Eric Wilson 0:04

Welcome to the Campaign Trend Podcast where you're joining in on a conversation with the entrepreneurs, operatives, and experts to make professional politics happen. I'm your host, Eric Wilson. This week this episode is a little different. Right after Labor Day, I sat down with Farresto Kansan, president of the peer-to-peer texting platform prompt.io for a webinar. We called it the the pulse check, where we looked at where campaigns and uh technology stand heading into the midterms. Fars has asked some really good questions. The conversation covered a lot of ground. And so with prompt blessing, we're sharing it with you here on today's episode. Why only about 9% of American adults are the ones actually talking about politics, what that means for reaching everyone else. We talk about whether 2024 really was the podcast election or not. We cover whether AI is showing up in this cycle ads, why it should be spiced, not the whole meal. Uh 42% of Republicans in toss-up races who don't have an issues page on their website. We cover a lot of ground. And one quick note, uh, this was recorded on a webinar platform, so it'll sound a little different from our usual setup. But here's my conversation with Farz. I hope you enjoy. The the gist of it is I I think for those of us who are on the call who are thinking about this and working on this, we are abnormal uh in more ways than one. But in specifically, in the the the way that we talk about politics, right? The fact that we even would post about politics on on social media, and that you know, we follow the news kind of obsessively. And so um, you know, this this is probably this is something that we've been tracking at the Center for Campaign Innovation in our own research over the last couple of years, probably really seen in the last, you know, post-2024, where there are people who are still voting but aren't paying attention to the news. And and so I think the Pew Knight Foundation research had had a good way of synthesizing this, and they break uh American adults into four groups mobilizers, connectors, spectators, and outsiders. And so the most important part about this is that those are not four equal groups. Mobilizers make up about nine percent of American adults. These are people who are talking about politics on social media, they're volunteering for campaigns or other organizations, they're donating and they follow the news really aggressively. Well, anyone who knows about sort of participation in equality knows that that nine percent isn't an accident, right? Basically, you see nine percent of a group create most of the content, and then the connectors, these are people who are civically engaged, but they're not as public about their um political beliefs, 28% of adults. And then they're the spectators, the 31% who you know sort of keep an eye on things, but they keep their opinions to themselves. I was I think they probably more like lurkers. And then the the final chunk is the the outsiders, they are the 31%. They uh importantly, uh only 41% of the outsiders say that they follow national news at least somewhat closely. The rest of the groups, 84% and above. But we can't just write these people off because they're not paying attention. 41% of the outsiders said that they voted in 2024. So these are people who are gonna vote. They're registered to vote, they're somewhere on your voter file, but maybe they're that one of four or a two of four that you're cutting off right now, but they decide to show up because the weather's nice on election day, or they just get the right nudge from a friend. And so we can't count them out, but where do we get them? And that's where sort of the the campaign outreach uh really has to do some some extra work. So those you know, the people who are are are mobilized, they they already know who they're voting for, they've probably even helped out on the campaign. Um, we've got to give the connectors a reason to share why they're supporting a candidate, and then the the the spectators are are really just kind of watching the vibes, and then the outsiders are are sort of picking up on the mood and deciding how to vote that way. So it makes our job tough.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

If what if they're paying 41% are paying attention to national news, is it fair to assume that even less are paying attention to the local politics?

Eric Wilson 4:39

And and and think about uh, you know, I I don't, you know, I I'll I'll date myself here, but when I was growing up and Tom Brokaw was doing the news, um, my family would would watch that news because that was sort of the update of the day. And then we would stick around for the local news. Why do we stick around for the local news? Well, because we were gonna get the weather report after about 15 minutes of news, and then the sports update was gonna be uh after that. So they sequenced the news. So you would kind of eat your vegetables first, the local news, and then you get the stuff that you came for. Well, how do you get the weather and sports information now? It's a single app for each thing on your phone, you don't have to wait around for that 6 p.m. news hour. This is kind of a foreign concept to a lot of people, but um, that kind of describes the decline in local news. We don't have to consume it unless we unless we want to. And and so that's hurt its business model, of course. And so there's less of it for for people to just bump into. So they're they if they're they're less plugged in at the national level, they're much, much less plugged in at the local level.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Eric, if I were to go back and listen to our recap of the 2024 cycle, the thing I probably talked about the most ad nauseum was the influencer ecosystem and how the rise of that within the um political messaging environment. And I'm looking at where we are today, I probably feel a little bit slightly less bullish about it than I did after 2024, but I'm curious where you sit with that.

Eric Wilson 6:17

Yeah, it would that was definitely the main takeaway for a lot of people. You know, we heard people call it the the podcast selection, even. And to some extent, I would say that podcasts are a a symptom, not a cause. And so they're a symptom of media fragmentation where you can kind of choose your own adventure and be in whatever uh whatever sort of media consumption configuration you want to be in, even within a household, it's gonna be totally different. Podcasts are just just one way that we we experience that. And it made a lot of sense for a presidential campaign. And sometimes we look at the presidential campaign to say, okay, here's what's gonna filter down to down ballot campaigns at the Senate, congressional, maybe even local level. And that hasn't happened with with podcasts. And here's the reason why. So podcasts themselves are very fragmented. One of the stats that we we found is that about a third of voters, this is from our own post-election polling in 2024, a third of voters listen to podcasts uh at least once a week for news. Okay, great. That puts it on par with CNN Fox News. Problem is there are over 400,000 podcasts on Apple Podcasts, and even the most popular show in in the country, Joe Rogan, is only watched or listened to by about 15% of podcast listeners. So it's a fraction of a fraction. All right, that makes it really hard because we we don't have strict geographic podcasts where you know I'm gonna go on here and I'm only talking to my voters. And so it doesn't scale for those down ballot campaigns. And so I think that's where we've seen kind of that that that we really see the brakes put on this idea of the the um the podcast election. One of the interesting things that has emerged, though, is people still know that those are are powerful, uh influential voices, hence the name, influencers, and now they're paying them. Um, to sort of, you know, we've seen lots of examples in California of someone say, Hey, you know, I support this person, and two weeks ago they said this person is a danger. Well, it turns out they got a payment. And and so we're starting to see a little bit of that creep in. But again, you still come with that that scale and audience targeting uh challenge where you know podcasts are maybe very popular, maybe have millions of listeners, but when you divide that by all 435 congressional districts, it doesn't add up to something that's gonna move the the total for you.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Got it, got it. That makes sense. I'm gonna ask, so I'm gonna swing this one on you a little bit here because I know how you're gonna answer this question in the inverse of what's not breaking through. But I'm kind of curious to hear in terms of anything besides good old-fashioned campaigning, if you are witnessing things that are breaking through at a different with with a different force multiplier, kind of like what we talked about in 2024 around the podcast side of things. Is there anything that's kind of modernizing that or updating that that's catching your attention?

Eric Wilson 9:23

Yeah, I I think, you know, one well we'll talk about AI a lot more in a minute, I suspect, but AI continues to get it's an interesting thing in that it's getting attention on both sides of the equation, whereas we're seeing people put out AI generated ads to get attention, but then taking punches at AI data centers and and AI's role in the economy. Uh that's a pretty obvious answer. Um but I I I think one of the the areas that can continues to emerge is this this idea of uh friend-to-friend contact, the the sort of relational contact that we talk about, but um where where it's turning that idea of the influencer on its head, where we are all sort of locally influential to to certain people. And so that's not as exciting. It's hard, hard work and and doesn't really get done at scale, but that that seems to be a part of of what's going on.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

Yeah, the more we the more data we have, the finer our targeting can be, essentially, is what you're saying.

Eric Wilson 10:36

Right. And we we and but at the same time, you know, everyone's concerned about the economy, right? So there there's there's gotta be a uh I don't know, maybe a background track, if you will, for for everyone, and then the specific notes for specific audiences.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

So, Eric, you just teed me up on the AI thing. You said this in our 2024 post script. If it's not written by a human, it shouldn't be read by a human friend. You've had strong opinions about the AI side of the equation. And so I have some subcategorizations here of topics to get into, but maybe I'll just start with a blanket. Is what would you like to uh tee things up in relation to AI going for this cycle specifically?

Eric Wilson 11:18

Well, I mean, let's let's talk about how that that comment aged. And and I think that I I I still stand by it, and we're we're even seeing examples now with um I'm kind of obsessed right now, admittedly, with this platform called Pangram, P-A-N-G-R-A-M. If people haven't heard of it, you know, if you're on Substack, you saw that they've now integrated with it, and it's going to tell you was this written by AI, written by human or mixed? And so now that people are so tired of quote unquote AI slop, they now want a way to detect it. And there's a question of whether that's uh, you know, did did I contribute ideas to that or did the AI just generate something I don't think is as cut and dry, but I stand by that that that notion that um in in a world of sort of abundant content, the stuff that's gonna stand out is the the personal, the relationship driven. Um, a friend of mine, um Alan Fuller, tweeted something the other day about in in a world of AI, the most impactful thing that you can do is contact three people every day and have a conversation with them. And I think that's very resonant right now, and it speaks to how we can do campaigning because we're seeing a lot of campaigns take the AI and say, Oh, I can, you know, do all these videos, I can do all these posts, I can make more emails, and it's just more, more, more, more, rather than using it to free up the bandwidth to do more of the stuff that AI can't do.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

I think your comment aged phenomenally. Just to be to be frank, I I think you were 100% spot on. One thing that came up in our pre-planning session for this webinar had to do with the use of AI for the opposition messaging, more than anything, more so around maybe the strategy being don't here's why the other guy is bad, not why I'm good and how AI is helping kind of perpetuate that. You want to touch on that a little bit?

Eric Wilson 13:15

Yeah, so this is um AI has certainly uh accelerated this in one regard, but it it's something that we saw quite a bit, I think. In we saw this in some of our post-election research in 2022, where my side, the Republicans, did a really good job of driving up the negatives, the unfavorables of the Democrats and said, look, this person is a wacko or bad or whatever, but didn't finish the sentence and say, here's why you should vote for us, right? So we we didn't see the commensurate um shift and and that part of that, quite frankly, has to do with the way our campaigns are structured, where we have big super PACs and outside entities who are focused solely on like landing hits on the other side. I think NRSCV FEC is going to change a little bit of that now that we're able to coordinate and some of that those dollars are gonna be able to come back into the the party um apparatus. I think that's gonna be good overall. But what what are we seeing as it relates to AI? The the vast majority of ads that we're seeing that use AI are depicting the opponent in a negative light. And I think it's a very effective tool, but it's like spice. We don't want to use too much of it or only one, it has to be part of a uh um sort of a symphony, and and so our our messaging can't be all one note of you know, this guy is bad, and and we seem to right now be pulling for AI as the way to say, oh, this person's bad, you know, and we're gonna show you. I I could be wrong on that, and those those ads could be really effective, but it may just be that they're getting an outsized part of attention. The question is, does does that translate into okay, that guy's bad or that gal is bad, therefore I will vote for this other person? A lot of times we forget that there's a third option of just not voting at all. And and I think that's what what's at risk when we we just pull AI as the negative lever.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

I'm gonna I'm gonna spring one more on you, Eric, so we kind of prepped for. But what you just said there got me thinking a lot about a campaign this cycle that went from zero to wow, there's re there's really something going on here. And I'm thinking of Spencer Pratt and the LA mayoral. And I'm wondering, given your framing of like there's the opposite the opposition side of it versus the here's why you should support me side of it and the proliferation of AI amongst that campaign to kind of spread those messages, what do you think of that campaign? Was that the right kind of use for AI?

Eric Wilson 16:00

Yeah. So uh let's just be intellectually honest here at the beginning, which is that most campaigns are are decided before an even a single vote is cast, right? I think the prospect of a Republican winning the mayoral primary or runoff, whatever that system is they have in California, um, is is very low. So any sort of attention that he got to his campaign, net positive. However, uh, what what were they doing with the AI again, which originally came outside of the campaign wasn't what the campaign was generating themselves. They're portraying the other people as negative, and I'm the the hero. What I really good at getting attention, but did not bridge that gap into okay, here's how we're gonna register people to go vote, make sure people have plans, really changing that behavior in a way that I think we might contrast Zoran Mamdani, who, yes, he got a lot of attention on social media, but half of his feed was look at all these people going out to Canvas and wearing t-shirts and things like that, where that you're sort of building a campaign. And so one of the things I always say in my trainings with candidates is the winner isn't the person with the most views. I mean, I think there's no doubt that Spencer Pratt's videos got more views and more shares and more impressions than all of the field combined. The winner is the person who gets the most votes, and so that that content creation, that attention gathering has to be in service. And I did not see that piece in place on the Spencer Pratt campaign. That's to be understood for a first-time candidate, and I'm sure he learned lots of lessons there.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

Nice, nice, absolutely. Um, you we talked briefly about the discrepancy between what we're seeing in the in in the space around how Democrats have gravitated away from AI versus Republicans more too more towards it, but what's your perception of that?

Eric Wilson 18:01

Yeah, I and and I I s I hear that a lot and we see that in the data. I I I don't know exactly, you know, I think there are a lot of, you know, I never I never think one thing is the cause for anything. I'm just too skeptical for that. And so I think it's a little mix of of of each thing. I don't know how much uh of each one of these it is, but certainly there is the um environmental concern, right? That's an important constituency. And you think about the people, the professionals who work for Democrats, and they have these opinions plus plus plus. So if you're worried about the environment, you might not want to use AI according to just I don't want to get any angry emails here according to critics of AI who to talk about the resource use. Um, then there are the people who worry about, well, you know, labor is a key constituency of ours, and we don't want to, you know, to take jobs away from people. And so you've got these campaigns and and organizations that have unionized even within that that political industry. So I think that's playing part of it. And then um, you know, Republicans are um uh I I think there's also a difference in that Democrats have the advantage of they've got sort of more um what I would say kind of people-powered movements of like if you if you care about one of these issues, whether you know, whether it's women's rights or the environment or labor, that's something you're working on 24-7, 365. Republican coalition is most successful when we unite what Grover Norquist calls the leave us alone coalition. By definition, those are not people who care about politics the rest of the year. And so I think you're seeing a little bit of a difference in that where you know you've got content being created by people on the left who are passionate about an issue. On the right, it's a little harder to muster. And so we look at AI to advance maybe our paid messaging or um, you know, our our institutional messaging.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

You also called out in the 2024 postscript that the implementation of AI is gonna also erode the amount of folks who are kind of coming up through the campaigning pipeline, yeah, learning the trade. And so that's very valid point as well.

Eric Wilson 20:23

Yeah, so we I I don't know if you saw this far, but we did a um a survey recently with you know professionals in the the the Republican side of the equation, and we asked them, you know, sort of, well, what do you think about AI? And uh I was kind of surprised to see that a lot of people said, Hey, I'm really glad AI is here because I was already doing four jobs. Uh, and now I'm down to doing three because AI took one away. So that's that's interesting. Um the the the area where their professionals are most concerned are the research impulsters. They just see kind of the the degradation of uh of the need for some of their skills. But what we're seeing increasing demand for is that field voter contact, you know, really talking to voters. They, you know, the distinction going forward is going to be personal contact.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

That goes to that segues nicely into something else we kind of touched on, which was good old-fashioned campaigning is still very much alive and well. Uh, you also mentioned we talked about this in the context of authenticity and and about having a reason for someone to vote for your candidate. The issues page was uh was the main topic of discussion there. And so I'm wondering if you want to uh elaborate there.

Eric Wilson 21:43

And and I I I so this is something that we monitor, we we spend a lot of time at the Center for Campaign Innovation um monitoring something we call digital readiness, where we look at you know, are you collecting mobile signups? Are you collecting email addresses? How quickly do Your website run? Turns out how quickly your website run correlates really well with primary uh election performance. So kind of preview on some forthcoming research on that. Um, but I actually looked at, you know, we look at who has issues pages, and of the uh 39 races that are in that Senate toss-up or house toss-up or lean that we're tracking, uh 58% of Republicans have an issues page compared to 85% of Democrats having an issues page. So what that means is 42% of Republicans don't have a page on their website that talks about where they stand on the issues. Okay. Well, I also have polling from 2024 where I where we ask voters, what do you look for when you go to a campaign's website? Number one answer, 42% said issues page. And so there's a huge mismatch there. And uh especially in the age of AI, and this is something that we've just started doing some research on. Um, when you look at AI searches for for candidates across the different models, what are they citing? And it it sure seems like if you have a robust issues page, you're getting more citations in the AI to your website than if you don't. And I think it's just a huge missed opportunity. And it's being driven by this conventional wisdom that's cropped up. I don't even think it's wisdom because that that gives it too much credit. But this idea of hey, if we put our ideas down on pixels on a website, then we're gonna have to answer for them. And I I don't know how to contend with that when the data is is is very clear that you need to be talking about your issues on your campaign website.

SPEAKER_00 23:49

Do the do the do the AIs from a search engine, I'm calling it search engine optimization because I actually don't even know what the more modern term is on the AI side of the equation.

Eric Wilson 23:58

I don't think there's a good name for it, by the way. I some people call it AEO and some people call it GEO. I don't think we've landed on the name yet.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

But is your point that the issues page being absent um reduces access for the AIs to actually index who you are and what you believe?

Eric Wilson 24:14

Or no, what it's doing is it's giving control over what the AI says to other people, right? So that it's it's still gonna fill out the query, right? So we're in in some again, limited testing because this stuff gets really expensive, by the way. Um a lot of a lot of tokens. We need more data centers. Um but we um have this uh basically where we're seeing that um, you know, the candidates are all appearing, right? It's not like someone's not there. But if you have an issues page, you are more likely to have more of your own website incorporated in that. So that doesn't mean that they're not gonna say anything about you, but they they maybe have to guess or fill in the blanks or go to people who aren't friendly to you to fill that that gap. And so the choice becomes do we share our side of the story or not? And uh and 42% of campaigns are saying, yeah, we're we're gonna leave it to chance.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

I wonder how safe those districts are.

Eric Wilson 25:15

They're not, they're these are toss-ups and lean.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

I uh you know that's interesting. I I I I don't get it. That's fascinating. Yeah, definitely whoever's listening if this is your candidate, get an issues page going. ASCP.

Eric Wilson 25:30

No time like the present.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

No time like the present. When it comes to the planning stages, obviously in an ideal universe, everything's kind of planned out far in advance, all that good stuff. Are you seeing any unique trends uh as it relates to to that?

Eric Wilson 25:44

Yeah, I I think the the one of the the challenges uh with targeting, we you know, we just are we're having such a hard time of knowing who shows up, right? And it you look at any given election, um you've got a lot of first-time voters, you've got a lot of infrequent voters, and and so on one hand, we use the targeting to sort of say, hey, we're gonna triage, we don't have enough resources to do all this, so we're gonna focus on on these people. Um, and I think some campaigns uh overrely on this to the point of saying, look, we don't want to waste any of our dollars. So for example, you know, you might have clients who say, look, I don't want to text anyone who's not a three of four or above voter, or or is 100% a registered, you know, member of my party. And it's like, well, you're missing out on conversations with people who are gonna show up and vote and may vote for you. Um, and that's something that we see a lot of uh uh in some of our post-election research, is that there's just sort of um a lot of money spent, but to get the people who were already gonna vote. And so I think there's this mentality in campaigns, which is I'm going to fill this bucket up all the way to the top so it's flowing over, then I will fill this next bucket up. And what should be done in sort of targeting an allocation of your budget is hey, we're gonna fill the buckets that we can reasonably fill uh part of the way up and then keep adding to them. Um, so you do need to be talking to the zero of fours, the ones of fours, the two of fours on your your your voter frequency. Um and and they need to be in your plan. I just see so many people say, hey, look, we're really only gonna target these people who we know are guaranteed to go vote. It's like, okay. Um, so is everyone else.

SPEAKER_00 27:49

Is that Eric, is that is that like a reticence to use dry powder or a risk assessment calculation? Like what do you what do you think that is?

Eric Wilson 27:59

I I I think it is a uh well, I I really blame uh I'll lay the blame at my feet because I was around in the early days of digital advertising in politics. We said, look, you know, those TV guys, they have a ton of waste. You know, you you're running in Virginia, you got to buy DC and Maryland, and you might even be hitting, you know, Delaware um with your TV ads. We say, okay, well, we're and we said we we don't have that kind of waste. Well, targeting has evolved and you know, privacy, you know, concerns have have emerged. And so we can't target quite that precisely. Uh, and so we sort of boxed ourselves into a corner in the digital media space of saying, hey, look, you need to have have the data and don't don't go don't go beyond that. We see this in every other uh avenue, texting, right? We only want to text the people who have high cell phone reliability. We know exactly who they are. We don't want to risk sending our message to you know, this idea that we might accidentally get someone to go out and vote against us. Um, and you know, and then even in canvassing, right? There, there's some, you know, a lot of people know that when you open up a walk app to go canvas for a campaign, you're only gonna go to certain houses. And there's I've I saw some research recently that said just doing a random, you know, door knock for a neighborhood actually gets you higher um completes and responses, and and so I I think there was a a pendulum swing towards data, data, data, and we forgot that you know we've got to have a conversation with the the whole electorate.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

Yeah, that also kind of comes back to several talking points earlier around the relational organizing side of things and the one-to-one communication and just being on the ground and doing things that are human and and not to overuse the term, which I've already done authentic way. So I think that's kind of what you're what you're saying there.

Eric Wilson 30:02

Yeah, and authenticity is I it's such a good word, but it it's um the reason I don't like it is because I I can't give you the checklist of how to do it. And and so I think what happens is a lot of candidates um and staff might hear authentic and they think it's being funny or doing a TikTok dance or posting a meme. And and that's not what it is. And we we have asked, I've actually asked voters this in focus groups when they say, you know, I really like so-and-so because he's authentic. And I'm I'm like, follow up, follow up, you know, ask the moderator for a follow-up. And uh what they say is we want someone who will maintain their position on an issue even when everyone else is telling them to change. And I mean, I think we've seen enough examples of that this primary season of you know, people who are told, hey, you're you know, particularly on the left, you know, you're too extreme, you're too extreme. And they end up winning because they energize people and and voters want um, you know, someone who is authentic. Another way we see this come up, you know, we talk about it as consultants and political professionals is authenticity. Voters talk about it as being honest. So we did uh we just released this research today where we texted voters and asked them, you know, what would you? It was a total open end. We said, what would you say to a politician, a political candidate who wants to earn your vote this year? And the third most common answer was be honest. And and that's how voters talk about authenticity.

SPEAKER_00 31:36

Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I I probably I I definitely use overuse the term. It's more so just like being who that candidate actually is and not being swayed by the winds of whatever they're they're reacting to, and hopefully that it resonates with uh with their voters.

Eric Wilson 31:50

But but there's also and you've I'm sure you've heard this, but I I won't pick on anyone, but you'll and it's always from a losing campaign. They're saying, hey, our strategy is just to let Eric be Eric, right? And and it's like, oh, uh oh, things are not going well over there because um what happens if voters don't want Eric? And you know, the that's that's part of it, but um being authentic or or being honest is is in itself not sufficient. It it is is one of the components to to success.

SPEAKER_00 32:24

You could be authentically and honestly repellent to your voters, correct.

Eric Wilson 32:28

That is also I'm not gonna name any names. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:31

Um you uh you mentioned that this is kind of like the time for consultants to think about case studies, yeah. Um or or or like maybe you were thinking about more in terms of like how to frame what they're doing on a day-to-day basis. So maybe you can um talk to that.

Eric Wilson 32:46

Yeah, so you know, we work with a lot of um entrepreneurs and people who are trying to go to market with new new products in the this space, and and you know the importance of this is you know, it's it's getting the credibility to earn that next line item in the next budget, next cycle, or even in the public affairs campaigns that are coming up in you know, after we may or may not change hands of Congress. Um and so it what I think the big challenge for folks is there there are a lot of people out there saying, hey, my thing is the thing that's gonna make you win the election, but having proof or having a case study and say, here is what we did and here's what materially changed is going to be a big differentiator between you and your competitors. And so I really I think a lot of people, um, gosh, it's cliche, but you've got to run through the tape, run through the finish line because you know, you've you've gotten the clients, right? You've gotten the budgets, you're executing on the thing, but your work doesn't stop once you finish trafficking everything. You've got to think about right now, okay, well, what is the new feature that I introduced or the new innovation that I'm bringing to bear? And how can I show that that made an impact in my client's race? So you can then build credibility for that next sale. And so I think a lot of people, especially innovators and entrepreneurs, are just so focused on delivering the value to their current customer that they don't think about, okay, how do I tell this story in a compelling way for my next customer?

SPEAKER_00 34:21

Yeah. Yeah, there's always room for that innovation of not doing what's been done either from a tech standpoint, from an outreach standpoint, comms motor engagement strategy, all that. And there's still plenty of room to grow, obviously.

Eric Wilson 34:37

Yeah. One of the things that I see a lot in my conversations is people will say, Yeah, they skip over the well, how do we know this is good? You've got to at least lay lay that predicate. And one of the unique challenges in the political space is that we've got that double sales challenge, right? So there was a time uh when we had to convince people that peer-to-peer texting was something that they should be doing, or texting at all was something that they should be doing. Well, the the first people selling that had to both say, you gotta text and you should use my company. Now, thankfully, we're we're past that. But the next thing, you're gonna have to convince them that you should do the thing and that you're the one to do it. Uh, and then I would add to a third is here's where you either need to make up the money or take the money away from. Um, and and what bucket does that replace?

SPEAKER_00 35:32

I have this assumption, which is probably misplaced, that the budgets are just gonna keep increasing. And so there's gonna be more allocation of that budget to multiple different innovative tools, but that is just a what somehow TV budgets never shrink.

Eric Wilson 35:44

That I mean, I I think you're right.

SPEAKER_00 35:46

Right, right.

Eric Wilson 35:47

Campaigns just keep getting more and more expensive. Exactly. Well, my thanks to FARS and the team at prompt.io for having me on and letting us share this conversation. I've got links in the description to the research we talked about, including the Center for Campaign Innovations, New Voter Survey, and our digital readiness tracking over at campaigninnovation.org. If this episode made you a little bit smarter, we just asked that you share it with a friend or colleague. You'll look smarter in the process, and more people find out about the show. It's a win-win all around. Please remember to subscribe to the campaign trend podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. And remember to sign up for our newsletter. We send out a best practice newsletter every Tuesday and the rundown that goes out every Friday. Those are totally free. So sign up for them. With that, I'll say thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_00 36:39

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