What Is Phone Banking in Politics? Find Out How to Phone Bank

Are you searching for additional information on “What is phone banking in politics?” If so, you’ve come to the right place. Phone banking involves reaching out to voters using phone calls. It often involves a group of volunteers calling potential voters to persuade them to vote for a cause or candidate, attend events, raise funds, or identify supporters.

There are two types of phone banking to be aware of. The first is commercial phone banks. The party sets up the phone bank at headquarters and provides everything volunteers need to start calling individuals.

The other type of political phone banking comes in the form of voluntary phone banks. This involves an individual hosting volunteers at their home so they can make calls to voters. Volunteers themselves might provide supplies, or everyone pitches in to get what is needed.

Tips for a Beginner to Understand and Start a Phonebanking Campaign

When it comes down to how to phone bank, there are many steps. First, we want to talk about why you might choose phone banking. Several things might push someone to start a phone banking campaign for a politician or a political issue.

One of the reasons to choose phone banking is because it offers a personal touch. A one-on-one conversation can be used to create needed action. When a volunteer can have an authentic conversation back and forth with a voter, it’s more likely that person will decide to head out and vote.

Another reason to know how to phone bank is that it’s very scalable. Going door-to-door can take a ton of time, but phone banking allows you to talk to more people in a shorter time. The book Get Out The Vote estimates that knocking on doors can get a vote for $33, while phone banking can do it for $36, which is nearly the same.

Phone banking also allows you to clean out phone lists. Disconnected or bad numbers can be removed from the contacts during the first round of calling. In addition, this makes it easier to get voter information and run surveys.

There are several steps associated with setting up and running party phone banks. However, these can be broken down into three larger phases. These include a planning phase, a calling phase, and a monitoring and analysis phase. We’ll share more about what goes into each of these phases below.

Steps Associated with Starting Political Phone Banking

The first phase of your phone banking process is planning. There are several steps associated with this. Below, we’ll detail what you should do before moving forward to the second phase of political phone banking campaigns.

The Planning Phase

First, you want to determine your call budget and get information about how many people you would like to reach. First, consider how many people you need to vote a particular way to get a candidate elected. This is how many people need to be contacted.

Then look at the cost of contacting all the voters you need to reach. Factor in the vote deficit: how many votes you need beyond supporters to win. The last number to acquire is the number of volunteers you will need.

You should call 10,000 people over 14 days with two hours of daily work. Your automated dialer lets you call 45 numbers and have 25 convos per hour. This means you’d need 15 volunteers to get the job done.

It would help if you also were sure you are aware of all the laws associated with political phone banking. After that, obtain your voter contact list before you recruit people to come in and do the phone banking. Choose how you’ll take calls, and you can move to phase two.

The Calling Phase

First, get your volunteers connected to the campaign. Make sure you put them through training since most volunteers will not have phone banked in the past. This ensures that everyone is comfortable and ready to start making calls.

Next, create a phone banking script. This gives volunteers a structure for their conversations. It can be as simple as an introduction, asking whom the voter supports, engaging them in conversation, and then making a hard ask for them to vote how you want them to.

You’ll then want to assign the contacts for each volunteer to contact. If you use a calling tool, this can be a static or dynamic assignment. Cutting turf is another option where voters are based on their location and called by locals.

The Monitoring and Analysis Phase

For monitoring and analysis, calling tools make things easier. They can offer call monitoring and recording that is useful down the road. There are several analytics to keep track of when phone banking. These include agent occupancy, call drop, reach, and conversion rates.

Analyzing metrics should be done regularly. The data will give you information about campaign performance so you can maximize its impact and tweak it whenever needed.

It’s unlikely that everything will go perfectly from the start. It would help if you were willing to experiment with different types of training, dialers, and scripts. Plan for that from the start for the best results.

The Benefits of Phone Banking in Politics

There are many reasons that people choose to use political phone banking. It has many benefits over other methods of reaching voters. A few of the largest benefits include the following:

• It can replace door-knocking: Phone banking is a great alternative to the traditional method of knocking on doors. This is especially true in situations where social distancing is required. It’s a unique method to reach people while keeping everyone safe.
• It can be done from any location: Volunteers can often connect with a campaign from home using a computer or phone. This makes it more convenient and safer than other campaigning options.
• It provides quality conversations: Verizon noted that it has been handling about 800 million wireless calls since the start of COVID-19. These conversations have also been longer by about 1/3. With more people at home desiring social interactions, they appreciate having someone to talk to. This is your chance to give them a quality conversation.

Limitations Associated with Political Phone Banking

With so many great benefits to phone banking, you can’t expect any limitations. Below are a few of the things to take into consideration before starting a phone banking campaign:

• Rates of answering calls may be low: Many people refuse to answer calls from unknown numbers. In addition, spam filters note robocalls and can flag your interaction as untrustworthy. Plus, some people can’t pick up a phone when you call.
• Written information isn’t provided to voters: With postal mail, texts, and emails, voters can review the information as often as they like. This isn’t possible with phone banking calls. Sending follow-up texts is one way to handle this limitation.

Esendex Can Help with Phone Bank Setup and Virtual Phone Banking

Esendex offers various services to help you engage voters, including communication APIs and software. We provide SMS broadcasting, voice broadcasting, SMS APIs, address verification APIs, phone number verification APIs, and an SMS reseller program.

While learning how to phone bank, you need people who ensure everything goes well. The experienced pros at Esendex can provide that for your campaign. Contact our sales team to learn how we can help you secure the win.