The eternal question for political parties and candidates is how to reach voters.
In 2008 Barack Obama revolutionised political campaigning with a social media driven strategy that was copied by political candidates of all stripes across the globe.
But the situation candidates found themselves in during the 2024 presidential election was radically different to Obama’s in 2008. In the intervening 16 years there had been a flight of users from social media platforms and a precipitous drop in the amount of time voters were spending on these sites.
While Kamala Harris and her team stuck to the 2008 logic of a digital driven campaign, Trump’s Campaign Manager Susie Wiles turned to marketing’s unsung hero, leaflet distribution.
As outlined in the book ‘Fight’ by Amie Parnes and Jonathan Allen, today we will look at how Trump’s campaign team used the power of leaflet distribution to turn his fortunes around and win the Presidency.
The Situation As It Stood
In August 2024 Trump’s presidential campaign was floundering.
Up until this point things had been going well for Trump. Thanks to a combination of more disciplined messaging and concerns over President Biden’s health and fitness following a poor debate performance, it looked as though Trump were on course to a comfortable victory.
That all changed however when, with no clear path to victory, President Biden dropped out of the campaign and was replaced at the top of the Democratic ticket by Vice President Kamala Harris.
Suddenly polls swung decisively towards Harris and the Trump campaign went from looking at an easy win to likely defeat. Worse was the media’s new focus on Harris. As an exciting new element in the race the Vice President became the news media’s obsession and the Trump campaign struggled to get air time to push back against her.
Many high ranking Republicans called Trump in full panic mode, believing the election was surely lost and urging him to change tactics and fire staff. Trump himself was also panicking, ranting to anyone who would listen about his flailing campaign. Those personally close to Trump, but not part of the campaign, were making the case that he should clean house and reboot the campaign with a fresh staff.
To save their jobs Trump’s team knew they had to turn things around, reverse Harris’ poll lead and break the Harris campaign’s stranglehold on the media.
And to do this they turned to leaflets.
What They Did
Kamala Harris held a monopoly on political TV news coverage that, no matter how hard they tried, the Trump team seemed unable to break. But the Trump campaign began to question the value of TV for political communication. TV news is typically watched only by the most politically engaged voters, who will have made up their minds long before the election and are unlikely to be persuadable to change their vote.
Instead the Trump campaign focussed on voters who were hard to reach by traditional means to change their polling fortunes. These voters were often young, male, politically disengaged and, most importantly, persuadable.
After collecting data on these types of voters the Trump team determined the best way to reach these voters was through leaflet distribution. These people might not seek out political content in mass media or online but, as one senior Republican strategist observed, “everyone has a mailbox”.
The Persuasive Power Of Leaflets
To quote ‘Fight’, “In an age of cutting edge political communication [Susie] Wiles, Senior Advisor Chris LaCivita, Pollster Tony Fabrizio and political director James Blair turned to the oldest form of voter contact to get a leg up on the competition”
Their research determined that there was no other form of political communication that was more “likely to be seen, read and believed” by voters.
DOR-2-DOR has found the same in business communication. The quality of engagement leaflets receive, whether it’s from consumers or voters, is unmatched. According to Royal Mail 95% of door drops are engaged with and the average time that door drop is engaged with is 56 seconds, that’s almost one minute of a potential customer’s attention. Leaflets are also seen as trustworthy, a vital characteristic in political communication. According to Market Sherpa 82% of consumers trust print ads, that’s a higher level of trust than digital marketing, TV advertisements or any other form of marketing.
The Trump campaign also noted other advantages their leaflets had over other forms of political communication.
Leaflets were a great way to try out new messages and lines of attack against Harris in a cost effective manner. If they gained traction and the leaflet received a strong response they could be rolled out on a wider scale.
Leaflets also provided the opportunity to communicate with voters using longer messages. In contrast to the condensed messages of a TV advertisement or social media ad, where an idea needs to be communicated quickly and concisely, leaflet distribution afforded the ability to outline an argument in greater detail and more persuasively.
Finally, direct mail received less scrutiny than television advertisements. With leaflets the Trump campaign could get their message out without it being questioned, fact checked or responded to.
And it worked. By reaching out to persuadable voters, who might not have seen any other form of political communication, through their letterbox the Trump campaign was able to reverse their fortunes and were rewarded at the ballot box.
Conclusion
In an incredibly close election, where polls stubbornly refused to give either candidate a more than 1% lead and the outcome was decided by less than a few thousand votes in key swing states, it is not hyperbole to say the clever use of leaflet distribution made all the difference and won the election.
Without the quiet persuasive power of leaflets encouraging otherwise politically disengaged voters to get off the sofa and go to the polls it’s possible we would be living in a very different world right now.
It’s unlikely that when you’re considering leaflet distribution it’s because you want to rule a nuclear armed superpower. But the 2024 election should be viewed as a case study of the persuasive power of leaflets. As Susie Wiles and the Trump campaign discovered “everyone has a letterbox” and no other form of marketing is as “likely to be seen, read and believed”.
