Alberta's 'Supporters' -- a good idea and here's why

Over the last couple of weeks I have been stuffing and mailing envelopes for Federal Liberal Riding fund-raising. It's not exactly glamorous work but it needs doing.

But I notice the mailings tend to be going to 'Dear James Morton' or even 'To Our Friends at 123 Apple Street'. This reflects the information we have. Now I know that some information is, or can be, segmented so that, for example, there can be a column marked "Salutation" -- that would allow for the mailing to go to, in my case, 'James' or 'Jim' or 'Mr. Morton' as was best. The trouble is the segmentation is patchy at best -- and if I get a letter addressed to 'Dear Morton' I am annoyed rather than keen to send money. (To be clear the information from Liberalist is great but it is far from comprehensive -- it doesn't include everyone who, say, gave in the past or signed in at an event)

My business partners often get mailing from the CPC. Those letters are addressed to correct salutations -- 'Dear Irwin' or 'Dear Ms. Smith' as preferred -- and are often personalized even more to have slightly differing text depending on the needs of the individual. Such narrow casting is very effective.

And we can do the narrow casting if we clean up the input data and put it all to Liberalist. Just a bit more care to make sure the salutation is listed correctly and a notation that, for example, James Morton is interested in criminal justice issues would make a huge impact.

That's one reason why the idea of 'supporter' from Alberta makes such good sense. What does a supporter get -- some connection with the Party, albeit less than membership. But the Party gets the names, email and other contact information of someone who is inclined to the Liberals. That information, if properly entered, is the key to winning an election. We can find our supporters and local opinion makers. Votes count and having a way to tell a voter who cares about, say, immigration, our views on immigration is the way to get a voter to vote Liberal.