Close Reading: What You Can Learn From Obama's Emails

You didn’t have to see CNN newsbot Rick Sanchez bumbling through Twitter feeds on Saturday night to know that the Internet is the battleground where much of the war for the US presidency is being waged. And no campaign has used the web more effectively than Barack Obama's.

As the Senator from Illinois evolved from an insurgent to the favorite to win this election, his campaign's grassroots web outreach continually improved. Their YouTube and Social Networking efforts worked so well that his opponents didn't even blush as they appropriated the innovations into a new standard-operating procedure.

Still the most impressive aspects of Barack Obama’s campaign are its careful use of words and its extremely effective “customer communications."

Daily I find emails so good that I can’t bear to label them as spam, though they technically are—depending on your definition of spam.

These emails do nearly everything right and offer a fine model for any operation that wants to establish continual communication with its “base.”

Here are three smart things about Obama’s emails that everyone can and should copy or appropriate:

1. Make the email from someone real.
Cool, an email from Joe Biden. Here’s one from Barrack about Michele. Sweet.

The Obama campaign constantly changes the sender based on the message. This is a swift move that shows that every bit of the email has been thought out. It also instantly builds up interest in the reader.

In the future, I think that campaigns will build up the identities of their web teams. Then we’ll be able to trust that a message is from the person it says it is from. For now, the novelty of being so connected to a campaign is still in effect. And I’m still waiting for Malia and Sasha Obama to ask me to be in their Jonas Brothers Facebook group.

2. Make the email appear short and sweet.
Notice the word “appear.” Appearance is much more important than reality when it comes to emails. The email needs to instantly read as easily digestible. Just the brief sense that my time is being taxed and I’m ready to press the spam button.

How does the Obama team keep their emails so readable? Paragraphing. Their emails are perfectly paragraphed FOR THE WEB.

I’ll use a bit of the email recently sent by “Joe Biden” to make my point:

Jason --

I'd like to thank you for the warm welcome I've received as the newest member of this campaign.

What you and Barack have accomplished over the past 19 months is incredible, and it's an honor to be part of it. I'm looking forward to rolling up my sleeves and getting involved.

I recorded a short video message about how I hope to help in the weeks ahead.

Please take a minute to watch the video and share it with your friends:

The paragraphs are usually one sentence, occasionally two. It’s hard to get much longer than that in an email.

With short, sharp chunks of copy, the message broadcasts urgency and movement. Shrunk and White warn that “firing off many short paragraphs in a row can be distracting…” but their central warning against “formidable blocks of text” is even more crucial on the web.

So keep it short. That way your reader won’t taste a bit of puke the next time they realize an email is from you.

3. Make your email to ME.
Little things like addressing your message to the receiver by name really matter--especially because Mr. Biden references "my" contribution to the campaign in the message. That would ring hollow if it said “Dear Supporter” or “Hello Team ‘08 Member.”

In addition, I should immediately know why I’m getting a email. Visual consistency matters here, and matters even more if you’re doing tricky things like changing the sender’s name.

Once you establish a connection you have the chance to let the reader know why he or she should care and what they could do next.

What could Obama do better?

Obama’s opponents have learned how criticizing the man doesn’t really pay off much. But I do see one thing the Obama team could do better.

They could employ one of my email rules: Make your email matter.

I think Obama could open his emails with a little bit of the old composition trick of raising the stakes immediately. For instance I might have added a quick thought to Joe Biden’s opening paragraph:

I’d like to thank you for the warm welcome I've received as the newest member of this effort to overcome eight failed years of the policies of George W. Bush and John McCain.

It’s a mouthful, but it reminds you why the email you are reading matters so much.

As this campaign hits overdrive, web communication matters more than ever. It’ll be very interesting to watch as these processes mature and the possibilities of e-mail change the way democracy can work.

This post is a part of the Social Media Marketing Best Practices Project.