Automated Phone Calls: A Growing Trend in Political Endorsements

As election time grows nearer and nearer, voters are bombarded with mail, home visits, phone calls and other campaign paraphernalia from different candidates. However, with the increasing advancements in technology, these political campaigns are also catching up as evidenced by political endorsements via the internet and automated phone calls. These cutting edge political endorsement strategies are available in virtually every state although various studies have shown that depending on the state, some residents receive more automated calls than the rest. As they are pre-recorded, messages that are sent out are impersonal and non-interactive.

Changing trends in technology has allowed politicians to get more exposure online and ‘offline.’ For instance, months or years before the election, a particular candidate can launch a website that will introduce him. The candidate can also set up a Twitter or Facebook Fan Page to gain more followers. As the election day draws nearer, these sites can significantly help the candidate be more interactive with their followers through comments, tweets and status updates. Of course, online exposure is not enough because there is still a big percentage of the population that does not "tweet."

Political endorsements done online can be more effective with the introduction of automated phone calls. In this system, pre-recorded messages of the candidate himself are played when the call is received. This can be both personal and impersonal. It can be personal in the sense that the voice of the actual candidate is being played and not the voice actor’s. However, potential voters also feel distant with these automated phone calls because they are mere passive listeners and there is practically no way for them to personally interact with the actual candidate.

Here, creativity comes to play. The candidate’s campaign officer should then devise systems that would make automated phone calls more interactive and appropriate to their target audience. For instance, if the sole purpose of automated phone calls is to inform people of the candidate’s platforms and political ideals, then the entire script of the automated message should be done in such a way that the listeners will not be bored as they listen to the message because when they are, there is more likelihood that they will hand up the phone.

It’s not surprising to note that a significant amount of potential voters are receiving pre-recorded messages although the same consumers have been complaining that automated phone calls are really annoying. Recent polls also state that political endorsements done via automated phone calls are more likely to be entertained by the recipients than when these "robo" calls are utilized in advertising campaigns.

With the cost-effective and efficient time delivery benefits offered by automated phone calls, it is also not surprising to see that more and more candidates are turning to automated phone calls for their political endorsements. It allows them to reach a wider audience, get their message across more effectively and most of all, it is fully customizable to suit the needs of the political campaign.

Jen has been writing about automated phone calls for more than 2 years now.