Welcome to TurboVote! We’re grateful to have you as a partner, and excited to help you reach voters.
Set up Your Account Administrators
At least one member of your team has been provided with Admin Console access as part of your site creation process, which they can use to see key analytics about your TurboVote site(s). This person should set up their credentials within four days of receiving their invitation to log in (after which time the invite will expire), and begin to familiarize themselves with the tool. If you would like to add additional Admins, be sure to send their full name(s) and email address(es) to your Support Representative. Reference the TurboVote Data Dictionary to learn more about what each data point in the console means.
Decide on Linking vs. Embedding
A key factor in how you’ll approach your TurboVote implementation is whether you’ll be directing your audience to your TurboVote site with a link (i.e., [yoursite].turbovote.org) or embedding TurboVote on your own website (i.e., [yoursite].org/vote). Embedding enables your audience to get help with voting directly from your website and generates return traffic to your site via links in TurboVote reminders. Our embed code is lightweight and easy to use, but if you aren’t working with a web team, promoting your TurboVote destination site is as easy as adding a link to TurboVote on your website or in emails, social media posts, etc. Some partners opt to use both of these methods to engage their audience, while others rely entirely on one or the other. While we generally recommend embedding TurboVote in order to have the most impact and visibility, we also understand that this option doesn’t work for everyone. Think through the best solution for your audience.
If you don’t already have them, you can request your embed code recommendations at any time.
Share Tools with Your Developers
If you have software developers as part of your team, there are resources they can use to help make your TurboVote implementation even more customized to your needs. Reference the Developer Tools section of the Support Center as you plan your TurboVote strategy together.
Identify Elections That May Impact Your Audience
Whether you’re a national nonprofit organization serving all 50 states plus DC, a small community college with mostly locally-voting students, a business that is supporting employees to participate in elections wherever they’re based, or have some other makeup, it can be helpful to get a sense of which elections may be of interest to your audience so that you can engage them in using TurboVote accordingly.
Democracy Works, the 501(c)(3) organization of which TurboVote is a product, provides quality-assured elections and voting information for you to do just this. Reference our Elections Calendars to find out more! You can also use the search tool at the top of your TurboVote site home page to find these elections by entering your address or state.
Onboard with Your Support Representative
You have a dedicated Support Representative who is ready to help you make the most of TurboVote. This person has likely already reached out to you to schedule time to meet and hold an onboarding session with you and your implementation team. Be sure to take this opportunity to connect with your representative, talk through any strategic, technical, or other questions you may have about TurboVote, and to learn more about specific aspects of the product that will be helpful as you’re making plans to integrate it into your voter engagement work.
Our team is also always available at partnerships@democracy.works.
Share TurboVote with Your Audience
When you’re ready, spread the word that TurboVote is available for your audience! This can take several forms depending on your goals, but a few ways to go about it include:
- Post on relevant social media channels directing people to sign up and learn more about upcoming elections and how to participate
- Send an email or newsletter to your audience encouraging them to use TurboVote
- Talk about TurboVote in meetings, civic events, and other in-person gatherings and use QR codes to help attendees easily navigate to your site
Review Your Impact
After you’ve started reaching voters, log in to the Admin Console to take a look at this activity. Which referral codes are being used the most by your audience? Are your users registering to vote in particular locations that you should be focusing on as part of your engagement? These and other data points will help inform your strategy and planning as you continue to use TurboVote.
More Tips
- Announce your partnership with TurboVote as soon as you get started and encourage your audience to sign up. Focus on voter registration between August through September, and then shift to get out the vote from October through Election Day each year. Of course if there are primaries and special elections you’re focused on or other considerations, adjust this schedule as needed!
- Integrate TurboVote into activities, processes, and websites where your audience already is present and thus more likely to engage. Have a voter registration drive during college orientation week, encourage your new employees to sign up for TurboVote election reminders when they’re doing their own onboarding, and embed TurboVote at frequently-visited pages of your website.
- Be consistent in driving your audience to TurboVote. This both helps people find your site on a regular basis, and also can help to instill a habit of voter participation.