Fallsgraff and Patzer were the masterminds behind the Obama 2012 campaign’s relentless — and often amusing — emails, one of the most talked-about aspects of the campaign.
Together, the pair developed the campaign’s email best practices and oversaw 18 writers who used emails to boost the campaign’s volunteer recruitment, voter mobilization, and grassroots fundraising efforts.
“When the campaigns started, there was all of this talk about super-PACs and big donors, but at the end of the day, what really got us to the finish line was the 4.5 million grassroots donors that the Obama campaign had on its side,” Fallsgraff said. “Email played a big role in finding those donors, and in getting them to donate more than once.”
Patzer attributed this success to the relentless testing of email messages. The team, she said, tested everything from the subject line to the size and color of the Donate button.
“We gave people the program that they wanted,” Patzer said. “We tested things, and then we would send the things that people had responded to.”
“One thing we always tried to do was be as authentic and as transparent as possible,” she added. “Treating people on our list like adults, like we were all on the same level, was really cool, and it gave us the ability to be creative. We weren’t trying to pull one over on people.”
“What we learned was that you can be constantly improving on a desk program in digital politics," Fallsgraff said. "We never ran out of things that we were looking at and improving upon — if the election was going to be held next November instead of last November, we still wouldn’t run out of things to improve and test. The challenge for the next campaign is to pick up as close as possible to where we left off.”
Correction: The OFA email team was led by three people, Toby Fallsgraff, Martha Patzer, and Lindsay Holst. We apologize for the oversight.