for http://ck37.com had an interesting post about identifying volunteers on Twitter. I hear you – finally, a use for Twitter!
 
From Chris’ post -
 
Following our volunteers on Twitter
“I tested this concept by loading 5,215 volunteer records into gmail. Of those, 590 could be found on Twitter (11.3% match rate) – not too shabby. And because the contacts are stored in gmail, I can always import again, say once a month, and add members who have recently joined. It would be interesting to see people try this for their own members and see what the match rates are for different services and organizations.”
 
If you are going to test your own members, employees, etc be sure to review his final notes - they are a must read!
 
A few notes on the match rate… keep in mind that you may not get as high a match if you’re running a file of employees whose mean age is 46. But it may still be in your favor to run the match since it will help you identify a way to communicate with a segment of your employees that may not be tuned in to traditional methods, i.e. your company newsletter. Again, it’s important to know your audience.
 
- Kristi

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