Political Candidates Tap Big Data to Reach Voters Nationwide

RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA, CA--(Marketwired - April 13, 2016) -  Melissa Data, a leading provider of global data quality solutions, today announced its data quality tools are being used to drive political campaigns nationwide, including local, state, and federal contests. Candidates are tapping Big Data in the form of data enhancements that help them engage voters through highly targeted messages via their preferred channel of contact. Capitalizing on Melissa Data's data enhancement technology, campaigns can leverage their existing voter lists to communicate more interactively with likely voters via social media and email, and expand their reach, particularly to like-minded, younger voter blocks using these preferred methods of communication.

By connecting individual voters with their emails and social media handles, candidates add significant communications value to proven campaign tools such as direct mail, telephone marketing, and even door-to-door canvassing. Big Data-fueled campaigns are more personal, enabling candidates to microtarget messages with individual appeal using thousands of demographic variables including voter and party affiliation, congressional district, working woman, green living, net worth and many more.

For example, a campaign could use microtargeting techniques for direct mail and digital marketing to communicate with voters in a specific geographic area concerning a local issue of particular importance -- think Flint, Michigan toxic water crisis. Additionally, these types of tools and techniques can be used more expansively, even to the national level; Melissa Data's tools were successfully employed in such a manner by the Obama presidential campaign, especially in the use of data and social media in reaching and inspiring voters.

"Historically, campaigns focused primarily on creating a strong voter list, with information like name, address, phone, party affiliation and donor history. A strong mailing list is still key, but campaigns need to think about ways they can extend the usefulness of their voter data to connect with constituents using their preferred communication vehicle, as well as reach out to a greater number of young, likely voters. It's all about building on your greatest asset -- voter data -- by enriching it with Big Data assets and extending value through a web presence, social media and email communications. A layered omnichannel approach demonstrates a candidate is paying attention and offering valuable solutions to issues that matter to specific voters," said Chris Rowe, vice president of Data Enhancement Services, Melissa Data.

Melissa Data's campaign data services offer proven return on investment, and are flexible and consultative to provide the greatest value to re-election campaigns and first time candidates, whether local, state or national. Company executives are available for interview, and can answer questions for your features on how Big Data and data enhancements are driving campaign activities. The company will also host a free webinar showing how campaigns can harvest Big Data riches for greater political campaign effectiveness, including easy ways to enrich an existing voter database with email and social media information. Click here to register for this live online event on Thursday, April 21, 2016 at 11:00 A.M. Pacific. For more information, visit www.MelissaData.com or call 1-800-MELISSA (635-4772).

About Melissa Data

Since 1985, Melissa Data has specialized in contact data quality and address management tools with a global perspective. The company's solutions help organizations capture and maintain international customer contact data at the point of entry, ensuring accurate customer information enterprise-wide. More than 10,000 clients worldwide in arenas such as retail, education, healthcare, insurance, finance, and government, rely on Melissa Data for full spectrum data validation software and services. For more information or free product trials, visit www.MelissaData.com or call 1-800-MELISSA (635-4772). Follow Melissa Data on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.

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