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In the 1970s, I was volunteered by my mom to help hand out voting literature for The League of Women Voters. I don’t have exact figures, but I noticed that more people took the materials when we asked “Are you going to vote?” than when we said, “Do you want some literature? ”

What does voting have to do with marketing?

Making a public commitment increases the chances that someone will do something. In fact, according to a recent Marketing Sherpa article (October 14, 2008), a social scientist named Anthony Greennwald conducted a scientific survey of this phenomenon in 1987.

He found that if he asked potential voters on the eve of the election whether they would vote (and why or why not), they all said they would, and 86.7% of them actually did, compared to 61.5% of the general populace.

IMPROVE YOUR MARKETING STRATEGY: Just say yes

If you want people to donate to your cause, have them stand up and say so. If you use an order form in your direct marketing package, put a big “YES!, I want to order” at the top.