Mediaboss Marketing

When Clinton launched her campaign in April, her staff -- armed with the list of 2.5 million email addresses from the former secretary of state's failed 2008 campaign -- hit send on their first 2016 message.

The realization they received shortly after that stunned them: Less than 100,000 of Clinton's 2008 emails addresses were still active and usable.

Teddy Goff, Clinton's top digital strategist, had thought going into the campaign that around 1 million of the 2008 emails would still be active. But the realization that only a fraction of those emails still worked was a slightly sour point on an otherwise "successful" day for the campaign, he said.

RELATED: The fundraising scoreboard: A look at the 2016 field's war chest

"It wasn't as if we all kind of retreated into a bunker to drown our sorrows or anything like that," Goff said Wednesday. "In the midst of that day, discovering that we were really rebuilding a list virtually from scratch, it was a realization that there was going to be a tough road ahead."

To respond to this problem, Goff and the campaign launched what they dubbed The "Hillbuilder Project," an internal campaign push that urged all staff members to think about and act on how they could build the campaign's email list. Goff called building the email list the "the single highest priority, for now" on the tech and digital side of the campaign.

Signs were put up around the Brooklyn headquarters that read, "What are you doing to grow the list today?" Organizers in New Hampshire, Iowa and other states were urged to get emails from everyone they spoke with and add them to the database. And at an all staff meeting on June 12, the day before Clinton's first big rally in New York, campaign manager Robby Mook included list building as one of the campaign's top three priorities for the summer.

RELATED: Donald Trump: 'Our country's going to hell'

"This is not just a digital thing," Goff said, "this is a campaign priority."

The campaign's goal, Goff added, was to provide "relevant content" and allow people to connect with the campaign so that they can "provide an experience that people are going to like."

Go here to read the rest:
Hillary Clinton's 'highest priority': Email addresses ...