A range on consultants discuss their experience with the medium and its growing reach. The authors note that the Internet is a great communications tool to contact issue supporters and to keep them informed. Although decision makers do not seem to weigh email messages as heavy as phone calls, faxes or personal letters, the foundation of any online campaign, it appears, is a good email list. An email list can be used to mobilize supporters for fundraising, crowd-creation and such during a campaign. The Gilmore team also encouraged supporters to forward email newsletters to personal email lists and to attach personal messages at the top.
Email is also much cheaper than direct surface mail and broadcast advertising.
Email is not the only way to reach people. A website needs to be more than an online version of a campaign's brochure. Websites can include online polls, tax calculators, and games that emphasize a campaign's messages. They can also capture supporter contact information. Juno provides free Internet service to members who agree to provide extensive demographic and psychographic information which is used primarily to target advertising at them.