Why send reminders?

Sending supporters who completed a vote tripling pledge a reminder is the best way to get them to follow through on their pledge, and in turn help you turnout out more voters.

You can read more about the impact of relational reminders here.

Timeline and script for reminders

We recommend sending vote tripling reminders via text message in order to have the highest likelihood of voters seeing the message and taking action. If you are unable to send text reminders, consider phonebanking your list and leaving scripted voicemails with the reminder to increase the chances of the reminder reaching them.

Plan to send 1-3 reminders to pledges leading up to Election Day
At a minimum, send triplers a reminder the day before Election Day. If you live in a jurisdiction with an in-person Early Vote period, or expanded vote by mail, start by sending a reminder during that voting period as well. Consider your voting schedules when building vote tripling reminders into your SMS calendar.

While the script should feel in line with your campaigns communications, our various tests highlight the importance of sending the vote tripling reminder text as the initial text in the exchange, rather than including it in an existing script. Keep the introduction short - provide the name of your campaign and the volunteer sending the messages, and reference to the voter that they’ve previously agreed to remind 3 friends to vote.

These reminder texts are relatively low lift, there is no back-and-forth to the conversation as you’re not truly making an ask. While most voters will simply reply with an acknowledgement of receipt or not reply at all, some may ask questions regarding voting and the candidate so build your usual common responses into your text campaign.

You can find our sample reminder calendar and scripts for various tactics here.

Preparing your vote tripling pledges for reminders - cleaning data

When you’re ready to send reminders to triplers, begin by pulling a list of pledges, limiting your universe according to your needs (e.g. limiting to your GOTV universe). Next, prepare your data by cleaning the export.

Cleaning the export looks like:

1. Deleting other data that may be in the column where friends’ names are stored (e.g. the notes section in VAN), and deleting any unnecessary columns
2. Correcting capitalization and spacing as needed
3. Formatting the friends’ names column so that it reads 'friend, friend, and friend' (ex. your sister, John, and Mary) for those that have names, and writing in 'your 3 friends' for those who don’t
   1. If they provided “Mom” or “cousin,” make sure to include a “your '' in front of it. (ex. your Mom and your cousin)

The final file should have 3 columns as follows - 1. Tripler name 2. Friends’ names 3. VAN ID (for easy reference if needed).

There are a few ways to do this:

1. Use our cleaning script. We can share our cleaning script with your data team to run themselves. We host the link on a site for use by partners as needed.
2. Clean data manually. This is a fine option if you have less than 500 vote tripling pledges. We recommend first pulling the list into an excel/google sheet with columns for 'voter name', 'voter #' and notes section (if data is stored in VAN). Then "cleaning" the friends' names (notes section) column as shared above.
3. If you are working with Vote Rev’s or Vote Rev Action Fund’s Partner Success Team, then ask your point of contact for support.

Best practices for sending reminders 

• Build reminders into your SMS calendar early. Determine how many rounds of reminders you can send, and when, mapping backwards from Election Day. 
• Especially if you are collecting pledges throughout the cycle, send reminders to triplers in your target universe (e.g. remove voters marked as opposed etc).
• Reminders are just that, a reminder. These don’t need to be a back and forth conversation. We find that this is a great task for volunteers who are burnt out on calls and doors, or generally won’t do voter contact work.
• Give your data team time for data cleaning. Determine how you will clean your pledge data and have a plan in place with your data team. Plan to seek Vote Rev and Vote Rev Action Fund’s staff support early if needed.