Baby's First Political Robocall

Approximately fifteen minutes ago, I had the privilage of such a unique experience, one that I had been waiting quite some time to recieve.

I just recieved my first political robocall.

Yupp, I was actually quite pleased to pick up the phone and hear "Hello, this is Gregor Robertson from Vision Vancouver..." blast through the reciever.

Well, I was very pleased until I let it play through, and quite frankly, it fell through.

There was no attacks on the other candidates, no slander, no outrageous accusations.

No fear mongering of any kind.

What it did give was a brief overview of the party platform, councillers that are also running from the party, and where to vote. Very informative, actually.

Informative, but boring. However, what can you expect from the guy behind Happy Planet?

I shouldn't have expected anything more than that. But after watching CNN for so long and hearing about all those McCain robocalls linking Obama to terrorism and all sorts of baseless nonsense, I guess I just wanted a little mudslinging. A little shameless attempt to scare me into voting for them.

They even had this thing at the end that said "Press one for your call to be directed to our office." I still use a rotary dial phone, so I couldn't do this. But I can't see the RNC ever picking that up.

So. Why does this matter?

This matters because I believe that robocalls, contrary to popular belief, are a good way to get your message out there. As long as you keep in mind a few things...

1) Make your message interesting. Tell a joke, tell a story. Be engaging. You have the full attention of your consumer right there, give them a reason to keep listening.

2) Have a line at the end that says, very clearly, "to not recieve these calls anymore, press one". Make it easy. No one wants to have to call some random number, and be on hold for twenty minutes, just so they don't get disturbed at home anymore.

3) Don't bash the other guy. Keep your message positive. People don't want to hear about what why they should be hating on someone else.

4) Don't make your phone calls run past five pm. I don't want to hear that I won a vacation to Cuba during LOST. Thank you very much.

The validity of Robocalls are certainly up in the air. Most consumers hang up as soon as they realise it is an automated message. But I really do think this is a viable method that has been given a bad rap because it has been largely poorly implemented in the past.

I think Robocalls could work and be effective, without damaging the integrity of your company.

Thank goodness this blog draws few readers, I think this could get controversial.

I adore comments, tell me what you think! Could robocalls ever be effective? Or should they all burn in hell? Is there a right way to do it?