Winning the Elections: Can Robo Calls Help Achieve It?

Robo calls are short for "robot calls" which is basically pre-recorded messages sent over automated phone call systems to multiple recipients. This particular system have been dubbed as ‘robo calls’ because the voice or message seems to come from a robot. Often, these robo calls are associated with political endorsements and campaigns since both the Republicans and the Democrats recognizes the capacity of these automated systems to deliver the message more effectively. Of course, automated messages are also used to render public service especially during emergencies when immediate information dissemination is required.

The Federal Communications Commission or FCC is a government arm that regulates the use of robo calls. In its implementing rules and regulations, these robo calls are restricted and managed to avoid annoying and bothering individual consumers. However, as far as political endorsements are concerned, these pre-recorded political ads are exempted from the FCC rules. For instance, telemarketers are prohibited from calling individual consumers on their cell phones but political campaigns can do so as they are not covered by the rule. Again, this exception provides robo calls with an additional advantage because mobile phones are now considered to be a necessity. Of course, certain regulations vary from one state to another thus the thin line that separates robo telemarketers and robo politicians get thinner or wider, as the case may be.

right edge is provided by automated dialers when it comes to political marketing. With increasing advancements in technology, more and more candidates are utilizing robo calls for their political campaigns. As a matter of fact, automated calls have become a very imperative part of any political campaign because of two major reasons or twin advantages: it allows the candidate to each a wider range of audience at a very affordable price.

If you try to compare political telemarketing with more traditional methods of communicating with the voting populace through mailing flyers and sending out mail, the latter is more expensive as it uses more resources—papers, ink and stamps. On the other hand, with robo calls, all you need is a subscription with an automated phone service provider and voila! Your own personalized automated phone system is easily within your reach. On the average a call that lasts for a maximum of four minutes is priced at $0.50 and in any given hour, the company can send out hundreds of these automated voice calls. Pretty cheap and efficient, right?

The last advantage of automated calls is that it keeps a record of every call that it successfully placed and not. When you give out flyers, you can’t be really sure if the recipient will read it or not. Often, people would stash them away in the hidden corners of their bag and forgotten. On the other hand, after a series of hundreds of calls, your robo attendant will immediately email a report of the calls that were successfully made against those that are not. Using this report, you can easily track your political campaign progress and channel to where it needs to be to get that one vote that can make you win.

Jen has been writing about robo call for more than 2 years now.