How Confidential, Transactional Fulfillment Works

In the strictest sense, these are transactional messages sent to bona fide voter roles, are non-commercial and non-marketing based, so, no they aren't. HOWEVER, we don't mail to any third party, harvested or purchased lists nor send out communications that are not transactional election messages; as that is the only kind of message we send. Spam is spam, we all know it when we receive it, and we take a hard line when it comes to meeting our obligations to the election process and respecting voter privacy. We are the final arbiter: if we refuse to send out a message, it is because we have been asked to do something that either violates our rules, the terms of our upstream providers–or the law. We are both stewards of our reputation and yours.

Messages, like emails must be honest and not deceptive or misleading in any way. The subject must be clear and accurately represent the content of the message. The contents may not contain ANY advertising. The relationship between the sender and recipient must be stated as well as why the message is being sent plus, simple opt-out means (if applicable, some transactional messages are required) must be clearly stated. Opt-out requests must be honored within 24 hours.

Further, the name, address, email address, phone number and a link to a valid privacy policy of the sender must be in both the email and on any landing pages that are linked to from within the email. No exceptions! Additionally, if non-transactional content is included, it must not be commercial in nature and the “primary purpose” of the message must be transactional. The subject of the message must therefore be transactional in nature as well.

While we can target messages using criteria such as sending one message to all that did/didn't open a certain message we cannot under any circumstances resend the same message again. You can, however, change the old message with at least 20 new, original content (minimum of 150 words must be placed at the top of the email) and change the Subject and resend this to those that didn't open the first message. After that, you must resume including at least 60% original content for each subsequent message.

It takes additional, billable time to craft campaigns based on criteria and a $75 fee applies (which includes up to one-half (1/2) hour of labor, with additional labor charged at $42/hour). Many times, folks got a glimpse of your un-opened message in their email browser and decided not to read on (considered as unopened). It is usually best to send a new plea to all rather than focus on segmentation (but there are great use cases for segmentation as well).

Yes, we do. However, you can't just send a text message to someone on a bulk basis just because you have their phone number as part of an existing transactional relationship. To be able to send text messages, you must have specifically asked for permission to text someone (usually during the initial transaction) and then within 24 hours you must have sent them an opt-in acknowledgement to which they may have had to confirm. Additionally, you must have and present all of this subscription data to for us to use for confirmation and so that we can maintain the ongoing record.

Text campaigns are pretty complicated to set up and the costs to send them are based on both: the makeup of your list, and the exact parameters of your messages. Generally, we charge $42 per hour to set up and monitor message sending plus modest sending fees based on both of these criteria. We can't even to begin to give you a ballpark cost without understanding the design and history of your present SMS transactional relationships and also having seen samples of the messages that you intend to send, first.

Not if the membership list is older than the typical term of membership. For example, if memberships last for 12 months, we can't mail to a membership list older than 12 months. Even then, membership lists should be more current and minimally updated within less than half the term of membership. Following the prior example, the membership lists would need to be minimally updated every six months. Additionally, if the organization has updated lists, and is not within an election cycle, the lists given to us should match the lists that the organization has and not be out of sync. We do realize that memberships lists aren't exactly current during an election (typically, the electorate would be all those who qualify as members as of a specific date) and those members are locked-in during the election process.

If an organization fails to keep its membership lists up-to-date, then some who no longer qualify would be mailed to (this is spam) and some that ought to be included are not (this is unethical). Because we are mailing transactional messages and not to some folks that signed up for a mailing list, lists need to be current so that the organization is fulfilling the obligation to the membership. That transactional relationship is the very basis for the permission to mail to the list.

There are many procedures to follow and tasks to do yet, the greatest turnaround considerations are typically client based. Once an election official delivers the voter rolls to us and once we have received final text and images from a candidate or slate we generally send out communications within about 24 hours. For our part, we typically need only two to four hours.

If an organization fails to keep its membership lists up-to-date, then some who no longer qualify would be mailed to (this is spam) and some that ought to be included are not (this is unethical). Because we are mailing transactional messages and not to some folks that signed up for a mailing list, lists need to be current so that the organization is fulfilling the obligation to the membership. That transactional relationship is the very basis for the permission to mail to the list.

Transactional messages can be texts, emails or postal mail that are sent out of necessity and with a “primary purpose” to fulfill an obligation like: communications and information concerning a purchase, donation, booking, appointment or where the recipient is a bona fide voter "member" for an election within your own organization. These mandatory transactions are different from marketing, promotion, financial pleas and newsletters in that a transactional email fulfills an obligation to the recipient as opposed to serving the needs of the sender. We also strictly do not allow commercial content messages that market, promote or advertise any commercial product or service.

A third kind of message exists where the sender and the recipient have a clear relationship, such as: friends, family, colleagues etc.

To maintain our ability to protect list confidentiality, maintain privacy rights and to fulfill the nature of the transactions we only send from addresses that we have 100% control over. Therefore, it is rare that we can send from the senders primary address as that would make it possible for others to intercept the contents which could divulge the recipient and other personal data. We always use an email address that accurately portrays the sender and the message purpose, if possible.

Usually, yes. When folks get the email that we send them, they will be able to Hit the Reply Button and that message will almost always just be sent to you. If we do get a stray reply we typically do forward them within 12 hours (often within a few hours). Bounces and other system messages are sent only to us. IMPORTANT AGREEMENT: You must read all of the replies from all prior sent messages and if any of them indicate that the recipient wants to be removed from future mailings you must forward those replies to us (immediately and certainly prior to any next mailing you have). Anyone failing to do so will lose their mailing privileges.

During a campaign, it is common for election officials to send an update on the lists. In fact, we typically have to notify the election officials and get approval for each campaign. In response, the election official may order a list update (and this may trigger a delay in sending so build in plenty of time on your side). These updates usually contain a modest amount of added voters and likely more removed voters (such as those that have already voted). We rarely need to send most frequent list updates out to be cleaned. We do, however, charge for the amount of time that it takes us to process list updates and that time is apportioned amongst all those that use that updated list during the current billing cycle.

Yes, we can make that happen! While we're not that kind of mailing house, we do regularly work with quality union printers and mailing houses and we can help design and coordinate snail mail campaigns for you (we charge $42 per hour for design and coordination). We NEVER markup or receive any renumeration from the third-party printers and mailing houses we work with. If you have your own union printers and mailing houses, we can certainly help with that. In all cases, we can help you negotiate rates and services, and you will directly pay the third-party union printers and mailing houses. We can review invoices to ensure that the billed amount and services rendered are as agreed. We can also help you to augment postal mailing campaigns with other kinds of electronic messaging.

Lastly, we can help guide and inform you as to the best options in mail piece format and also whether campaigns should qualify for USPS non-profit rates and help you with what forms to fill out and show you the postal regulations that you'll need to consider when applying and using.

We are 100% Pro-Union! While we are not a Union shop, we are a 100% employee owned and managed cooperative that provides support for and sources Union third-parties in all our endeavors. All of the proceeds from the work that we do go directly to our employees (less whatever we collectively need to pool for infrastructure) and our employee EACH set their own hourly pay rates. Our lowest paid workers presently CHOOSE to earn $42 per hour and all get equal benefits.

Yes. We typically follow two scenarios or a combination of both. First, example: if an organization gives us access to their membership system(s) and has a sane process for us to follow we can perform those operations ad hoc or on a schedule. Second, example: an organization delivers lists to us in a variety of formats and we process the lists to create a current list (and lists of those removed as well).

We can also consult with organizations to build or tweak their membership systems. We can ensure that much of their processes are either automatic or sets of easy to manage batch processes.