Rand Paul Money Bomb Promotion Planning

[Sentinelrv]

Hey everyone, hopefully some people here remember me! Anyway, I helped create and plan the money bomb promotion threads for Ron Paul's last presidential run. This includes Black This Out, Support Them Now (11/11/11), Tea Party 11 and No One But Paul. I'm posting this to let everyone know that while I fully support Rand Paul, I unfortunately won't be able to contribute to the money bombs this go around. This is mainly due to my involvement in Peercoin and NuBits and a serious lack of time.

Since the campaign is most likely going to be starting soon though, I thought I'd bring up the past money bombs that I was involved in. Whoever takes charge in this area during Rand's run, I think it would be best to look through these planning threads and everything that was done to make them successful, especially Black This Out and Tea Party 11. Lots of techniques were used to spread the message which can be duplicated or even improved this time. For example, I believe Facebook was a bigger promotional tool than Twitter the last go around. This time you guys can take advantage of even more promotional tools.

I think it's in everyone's best interest to take a look through these threads and start planning today. Figure out what worked and what didn't and make use of the information inside. Wouldn't it be great to kick off Rand's announcement day with a money bomb? While I won't be able to contribute that much this time around, I will be watching to see what you guys come up with and will be waiting to donate along with the rest of you! Good luck!

- 10/19/11 - Black This Out Money Bomb - $2.7 Million
- 11/11/11 - Support Them Now Money Bomb - $1.1 Million
- 12/16/11 - Tea Pary 11 Money Bomb - $4.5 Million
- 02/14/11 - No One But Paul Money Bomb - Couldn't find the total for this one. Let me know and I'll add it in.

[Barrex]

Where is that program/script/voodoo ritual that blacked out peoples eyes on their Facebook profiles?

[Warlord]

I think it's a little early... let him announce then we will plan the money bombs. i think Nov 5th and Dec 16th will be on the list so 2 more before then and we should be good to go!

[FriedChicken]

April 7 may not be a bad day for some kind of organized show of support, even if not a fund raiser.
just something to show he has grassroots organization.

... and something intentionally friendly towards supporters of other candidates.

lets not start out by doing something that divides rand from the voters he needs to attract. (not that money bombs do that).

April 7 is too early for a bomb probably.

[Uriah]

Reporting to the FEC is done quarterly with quarters ending March 31, June 30, September 30, and December 31.

Rand probably won't announce before April so, I would do one by June 30 and another shortly before the Iowa straw poll which is tentatively planned for August 8.

[Bryan]

Great thread, yes Sentinelrv, you are remembered well.

As with 2012, I think it's important that we develop a complete grassroots strategy for fundraising that takes into accounts moneybombs and the end of quarters. With that, the following principles should be considered:

* No moneybomb should be held within the first 3-4 weeks of a quarter since that could be viewed as having people hold back donations across a quarter.
* After the last moneybomb of a quarter, we go right to an "end of quarter push", but no sooner than 3-4 weeks for a push.
* Moneybombs should be at least 3 weeks apart, 4-5 may be better.


To help promote moneybombs I created a new facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/RandPaulMoneybombCentral

Please like and share.

[LawnWake]

It might be smart to stop refering to them as money bombs. I don't think Rand's grass roots support is nearly as good as Ron's and the last money bomb for Rand wasn't that good. So if we fail to make anywhere near the same impact that we did in either 2008 or 2012, the media might use that against Rand's abilities to secure funding.

I mean, they will do that regardless of what we call them, but it might be smart to just label them differently.

[orenbus]

No One But Paul Money Bomb - Couldn't find the total for this one. Let me know and I'll add it in.

NoOneButPaul (2/14/12) and In It To Win Money Bomb (4/15/12) that Dave and I built the website, widgets, graphics, etc. for, helped to raise over 3 Million, I forget what the exact numbers were for each however.

I agree with Sentinelrv's suggestion for those involved in future money bombs to take a look at the planning threads, much can be learned by going through those discussions and efforts as well as some of the other brainstorming and lessons learned post-MB events and perhaps even the theme voting threads.

Two things I'll say that we learned through the process in 2012 is; One make sure to allow for lots of time before the event to create and/or establish/setup whatever promotional tools or assets that will be utilized, a good rule of thumb is one month before the event for most of the upfront work you will want completed to allow promoters to do their thing, this means ideally the theme and MB date should be figured out well before then. This first point becomes very challenging as MBs in 2011/2012 were a month to month affair and although the grassroots are very good at reacting quickly its still important to try and have enough lead time to allow for everything that needs to happen before the event date, in some ways it maybe a good idea to have a core group begin to discuss themes and dates, branding and tools perhaps as side conversations for the next MB even while the current one is still going on and perhaps involve the larger community for input, or if possible try planning out a number of the fundraising events in advance.

Secondly for grassroots driven MBs do not rely on the official campaign to provide successful themes or organizational direction in general, I know for some this may seem counter intuitive, but between FEC hurdles and the simple fact that when it comes to creativity and MBs the grassroots has out performed previous official-campaign-only run MBs the results are clear, and arguably the success and strength comes from the grassroots in these types of fundraising efforts. For example we noticed in 2012 that MBs (run by the official campaign only) in Jan. and in Mar., when the grassroots did not plan, organize and run the MBs, failed miserably in comparison to grassroot run efforts that the official campaign later adopted in terms of theme and name, just something to keep in mind.

Edit: Oh also before I forget there were a few points SpecsAreGood made a couple of weeks ago (in response to a RandPac MB this month that ironically failed to reach it's goal) in a post on making successful MBs that are important to consider -

3. A variety of banner ads, quips, slogans for people to use in profiles, signatures and to tweet.
4. An antagonist (ties into #3) The best moneybombs were in response to a specific slight, historical event or general antagonist.
eg: black this out, Kentucky fight, fifth of November, tea party
*with the federal reserve/yellen fighting the audit and the history of the creature itself, there is plenty of material here to make some fun themes/memes to get people excite about this type of moneybomb. this also ties into #1 (lead time) give the community a chance to use their creativity to create these for you.

5. Entertaining. the moneybombs worked in large measure because they were entertaining/fun. it wasn't just giving money away.

We followed these concepts when building the NoOneButPaul web site and although I didn't like or vote for the InItToWinIt theme chosen by RPF vote for April 2012 we did our best to also follow the above points for that one as well when it came to branding and imagery. For example, videos made by GHoeberX:





Also being nostalgic here are a couple videos from 2007 that come to mind.

[Warlord]

I really think Nov 5th and Dec 16th should be reserved for moneybombs. Maybe 2-3 more before this and that's it.. too many will spoil them... also best wait for Rand to announce before actively planning

[Mr.NoSmile]

Surely Paul will other resources and avenues for money than money bombs, though. I mean, a million here or there isn't going to do much against Bush's deep pockets.

[Warlord]

Surely Paul will other resources and avenues for money than money bombs, though. I mean, a million here or there isn't going to do much against Bush's deep pockets.

No. Rand is going to need the grassroots moneybombs to raise millions and pay for tv in IA and NH. it's that simple. He wont have big money from other sources

[Mr.NoSmile]

Then he's not really going to have much to be able to compete with because grassroots can only give so much and when totals aren't reached, people either become disillusioned or start pointing fingers while other candidates can just rake in money from large backers.

[Warlord]

Then he's not really going to have much to be able to compete with because grassroots can only give so much and when totals aren't reached, people either become disillusioned or start pointing fingers while other candidates can just rake in money from large backers.

Ron had plenty of cash to get on tv and that's all that matters. Rand needs millions from the grassroots to purchase ad buys in Iowa and NH which can be expensive. Ron raised 5 million in one day! Rand needs that sort of response.

[Uriah]

We shouldn't have advertised goals for the money bombs. If we do, keep it small and easily attainable.

[William Tell]

I don't know if they will work as well for Rand as they did for Ron. Rand's campaign is going to a bit more mainstream in nature. He's hoping to raise money from the tech world for example. Certainly he needs the grassroots money. But I'm not sure that the money bomb strategy is going to pull through for him as well. I hope it does, it would be great if he got the best of both worlds.

Does anyone else have a guess as to whether Rand will rake in more with money bombs than Ron did? I kind of have a hard time believing that.

[Brett85]

I don't know if they will work as well for Rand as they did for Ron. Rand's campaign is going to a bit more mainstream in nature. He's hoping to raise money from the tech world for example. Certainly he needs the grassroots money. But I'm not sure that the money bomb strategy is going to pull through for him as well. I hope it does, it would be great if he got the best of both worlds.

I have the same concern. I don't think that Rand will be able to raise nearly as much money as Ron did through the money bombs. I hope I'm wrong, but a lot of the hardcore, uncompromising libertarians who donated to Ron won't be donating to Rand this time around.

[Uriah]

^^^ If Rand appeals to more people then I think he could pull in more money. I wouldn't bank on it though.

[William Tell]

I have the same concern. I don't think that Rand will be able to raise nearly as much money as Ron did through the money bombs. I hope I'm wrong, but a lot of the hardcore, uncompromising libertarians who donated to Ron won't be donating to Rand this time around.

^^^ If Rand appeals to more people then I think he could pull in more money. I wouldn't bank on it though.

Well, and the questions is will the new people who support Rand latch onto the money bomb idea? It was a new thing unique to Ron's diverse group of supporters.

[KingNothing]

It would be interesting to see how much Rand typically pulls in when he requests money for end-of-the-quarter pushes, and other random causes.
I'd suggest that we could use that information to ballpark how much we could expect to get with the first moneybomb, which, I think, should probably be planned for April 7 if he is seriously going to announce on that date.

[limequat]

I really think Nov 5th and Dec 16th should be reserved for moneybombs. Maybe 2-3 more before this and that's it.. too many will spoil them... also best wait for Rand to announce before actively planning

I respectfully disagree. Rand is actively courting the big "establishment" donors: Murdoch, Adelson, Koch Bros, etc. The establishment folk don't want Rand, but they don't want to back a loser either. If Rand can raise enough money in the first quarter, he will force their hands: Back a winner, or throw money at a losing candidate. If early fundraising is low, it will just further their resolve to push a Bush/Walker/Christie neocon. Moral of the story, we are not trying to raise enough to outspend the establishment, we are trying to jump start the campaign to become the establishment.

To this end, planning can't start early enough.

[Uriah]

Some dates to think about as we plan:

April 13: Thomas Jefferson's birthday
April 15: Tax Day
May 25: Memorial day
June 1: statehood day(Kentucky)
June 6: D day
July 4: Independence day
August 6: Voting Rights Act turns 50
November 30: Cyber Monday

We should shy away from the term "money bomb". It's a fundraiser.

[Warlord]

I like tax day to kick things off

[Bastiat's The Law]

Shouldn't we be focused on winning CPAC before anything?

[Warlord]

Shouldn't we be focused on winning CPAC before anything?

Yes... but a tax day moneybomb seems appealing.

[eleganz]

Nevermind...I said first day announcement money bomb would be good but thinking about it again, we wouldn't want to draw money away from Rand's main coffers, maybe a week or two down the line would be great to keep him in the news cycle as the most serious contender (aside from Jeb..sigh...)

Anyway, if anybody is going to take this on, I can refer a fellow support to make videos, he's done this and I'm sure he would have an open mind and most likely would do it.

[Sentinelrv]

Something to consider, I seem to remember the campaign saying that the money raised on December 16th came too late for them to really make effective use of the funds, so I think it's going to be important to put more emphasis on the money bomb prior to Tea Party 15. I remember 11/11/11 being a disappointment and it's probably the one that we should have been focusing on so the campaign would have had the money accounted for and a plan to use it in Iowa and NH. November 5th seems like the more inspiring date, (Given its past history) but I'll leave that to you guys to decide.

[Uriah]

They say every dollar donated Early is worth five times every dollar donated late.

[Okaloosa]

What about a grassroots website with pledges of donations for after Rand announces that include checks as well as online donations.

[Bastiat's The Law]

Something to consider, I seem to remember the campaign saying that the money raised on December 16th came too late for them to really make effective use of the funds, so I think it's going to be important to put more emphasis on the money bomb prior to Tea Party 15. I remember 11/11/11 being a disappointment and it's probably the one that we should have been focusing on so the campaign would have had the money accounted for and a plan to use it in Iowa and NH. November 5th seems like the more inspiring date, (Given its past history) but I'll leave that to you guys to decide.

Good point. Winning Iowa and NH is vitally important to a candidate like Rand, who needs to establish credibility as a serious contender; do that and big money donors will take notice. Does anyone see a scenario where Rand wins the nomination without winning one or both of these states? I don't.

[orenbus]

Good point. Winning Iowa and NH is vitally important to a candidate like Rand, who needs to establish credibility as a serious contender; do that and big money donors will take notice. Does anyone see a scenario where Rand wins the nomination without winning one or both of these states? I don't.

No and in fact remembering the amount of effort that was focused on Iowa in 2011 by the campaign/supporters gave some a good indicator of the chances and after the results came in it was apparent to some (even perhaps those in the official campaign) that the chances to win the nomination dropped considerably, while a victory in that state could have solidified the argument of legitimacy in his favor, and set the tempo for the rest of the campaign.

Even in 2007 while the grassroots including myself were running around not really knowing what we were doing, but full of energy, in NH I noticed that something was wrong prior to the primary while going door to door canvasing in that state weeks leading up to it. Although many people in the community including the official campaign were saying we were fine, I had a sense that we weren't.

Enough can't be said about the importance of securing victory in the first two states and what that means for the entire election, it's sad to say but unfortunately the entire process almost hinges on these especially for candidates that aren't considered establishment favorites.

"New Hampshire is the key to winning" ~ Rand Paul 2007