Thursday, February 12, 2015

Political Fundraising Turns To Mobile

In 2008, 5.3 billion dollars were spent on federal elections. Barack Obama spent 730M and John McCain spent 333M.  The average winner of a house seat spent 1.4M on his or her campaign.

As political battles become more expensive, political fundraising becomes more important.  It is nearly impossible to win a race without outspending your opponent.  Outspending your opponent means raising more money.  Political fundraising has always been a numbers game.  The campaigns use events, direct mail, email blasts and phone banks to raise capital.

Texting Base, a software company out of Orlando, FL is looking to change the game of political and non-profit fundraising.

“At any given moment, 91% of people in the United States have a cellular phone within arms reach,” said CEO Eric Beans.  “98% of text messages are read compared to 22% of emails.  We have created a way to take the incredibly powerful tool of texting and make it more powerful through personalization.  The word “personalization” is being used a lot these days, but in this case it means group messages can be customized using any number of data fields determined by our customers.  The texts can be personalized well beyond first name and/or last name.  This is big news for the fundraising groups and political campaigns who live and die on election results.”

Texting Base is a cloud-based software that adds efficiency to business texting communications.  Texting Base allows you to write and schedule your text communications for weeks, months or years in advance to all your contacts in seconds and have each message be meaningful. 

Eric Beans continued “when you compare Texting Base to the expenses associated with direct mail or staffing and managing a telemarketing group, it’s a significant gain in efficiency and results at a fraction of the cost.”

Combining the efficiency of a “mass text” and the power of a personal text message is the key differentiator.  No matter how many people are in the group you create, each one will receive a personalized message. 

Finally, those who are looking for a way to use texting as a means to raise money have a viable solution to help.

For more information, please visit http://www.textingbase.com/niches/politics

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Why Your Patrol Car Needs The Karsof™ Mobile Enforcement Identification Unit




The Karsof™ Mobile Enforcement Identification Unit is a user-friendly digital investigation platform that rides along with you -- to a crime scene, on your beat, to an investigation; anywhere. Its accessibility reduces effort, making it a much needed addition for the investigator, officer or detective. The Karsof™ Mobile Enforcement Identification works seamlessly within and alongside traditional forensics, ensuring double coverage and the best of both digital and traditional investigations.

Karsof™ Mobile Enforcement Complements Other Systems

The Karsof™ Mobile Enforcement Identification is highly adaptable. It's tailored to your routine and, if you’re in law enforcement, even your beat. The Karsof™ Mobile Enforcement Identification works in conjunction with our other forensic technologies and with traditional forensic methods, like dusting for prints. A dusted print can still be scanned by a
Karsof™ Fingerprint Scanner and identified. The entire Karsof™ Forensics System can even work with incomplete fingerprints, and this can be implemented along with the Karsof™ Mobile Enforcement Identification.

As an investigator, a detective or even a traffic patrol officer, this technology streamlines your experience, so you can verify persons of interest from the front seat of your vehicle, without wasting time. There’s no driving back and forth to the station; there’s no false identifications.

History Meets The Future With Karsof™ Systems

Forensic sciences of the past have served us well. The fingerprinting of suspected criminals was introduced in 1906 by NYPD. While it is not the exact science we once thought it was, fingerprint evidence is still a staple in helping law enforcement identify criminals and their crime scenes. With the Karsof™ Mobile Enforcement Identification Unit, you can get a near 100% match every time. The two methods can definitely compliment each other!

Because all fingerprints taken from suspects are entered into the FBI’s database (Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System or IAFIS), the comparison has near flawless results. This is what the Karsof™ Mobile Enforcement Identification can do for your precinct, security company, or campus police force.  It gives you the certainty of knowing you’ve apprehended the right suspect and helps secure the evidence you need for a clear case.

Karsof Systems LLC

California Office
:
3415 S Sepulveda Blvd
Suite 1100
Los Angeles, CA 90034-7090

Texas Operational Headquarters:
101 N Highway 288B
Clute, TX 77531-3745
E-mail:  info@karsofsystems.com
Tel:  877-282-7374
Fax:  800-878-2203
http://karsofsystems.com/

Sunday, February 8, 2015

Fundraising Solutions: Comparing The Options



By Eric Beans CEO of Texting Base, Inc./www.textingbase.com  

Fundraising has been around as long as politics itself and it has become vital in the current political landscape.

In 2008, 5.3 billion dollars were spent on federal elections.  Barack Obama spent 730M and John McCain spent 333M.  The average winner of a house seat spent 1.4M on his or her campaign. In 2012 that federal election number jumped to over 6.3 billion dollars.  Obama spent 985.2M and Mitt Romney spent 992.5M.  The house number jumped to 1.5M to win a seat. The numbers are rising fast!

As political battles become more expensive, political fundraising becomes more important to the success of these campaigns.  It is nearly impossible to win a race without outspending your opponent.  Outspending your opponent means raising more money. The traditional methods for campaign finance include hosting events, direct mail, email blasts and telemarketing.  With the meteoric rise in the usage of mobile devices, texting is starting to change the way organizations target donations.

You may be surprised to hear that direct mail is STILL the single biggest marketing expenditure.   In 2014 email was the most effective form of fundraising.  This is in spite of more than 70% of emails worldwide being reported as spam.  Text messaging was not widely used for fundraising in 2014.

In 2012 for every dollar spent on direct marketing, the expected return was $12.18 (across all industries). Those are great returns, but where should you spend your money?

The following numbers are averages across all industries.  Sources are listed at the end of the article.  Below is a breakdown of the various means used for fundraising:

READ RATE:

1)      TEXT: 98%
2)      MAIL: 66%
3)      EMAIL: 22%
4)      PAY PER CLICK: 3.81%
5)      TELEMARKETING: N/A

Text messages have 148.5% read rates over direct mail.  Pay per click is the impression and click through.  Telemarketing has no ability to brand your entity.  Either people pick up the phone or they don’t.  If you want people to receive your message, there is nothing better than texting.

RESPONSE RATE:

1)      TEXT: 19%
2)      TELEMARKETING: 8.21%
3)      EMAIL: 4.2%
4)      PAY PER CLICK: 3.81%
5)      MAIL: 3.4%

Again, text messaging comes in at over double the effectiveness of telemarketing.  Keep in mind though that the “response rate” for text messaging, email and pay per click involves clicking on a link.  The response rate for telemarketing and email involves sending in money.

CONVERSION RATE:

1)      TELEMARKETING: 8.21%
2)      MAIL:4.2%
3)      TEXT: 1.68%
4)      PAY PER CLICK: .22%
5)      EMAIL: .21%

Direct mail and telemarketing are so popular because they are consistent with high conversion rates.  Fundraising campaigns love that they can count on consistent numbers when they start a campaign.  The challenge as you will see in our next set of data, is that there are massive costs associated with direct mail and telemarketing.

COST PER MESSAGE:

1)      EMAIL: $0.01
2)      TEXT: $0.04
3)      MAIL: $0.49
4)      TELEMARKETING: $0.64*
5)      PAY PER CLICK: N/A

Email has a cost when sending through a service (as you should for compliance).  Texting costs can be as high as 10 cents a message and as low as 2.5 cents a message.  This is why email was the number one tool last year.  With response rates that are around 8 times as high as email, texting could cost up to 7 cents a text and still be a better option.

*Paying telemarketers $9/hour.

COST PER CUSTOMER ACQUISITION*:

1)      TEXT: $2.49
2)      EMAIL: $4.98
3)      MAIL: $51.40
4)      PAY PER CLICK: $99.47
5)      TELEMARKETING: $309.28

STACK RANKING THE MARKETING SOLUTIONS:

MARKETING TYPE
READ RATE
RESPONSE RATE
CONVERSION RATE
COST PER MESSAGE
COST PER CUSTOMER ACQUIRED
AVG
TEXT
1
1
3
2
1
1.6
EMAIL
3
3
5
1
2
2.8
MAIL
2
5
2
3
3
3
TELEMARKET
N/A
2
1
4
5
4
PAY PER CLICK
4
4
4
N/A
4
4

The clear winner is text messaging.

These numbers should make Campaign Finance Managers and Executive Directors all over America take notice. It should come as no major surprise that email and texting have a lower customer acquisition cost.  Staffing telemarketers takes space, resources, software, phones, management and per dial costs.  Direct mail takes paper, ink, stuffing envelopes, management, space and postage.

The cost of acquisition for texting is half that of email, which has the second lowest cost. Texting is also 124 times less expensive per customer acquisition than telemarketing and over 20 times less expensive than direct mail, which again was the number one expense last year for direct marketing.

SO WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

Fundraising has a new weapon.  Mobile fundraising is just scratching the surface in this arena.  At any given moment, 91% of people in the United States have a cellular phone within arms reach.  This is power and effectiveness that should be making Campaign Managers, Finance Directors and Executive Directors perk up. 

Email was the most effective tool for fundraising in 2014, and texting has response rates up to 8 times higher, a 50% reduction in customer acquisition cost and a read rate over 4X higher.  Perhaps the most amazing part of this story is how little texting base been used thus far for politics and fundraising.

Much like telemarketing, there are certain rules and regulations that need to be implemented.  One of the first things an organization interested in using mobile marketing would be to change their contracts (online and other) to allow for the usage of cellular phones.  The second step would be to start collecting more mobile phone numbers.  The third step would be to look into regulation.

More information can be found here: 


Texting is significantly more effective when compared to other marketing techniques in terms of cost per acquisition, read rate and click through rate but it does not mean it should replace every other type of marketing.  To the contrary, the more effective fundraising campaigns incorporate multiple methods of contact and use the various tools to complement each other.

For information on 12 ways to reduce risk and stay within compliance for texting campaigns, please visit:


For more information, please visit:


Sources:








ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Eric Beans is CEO of Texting Base, Inc., out of Orlando, Florida.  Texting Base is a cloud-based software that adds efficiency and power to business texting communications. Combining the efficiency of a “mass text” and the effectiveness of a personal text message, Texting Base uses patent pending software to allow businesses to build relationships with their customers like never before.  Prior to Texting Base, Eric Beans owned Premier Mortgage Capital, Inc., a nationwide state charted mortgage company.