News Focus: Industry - Labour looks to US for election tips

UK political parties are looking across the Atlantic to their US counterparts for expertise in data analysis prior to the forthcoming General Election.

It is understood that Labour, which already uses data analysis for donation and membership purposes, has asked members of the US Democratic Party to help it target voters more accurately in the run-up to the General Election, expected to be held this May.

They will work alongside Labour's in-house data specialists to extrapolate lifestyle data against the Electoral Roll and determine a voting propensity model by constituency.

The Party is expected to support this with telemarketing activity by contact firm Pell and Bales.

A spokesperson for Labour said: "Any telemarketing we do is covered by the Telephone Preference Service. Our marketing activities are primarily about membership - we want as many of our supporters as possible to play their part, and just joining can make a difference."

The Conservative Party is also learning from the US election by investing in the VoterVault system - a web-based system imported from the US Republican Party, which gathers and holds voter information and then detects who is, and who is not a potential supporter.

"This gives us an accurate picture of who votes and how they vote," said a spokesperson for the Conservative Party. "That's very helpful for our campaigning because it stops us from speaking to people who are never going to vote for us."

The party has also set up its own call centres to support its direct mail activity. "We are using the telephone for market research purposes to find out how the British public feel about certain things so we can provide policies that suit their needs. It also gives us a more accurate picture of what affects people."

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