Special Targeted Universes.

ETHNIC – Most political list vendors have some kind of ethnic identification field for each voter so you can mail to particular groups with your targeted message. It’s done by categorizing the last name of the voter. So a name like Hernandez is coded with a Latino code, Goldberg is coded with a Jewish code, and Cho is coded with a Chinese code. Since these categorizations are mostly always done with just the last name, the categorizing is not exact. For example, if you live in a mixed district where Latinos and Filipinos live side by side, is Hernandez Latino or Filipino? The name Lee could be Chinese, Korean or even Anglo.

One way to be more accurate is to identify the precincts where you think one group is more heavily populated then the other. Like if a Latino population lives across town from a Filipino . You select those precincts that are Latino neighborhoods with Spanish surnames. Or if the name Lee appears in the precincts where Chinatown is you can safely say that household is probably Chinese.

The key when doing a targeted mail piece is to be subtle. Don’t bang your voter on the head by telling him how much you love Mexicans with headlines like “Viva Zapata” across your brochure. You may even want to be careful not to write a Latino brochure in both Spanish and English. Most Latinos that vote in off-year or odd-month elections are 2nd and 3rd generation Latino households. Many do not even speak Spanish. The main thing you want to get across in these types of mailings is that you’re supported by some Latino organizations and individuals and you support some of their causes.

PARTIES – Yes, you can mail to Democrat, Republican, or other minor party households. The thing to watch out for is it a mixed household or pure household. The political philosophy of a pure Democratic household is probably different than a mixed Democrat (wife) and Republican (husband) household.

Usually when campaigns want to split up a party mailing they’ll do it like this:

Liberal Piece	Mail to Pure Democrat or Pure Minor Liberal Party Households.
Moderate to Conservative	Mail to All Others Households.

You can see by the example that if your campaign is doing a basic split party mailing, you have to put the mixed households somewhere. If you can afford it, you can do a third split and mail the mixed party households a moderate piece and the pure Republican households a more conservative piece.

AGE – For obvious reasons, age can be a very important criteria for a targeted mailing. As a matter of fact, in most off year elections the average voter is a white female over the age of 55. Depending on your area, you must very seriously consider doing a senior piece.

AFRICAN AMERICAN – Since most African-Americans have Anglo last names there’s a different technique in locating this kind of household. The first thing that must be done is to locate the African American neighborhoods and identify these precincts. Next, the list vendor will run the ethnic files against the names that live in those precincts and pull out everyone that has a ethnic last name like Lopez, Stein, Lie, Lasorta, Zarian, etc… Everyone else with names like Miller, Smith, and Washington, are assumed to be African American.

As you can see, this is not an exact science. But again, the key is to be subtle with the message on your mailer. Because if Miss Robinson, who has lived in the neighborhood for 40 years, and happens to be white, gets a subtle message about the support you are getting in the African American community, she will probably not be offended by your message. If she did, she probably would have moved out of the neighborhood a long time ago.

GAYS & LESBIANS – Here’s how political list companies find gay men. Again, they locate gay neighborhoods and identify the precincts. They then find households with two males with different last names between the ages of 25 to 50. These households are assumed to be gay. The same kind of select is done to identify lesbian households too but of course using female instead of male in the select.

As you can see, this is also not an exact science. Especially when you have a gay neighborhood next to a college campus where same sex heterosexual roommates are mixed in. But, if no college campus is around and you need to show the support you are getting in the gay community, just list the support of the gay groups and individuals on your brochure with all the other groups and individuals that support you. Maybe the only difference between the mailer you send to seniors and the one you send to gays is the omitting of the gay organizations. This is your call. But again, be subtle. The people living in a gay neighborhood who are not gay will not be upset with your mailer unless you’re banging them over the head with your sexuality.

© 2007 Croshaw Printing and Direct Mail
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