Tweets loading...
Winning Connections specializes in live, interactive calls that move voters and mobilize supporters. Whether your goal is to win an election, build your organization's membership, increase voter turnout, or make sure your message reaches a critical target audience, Winning Connections can create a program that will make it happen. Our programs are research-driven, and carefully tailored to the specific needs of each individual campaign.
"We were outspent two to one by a high profile opponent in a crowded primary, but Winning Connections made the difference with live, interactive persuasion and GOTV calls that bolstered our media and mobilized our supporters to vote early."
- Kevin Gallagher, Campaign Manager, Steve Cohen for Congress (TN-9)
Winning Connections' calling programs employ the best practices in our medium. We use the telephone to influence people and change outcomes. Every program that we create reflects the lessons we've learned in over 12 years as a firm, and from the decades of experience managing campaigns and cause organizing that our staff brings to the table. But we also take advantage of field and academic research. Our firm has participated in numerous control group field tests, and we've commissioned focus groups and polls to better understand the best ways that phone calls can hold voters' attention and change their opinions or behavior. Yale University professors Donald Green and Alan Gerber found that long, interactive, conversational phone calls are the most cost-effective way to boost voter turnout, compared to direct mail or short robo calls.
"A chatty, lengthy call where the caller develops a certain rapport with the respondent - that can have a profound effect. That can raise turnout by 3, 4, or 5 percentage points."
- Green and Gerber, 2008
"Winning Connections helped us personalize scripts for our targeting voters to help us transform a city dampened by an 18 year incumbent. While other call shops only offer the communications technology with limited participation, Winning Connections' strategic approach to voter outreach, superb customer interface and full participation helped move Sacremento into its next chapter."
- Erin Lehane, Campaign Manager, Kevin Johnson for Mayor
Winning Connections works with your team right from the start, helping to develop your message, and refine a strategic targeting plan. We start at the beginning and work with the voter file alongside your pollster and campaign team. We are experts at writing scripts. Our writing factors in the best practices for compelling political language as well as the structural traits that make a phone conversation effective and memorable. We've carefully studied that best ways to integrate our phone calls into your overall campaign plan, so that they amplify the impact of your direct mail and television advertising.
Our telephone voter contact programs are designed to change the dynamic of a race. In 2008, we worked on a study with Professor David Nickerson from the University of Notre Dame during the Pennsylvania Democratic Primary. We found that calls scripted to use implementation intentions and create a give-and-take dialogue with recipients increased turn-out by 5% compared to a control group. These longer calls had almost twice the impact of shorter, 30 second live calls.
Winning Connections helps our clients win the most competitive races. In 2008, we worked with the Obama campaign in several critical states, including Indiana, Florida, Pennsylvania and Missouri. We helped Al Franken come from behind and win the closest US Senate election in the country. In recent years, we've also helped elect Senators Jon Tester, Maria Cantwell and Blanche Lincoln, as well a Governors Ted Strickland, Bev Perdue and Jack Markell.