ALERT - If you are SERIOUS about reaching new people off the Internet

[RonPaulCentral]

I have presented a number of ideas here before and have been attacked in the past so I am reluctant to post ideas anymore -- certain people watch for my posts and then jump on the opportunity to rip me. So even though it will probably happen again I just wanted to offer ONE solution to the common question on here:

HOW DO WE REACH PEOPLE A LARGE VOLUME OF PEOPLE OFF THE INTERNET TO TELL THEM ABOUT RON PAUL?

Well if you have these four things:

1) An extra PC sitting around that you can dedicate to this for a little while.
2) A $50 modem
3) An extra phone line ($30-50 a month in most places)
4) This software below (click link) - The free version will work. http://cgi.ebay.com/PC-to-phone-mass-calling-voice-broadcasting-auto-dialer_W0QQitemZ270178191849QQihZ017QQcategoryZ184 QQcmdZViewItem

then you have everything necessary to setup an "autodialer" to dial THOUSANDS of households without your attention - every day - for weeks and weeks and weeks.

Just plug in your "prefixes" from your phone book and it will call every number in your area.

What it does is call a number --

1) If someone answers it plays your message.

2) If an answering machine/voicemail answers it leave a message.

--------

Just write your script, record it on the computer and set it on its way.

Just remember to dial only say between 9am - 8pm.

And before folks want to jump on me about national do not call lists and such -- doesn't apply. You are not selling anything -- political messages are exempt.

An example script could be anything -- say:

"Are you ready for serious change in the Federal Gvernment? Are you looking to seriously address the Immigration problem, work towards phasing out the IRS and
most importantly ending the war in Iraq and bringing our troops home rapidly? If these issues are important to you then RON PAUL - yes, RON PAUL is the candidate for you for President in 2008. For more information visit ronpaul2008.com on the Internet."

If you have the extra PC sitting around (or one you could use during the day while you are at work, etc) then this would cost you $100 to get up and going.

Now -- if you are SERIOUS about reaching a LOT of people -- here you go.

If we got people all over the country (and you all are from all over) to set these things up and let them rip we would get MASSIVE MASSIVE name movement.

Regs,
Brett

[speciallyblend]

Good idea,but i hear you,always someone that disagrees.

[McDermit]

a lot of people have been looking for a way to do this cheaply. Thank you!

[Lord Xar]

....

[MsDoodahs]

question...

if you have one of those "free" long distance plans, you know the kind where you pay a higher monthly rate for phone service and in return have unlimited long distance, what would limit you from setting it up to call ... anywhere/everywhere?

[austin356]

you can get a dialer set up for 1/2 cent per minute per line, that is great!

[LibertyEagle]

For more information visit ronpaul2008.com on the Internet."

Ok. What if they do not have internet access? Yes, we're reaching them in a manner which is off the net, but we require that they have internet access to find out much of anything about him.

[Ron Paul Fan]

Everyone has internet access! I bet 3/4 of Americans have it in their homes. The others can go to a myriad of places to access the internet. And the rest are the elderly who don't use computers. If we reach more people, we'll bump up our donations and poll numbers. If we do that, lo and behold, they'll have to give Congressman Paul more TV time and that will reach the elderly. This is a great idea that reaches a lot of new people and will help to increase name recognition by leaps and bounds!

[briatx]

Any auto-dialers that uses VOIP/Skype?

[A Ron Paul Rebel]

Good idea Bret.

I'll make this a 'step for victory' at RonPaulsRebels.

[alicegardener]

I would write old fashioned letters if I could find a list of last election's Republican delegates in my state (Wisconsin) but also in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, etc. I have been reluctant to contact the HQ about lists because I know they are swamped. You guys know where I can find these lists?

[quickmike]

Im not ripping on your idea, but what about old fashioned getting off our asses and going door to door with flyers? Nobody talks about this. Its simple, requres no setup and is about as cheap as you can possibly get.

It seems so obvious, but nobody seems to be willing to do it. Why is this?

[RonPaulCentral]

question...

if you have one of those "free" long distance plans, you know the kind where you pay a higher monthly rate for phone service and in return have unlimited long distance, what would limit you from setting it up to call ... anywhere/everywhere?

I looked into it as well. If you read the fine print on the service plans the phone companies have things like "unlimited does not mean unlimited. Call patterns beyond normal usage, exceeding 6000 minutes, using autodialers, ect etc is prohibited and will result in possible cancellation".

I was thinking the same thing but no matter how long I searched they all say the same thing. Even Vonage has limitations. :(

[LibertyEagle]

I would write old fashioned letters if I could find a list of last election's Republican delegates in my state (Wisconsin) but also in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, etc. I have been reluctant to contact the HQ about lists because I know they are swamped. You guys know where I can find these lists?

This is a good point. Many people have asked the same thing. Does anyone know the answer to this? Someone said sometime back that they thought the campaign got them for free. Is that true?

[RonPaulCentral]

Ok. What if they do not have internet access? Yes, we're reaching them in a manner which is off the net, but we require that they have internet access to find out much of anything about him.

Unless national sets up a toll free number with info line yo don't have much choice. Voicemail messages are frequently limited to 30 or 45 seconds so the message must be fast.

Plus, a HUGE number of households have Internet. If they don't at least they have heard the name.

Nothing is perfect. :D

[james1844]

What a terrific idea. If we can set our computers to autodial people. Say hello to a whole new dynamic in the campaign.

[RonPaulCentral]

Any auto-dialers that uses VOIP/Skype?

As long as you use a phone with the service that has the typical RJ11 jack on the phone (Many Vonage phones come with RJ11 jacks on their phones) it will work fine.

Just keep in mind even their "unlimited" calling plans are not really unlimited if you read the fine print in the service agreement.

Best way to make this work is many people running them in their local areas. You can make as many local calls as you want with issue.

[johnscr]

This is a good point. Many people have asked the same thing. Does anyone know the answer to this? Someone said sometime back that they thought the campaign got them for free. Is that true?

We just asked our county GOP and they gave us a spreadsheet with addresses and phone numbers. It helps if the person asking is in the GOP though

[McDermit]

Ok. What if they do not have internet access? Yes, we're reaching them in a manner which is off the net, but we require that they have internet access to find out much of anything about him.

Set up a voicemail where people are instructed to leave their mailing info. Leave that number on machines.

[McDermit]

Im not ripping on your idea, but what about old fashioned getting off our asses and going door to door with flyers? Nobody talks about this. Its simple, requres no setup and is about as cheap as you can possibly get.

It seems so obvious, but nobody seems to be willing to do it. Why is this?

who said we can't do both? With this method, you can be calling people AND canvassing simultaneously.

[Roxi]

Everyone has internet access! I bet 3/4 of Americans have it in their homes. The others can go to a myriad of places to access the internet. And the rest are the elderly who don't use computers. If we reach more people, we'll bump up our donations and poll numbers. If we do that, lo and behold, they'll have to give Congressman Paul more TV time and that will reach the elderly. This is a great idea that reaches a lot of new people and will help to increase name recognition by leaps and bounds!



kudos on this post but i have to disagree with the above....

it seems to us that everyone has internet these days but out and about you find different results (of course depending on your location) In Catoosa which is right outside of tulsa its actually hard to find some with home internet and the ones that do don't spend a lot of time on it. Yes i totally agree that EVERYONE COULD get on the net if they really really wanted to because of friends internet cafe's the library, etc but when you don't have internet access at home, your not "into" surfing the web as much and it gets to the point you really don't care.

Out of 9 girls i work with 1 of them has net access, and thats through the school and she can't get on regular sites


order DVD's or burn your own and go door to door with them, if you do call people offer to send them materials and take their info down. going door to door is the only way to get the message out there to the digitally challenged.

IF everyone in your neighborhood HAS internet go outside of your neighborhood or town to go door to door. we have been doing this here and the name recognition has flown through the roof! i get 20 honks just driving on the highway a few miles these days!

[Matt Collins]

Remember that only 30% of voters are proficient on the Net.

Also don't forget to see this thread on how to best market Ron Paul:
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=27018

[Ron Paul Fan]

kudos on this post but i have to disagree with the above....

it seems to us that everyone has internet these days but out and about you find different results (of course depending on your location) In Catoosa which is right outside of tulsa its actually hard to find some with home internet and the ones that do don't spend a lot of time on it. Yes i totally agree that EVERYONE COULD get on the net if they really really wanted to because of friends internet cafe's the library, etc but when you don't have internet access at home, your not "into" surfing the web as much and it gets to the point you really don't care.

Out of 9 girls i work with 1 of them has net access, and thats through the school and she can't get on regular sites


order DVD's or burn your own and go door to door with them, if you do call people offer to send them materials and take their info down. going door to door is the only way to get the message out there to the digitally challenged.

IF everyone in your neighborhood HAS internet go outside of your neighborhood or town to go door to door. we have been doing this here and the name recognition has flown through the roof! i get 20 honks just driving on the highway a few miles these days!

Kudos on this post, but I have to strongly diagree. Tulsa is not America. Where I live, 9/10 people have the internet in their home and 10/10 have access to the internet in some manner. I agree that we need to go door to door. I never said that we didn't. But if this plan is feasible then it's worth it because the majority of Americans have internet access and it reaches people in mass. We need some kind of combination of the two. It's all about spreading the word baby!

[NH4RonPaul]

This auto-dialer thing is a bad idea and the campaign frowns on it.

[thehittgirl]

This auto-dialer thing is a bad idea and the campaign frowns on it.

I usually hang up on recordings. I just don't care for them, and I know a lot of people who feel that way.

[newmedia4ron]

This auto-dialer thing is a bad idea and the campaign frowns on it.

Are you kidding? Almost no one even knows about Ron Paul. The priority must be name recognition. We are not the campaign. A message might annoy some but once they look into him I don't think they would feel negatively towards Ron Paul. Just make sure you include in the message that you not are officially from the campaign and just an everyday person.

[Alopederii]

What about a message directing folks to call the number listed on http://www.libertytalk.com/liberty_card.php ? That way they don't need Internet access to hear Ron Paul.

(I am not affiliated with the liberty card site in any way, so it might be best to get permission from the owner first.)

[Ron Paul Fan]

Are you kidding? Almost no one even knows about Ron Paul. The priority must be name recognition. We are not the campaign. A message might annoy some but once they look into him I don't think they would feel negatively towards Ron Paul. Just make sure you include in the message that you not are officially from the campaign and just an everyday person.

This is exactly right. It's like I always say, it's not how well you talk to people, it's how many people you talk to! Quantity over quality. Efficiency over Fred Thompson. It's all relative foo!

[qsecofr]

What if its something cryptic and short like "Google Ron Paul, thank you".

You could have a brief pause and then go into more detail but at least you capitalize on the first few seconds someone picks up. It might get a few because of the wtf factor.

[Alopederii]

What if its something cryptic and short like "Google Ron Paul, thank you".

You could have a brief pause and then go into more detail but at least you capitalize on the first few seconds someone picks up. It might get a few because of the wtf factor.

I love that idea!

And I love the concept of the "wtf factor"... but I thought that was the name of O'Reilly's show... :confused:

[lasenorita]

Here's my example for a voice message:



Chances are you haven't heard of Ron Paul.

Who is this 10-term Congressman, military veteran, medical doctor, "taxpayer's best friend", and defender of our nation's Constitution?

Ron Paul voted against the war in Iraq. He voted against the spying and monitoring of innocent American citizens like you and me. He's never voted for a tax increase or an unbalanced budget ...And he's the only candidate running for President of the United States of America who will bring our men and women back home where they belong as soon as possible.

To learn more about the person Sen. John McCain once called "the most honest man in Congress", please Google "Ron Paul" or call [insert number here]. For the sake of our country and our children's future, we need a President who will defend our liberty and provide true security.

It sounds better playing in my head, of course. And it's probably way too long, but oh well. :D

[Bradley in DC]

Thanks, Brett. Our Meetup group was JUST talking about how to do this.

One word of advice, please, please, please, only positive things about Dr. Paul--don't even mention any other candidates. (Though I will give a dispensation for citing facts why Dr. Paul is the only Republican who can beat Hillary :D)

Seriously though, negative autodials about other candidates can backfire really easily.

It was autodialing that helped get Dr. Paul elected to the House in the first place--than Nolan Ryan for that.

Question for you technically-minded people (so not me): if we have, say, hypothetically, a list of voters from the Board of Elections that we've broken down to specifically-targets submarkets, well, I digress, how do we match phone numbers with the names and addresses? (hypothetically)

[Bradley in DC]

Im not ripping on your idea, but what about old fashioned getting off our asses and going door to door with flyers? Nobody talks about this. Its simple, requres no setup and is about as cheap as you can possibly get.

It seems so obvious, but nobody seems to be willing to do it. Why is this?

I think he means, IN ADDITION to door-to-door!

[Beerhall Agitator]

the internet eh?

[AFTFNJ]

Can somebody check newsgroups for this voicent software so people can try it before they buy it?

[newmedia4ron]

The argument "but pre-recorded messages are annoying" is not valid anymore. Name recognition is lacking. That should be our priority. As long as the messages are short in length and uncontroversial I encourage this.


More info from another post

...one method that campaigns use to contact voters is by automated telephone messages. Voter lists are available from local jurisdictions, and political calls are exempt from do-not-call lists. If kept short and unobtrusive, or fashioned as issue-push-polls, these do a lot of good in getting the word out.

Nevertheless, these are not cheap. The cheapest I've found is http://www.callfire.com/ , which charges 3.5 cents a minute. In Iowa, for example, there are 1.2 million potential voters, so this would cost at least $50k to contact all of them.

Instead, we could do a distributed, grass roots system! I've been trying to set something up, but I'm having trouble and don't have enough free time. Anyone want to give it a try?

The idea is to spend about $25 for unlimited VOIP dialing. Then, multiplied by 100 contributors, we can call a lot of people!! (math: about 30 days until the Iowa straw poll, 8 hours calling a day, just 100 contributors, ~1 minute call = 1.44 million calls!!!! 16 times cheaper than CallFire )

The best software I've found to do this is called Vicidial, which runs with the Asterisk phone system.
http://astguiclient.sourceforge.net/vicidial.html

There are preconfigured versions of asterisk that run under a free version of VMware. See
1. http://nerdvittles.com/index.php?p=152 or
2. http://www.asterisknow.org/downloads

The hard part is getting getting vicidial to work with it (that's where I'm stuck)
http://iptn.org/vicidial/index.html

There are alot of cheap, unlimited VOIP providers:
http://nerdvittles.com/index.php?p=71

I used FreeDigits for testing, http://freedigits.com/sign_up.html
since they give out 60 minutes of free outbound calls a month, and unlimited inbound calling.

[newmedia4ron]

Any thoughts?

[American]

This is a great idea, and about posting and being stomped on, its also your right to post anything about the grassroots efforts. Remember we do have spoilers here, along with a few anarchists and disgruntled libertarians who want nothing but to cause discourse.

Good idea, keep posting them!!!

[newmedia4ron]

No more ideas. I call for action!

[newmedia4ron]

...

[newmedia4ron]

donald bump

[thomaseusin]

great idea, but doesn't it reek of the spamming spin that the msm put on the good doctor's campaign?

how about picking up a phone and calling these individuals...

[newmedia4ron]

......do anything.........

[iskimtsnow]

I think the quality issue could be handled easily by having someone on here record a well thought out script and have everyone use that. That way you reduce the chance of people making poor recordings or saying things that would hurt the campaign. On this forum I have seen many examples of minds coming together to produce some great work!!!! Passing the recording and a ready made instruction pack on to all the meet up groups to canvas their local area I think would have a huge impact for very little money.

[Ncturnal]

Im not ripping on your idea, but what about old fashioned getting off our asses and going door to door with flyers? Nobody talks about this. Its simple, requres no setup and is about as cheap as you can possibly get.

It seems so obvious, but nobody seems to be willing to do it. Why is this?

I have to agree with you 100%. Automated calls are beyond annoying. They are completely impersonal and lazy. I hang up on automated calls the very second I realize it's an automated call. It's unlikely Ron Paul's name recognition will improve in the slightest using this method.


This auto-dialer thing is a bad idea and the campaign frowns on it.

+1


I usually hang up on recordings. I just don't care for them, and I know a lot of people who feel that way.

+1


The argument "but pre-recorded messages are annoying" is not valid anymore. Name recognition is lacking. That should be our priority. As long as the messages are short in length and uncontroversial I encourage this.


More info from another post

We need "good" name recognition.


great idea, but doesn't it reek of the spamming spin that the msm put on the good doctor's campaign?

how about picking up a phone and calling these individuals...

Absolutely. It's impersonal and lazy. Calling them is a great idea. It probably still won't be extremely well received thanks to the telemarketing stigma attached to calling people at home, but at least it is more personal than an automated recording.

[newmedia4ron]

...

[jake]

newmedia4ron: can you create a simple webpage with instructions and a recording?

[Mark Rushmore]

The people who think it's a horrible idea could always download the software, do the setup, then place "less than tactful" calls on behalf of the Ghoul ;).

A joke of course.

[LinearChaos]

Good luck getting to my cell phone, lol. And then if you do, I get to pay for it.

[gornandez@yahoo.com]

for more info instead of website call toll free 1 877 RON PAUL

[PeacePlan]

This one is free..........

http://voicent-broadcastbyphone-autodialer.voicent-communications-inc.qarchive.org/

[newmedia4ron]

It's impersonal and lazy. Calling them is a great idea. It probably still won't be extremely well received thanks to the telemarketing stigma attached to calling people at home, but at least it is more personal than an automated recording.

yeah lets see 95% of Americans don't even know Ron Paul exists. Do you really think the telemarketer stigma will crush us! I'd rather have people know he exists than not know about him at all. ALL OF THE CANDIDATES DO IT. The official Ron Paul people are doing it themselves in the early states!


Deadlines to register are ending now.
It's time to get desperate.

[TechnoGuyRob]

Bump.

[firebirdnation]

I am not sure if this has been covered yet, but if you have more than one car, what you can do is park it in a very heavily traveled location and slap a bunch of Ron Paul yard signs on it. Just make sure its a legal parking spot and don't leave it parked for over 12 hours in the same location.

[addi]

I run a small voip company and have lots of Dialers available.

We can do about 300 calls/ second. Anybody still like this dialer idea? lets light up the USA. If the message is about 12 seconds long, its about 1/10th of a cent per call.


Also, we will have a caller id "Ron Paul 08" so all the peolpe that dont pick up will be able to see that name, and call the number back for a longer message about how important it is to search google for the name "Ron Paul" and find out why he can save america in 2008.

What we still need...

1. Some kind of web interface so people can donate $20 to have their whole zip code called.

2. Some kind of web interface so people can upload phone lists of their numbers and friends phone numbers (we only have about 150 million numbers in our national database to call now.)

3. Somebody setup a web site so people that understand this idea will be able to cooperate. Maybe we could do something like PhoneBombUSA.com and get people to donate. We would need to raise about $20k to call the whole usa.
Sure not everybody realizes how annoying advertising can really work. Get people interested even if they are a little annoyed is better then nothing.


Please get ahold of me if you are familiar with php, or want to help script this. I have several webservers that we can set this up on.

[addi]

my email is db at arrivaltel (.) com

[Corydoras]

Addi, are you a Ron Paul supporter?

[addi]

Hi, I have some dialers that we could call the whole USA with a 12 second message for about 30K


I think this is a good idea, we will put the caller ID to be "Ron Paul 08" and if people call the number back they will get a longer recorded message.


Yes, phone calls are annoying, but curiosity will get some people and they might just google "Ron Paul".


I am going to sick my dialers on Utah, we have several Trunks to Utah so I can do 1.2 million homes for free.


Most of the USA will cost me about 1/10th of a cent per call, so if anybody wants to help setup a RonPaulPhonebomb.com we could easily raise enough to call the USA (150 million homes +)


get ahold of me at db at arrivaltel (.) com


Things we need for this to work well

1. A website like teaparty07

2. A donations graph

3. A way for people to add more phone numbers, it might be nice for them to hear the message and know their whole city was called and get to hear the message also. Eg, you could get your whole zip code called for about $10.

4. Of course we are running this at cost, we are a small voip company and so we figure if we are not loosing to much money on this, we can light up the whole USA PSTN for Ron, our servers can do about 300 calls/ sec and if we light up our XO or Verizon links we could do about 500 calls/second.

[DealzOnWheelz]

For everyone that says "I hate annoying calls like this and always hang up this will never work"

I hate annoying phone calls and always hangup.... except when it is a political call.

And if telemarketing wasn't effective...


THEY WOULDN'T CONTINUE DOING IT

[addi]

Addi, are you a Ron Paul supporter?

Yes, I am a RP fanatic. I was out banging on a drum for Black Friday last week with my meet up group.


http://ronpaul.meetup.com/365

[lucius]

Yes, I am a RP fanatic. I was out banging on a drum for Black Friday last week with my meet up group.


http://ronpaul.meetup.com/365

You have a great idea...make it so and welcome! :D

[Revolution9]

Yes, I am a RP fanatic. I was out banging on a drum for Black Friday last week with my meet up group.


http://ronpaul.meetup.com/365

Well thanks pal. Yer the knight in shining modems come to the rescue. Ya..Bush had 1000
corrupted egomaniacally twisted points of light. We will have 250 million American points of light.

Best Regards
Randy

[Benaiah]

So I think if we could make Addi's idea happen, than that would be a good idea.

I agree that "annoying automated calls" are better than NOTHING. We need to get Paul's name out there.