Tips for Political Campaign Strategies

For a successful political campaign, remember to allocate 20% of your effort towards strategy and 80% towards implementation. To ensure you're on the right track, start planning that 20% strategy right from the beginning. By doing so, you'll set yourself up for success and create a roadmap to follow.

Starting your Campaign

In short, the earlier you start campaigning, the better. The best politicians are always managing their distributed organizing campaigns by building relationships, figuring out their future campaign stance based on what they hear, and so on. However, if we are talking about your upcoming election then we will want to start assembling your team and figuring out your campaign strategy as early as is allowable. All of your campaign elements like donations, number of campaign team members, voters contacted, etc. will benefit from having a longer lead time.
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Action tip: Set a countdown clock to election day that reminds you of how long you have left to convince your electorate.

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1. Competitor Analysis

Competitor analysis is essential in any contest. A good understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of your opponents can give you a huge advantage in building your campaign messaging, and campaign strategies, in head-to-head debates, and in undermining their campaign message when necessary.
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Action tip: Develop your competitor analysis worksheet to capture where you stand in relation to other candidates in the race. On a spreadsheet list strengths and weaknesses of all candidates including yourself. On the same spreadsheet itemize each candidate's position on the key topics in the election. In this way, you will clarify where you are strong, and where you are vulnerable and be clear about your campaign messaging in relation to your competitors.

2. Understanding the Political Landscape

Before any political campaign strategy is put to paper, it is worthwhile really considering the political landscape that the election will be fought. Is it a time of reactionary politics where liberal ideas will not be well received? Are the demographics of the area changing, bringing in a more urban or progressive cohort that might resist conservative ideas? Is there a particularly hot-button topic like immigration that is dominating the political discourse? Are you an incumbent politician who is tainted by something that has happened or had to happen during your administration? Will you need to go on the offensive against your competitors for this reason, or will you be fighting a defensive campaign?
Remember, if you can understand what voters think and you understand the way in which media narratives dictate or undermine what voters think, then you have a much better base from which to develop your election strategy.

3. Digital Tools

Political campaign software is a powerful way to take your campaign to the next level. There are a variety of political campaign tools your campaign strategy will benefit from. They are usually based around giving your team a better shape and organization, or they are designed to improve your ability to communicate. We have put together a detailed list of the top tools that we hear campaigns using and can be used in the place of political party management software.

4. Field Organizing

For most political campaign strategies, field campaigning is a must. Whether this is done door-to-door or through ‘hot-spot canvassing’ in the community, it is proven to be an effective form of voter persuasion and GOTV strategy. Field organizing strategy needs to be built by someone who has experience with voter targeting, canvassing techniques, and the tools that facilitate this. At a minimum, you will want to get a return on the investment of time and money put into fieldwork translated into votes.

5. Getting Voter Data

Acquiring voter data for your voter file should be straightforward but often is not. There are a number of places where you can begin your search for data. Your local authority should be able to provide you with a digital version of the electoral register. If not, ask them why not? You might be able to get a file from party sources (if you are a political party member) that has been worked on over time. Otherwise, you might be able to purchase voter data from a third-party vendor (if this is legal in your jurisdiction). Failing all of these, a property register can suffice for getting started in building a voter database.

6. Voter Targeting

Quick question, do you know how many voters there are in your district? Do you know how many are likely to vote, or who are likely to vote for your competitor? Having answers to these questions will really help you refine your political campaign strategy and to begin your voter targeting work from the voter databases you have assembled. No campaign expects to communicate with everyone in their district. Ideally, you will segment your audience and just speak to those people who are likely to vote and who are either your supporters or could be convinced to vote for you. If that group of people isn’t big enough to get you elected then you should consider pulling out of the race!
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Action tip: Check your voter file for any indications of propensity to vote and previous voting history or support level for your candidacy. If you don’t have this, you are likely to waste a lot of time in your campaign learning about your electorate rather than persuading them.

7. Capturing Voter Issues

Everyone running for office has a ‘sense’ of what the electorate thinks, and they usually try to respond to that understanding of voter issues with campaign messaging in order to represent those views. All of this is great, but in a digital era, it is possible to be a bit more rigorous about this and to capture voter issues in a way that accurately reflects those concerns and helps the campaign team. There are a number of ways this can be done, like online surveys, face-to-face canvassing, market research and social media interaction. The critical thing is to have a codified way of capturing raw data into tags or hashtags for example. Having a way of tagging conversations with #education or #guncontrol will give your team a way to understand the entirety of voter outreach in a simplified way.
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Action tip: Community engagement and data capturing is made easier with the Ecanvasser Go App. This flexible and easy-to-use mobile app allows your team to capture data anywhere, even offline!

8. Funding Models

Ok, so assuming you don’t want to remortgage your house to gamble on an election run you will need some strategy for getting campaign funding. The smartest bit of research you can do is to copy what similar campaigns do in your district. This will help you to avoid breaking any campaign funding rules while using tried and tested methods of generating revenue. Fundraising events, party stipends, and donation buttons on your website are all common ways to raise money.
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Action tip: Set up your core campaign budget based on your lowest projections for donations/funding. Anything you raise above this figure you can channel into scalable campaign spending like digital ads, billboards, paid canvassers, etc.

9. Who to Hire?

A big question for any candidate or campaign is “Who to hire?”. This will be dictated by your budget but should also be based on getting the right person for the type of campaign you are running. You might be running a local campaign that needs someone with local knowledge and good contacts. Or, you might be running a larger campaign that requires a higher level skill-set based on media appearances and voter polling? Key positions include campaign manager, campaign consultant, digital director, field director and finance director. All, in their own way, are valuable, but only you will know what you can afford and which might give you the best return.
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Action tip: Match your budget with how many of those seats you can fill. Remember you may be able to fill some of those roles from your own (voluntary) team.

10. Working on GOTV Strategy

Critical to your campaign strategy as a whole will be your election day and ‘get out the vote’ political campaign strategy. Think about how you are going to mobilize your supporters on polling day and what information you will need to have collected in order to do so. Capturing voting intention from voters can be done during canvassing and used on election day. Understanding where your stronghold areas are can help you to do targeted work in those areas in the run-up to election day. Equally, any target demographics (like Veterans, or union members) can be targeted with advertising, email blasts or face-to-face.

Action tip: Write out hour-by-hour what you are going to do on election day to get out the vote. Then write out what resources (including information resources you will need to achieve this). Now you know what you will need to do during your campaign if you are to have a successful GOTV operation.

11. Online Properties

Your online properties - website and social media pages - will need to work hard for you to maximize your campaign strategies. Setting them up can be time-consuming and expensive so be very clear from the beginning about what you need. Some basic functionality includes a bio section, campaign messaging, a donation button, volunteer signup, and links to your social media properties. There are numerous website providers specifically for political campaigns, a list of which you can get in the resource below. There are also companies like NationBuilder and Crowdskout that provide website builders as part of their packages. Your social media profiles, Facebook Page, Twitter accounts, Instagram, etc. should fill in your campaign updates, and responses to what is happening on the campaign trail, as well as provide brand awareness. It will be important to resource your digital campaign with people that have experience influencing voters online.
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Action tip: Check out our blog on social media for campaigns.

12. Voter Outreach

Voter outreach is comprised of canvassing, phone-banking, town halls and public appearances, and email or digital communications. So pretty broad then! The idea when composing a voter outreach strategy is to balance the amount of outreach you can do with the resources that you have. You may have to be pragmatic about how many voter contacts can be achieved but you should have a plan for how you will attack each of these areas. In some cases, one type of outreach may be more effective than others (tip: canvassing is the most effective method of getting votes), and in other cases, voter outreach might be dictated by the resources at your disposal.
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Action tip: Request a plan of action from each of your outreach managers, i.e., your campaign manager, field director and digital director. Each plan should be based on the number of weeks to election day.

13. Public Appearances

Public appearances are a staple of political campaigning. Whether it is media interviews, political debates, or just community meetings, you will be required to communicate with groups of people regularly. There are some simple tips that you should get clear in your campaign strategy from day one. Firstly, how much exposure can you get through public appearances? And secondly, do you know what to do when you get them?
It is recommended to have approximately 3 points that you want to deliver in your speech and to treat your interviewer/audience as your peer. In this way, you should be able to communicate effectively with anyone.
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Action tip: Get media training at the beginning of your campaign and read our top tips on 'How To Write A Political Speech'. Failing that, if you are an Ecanvasser customer talk to us to get feedback on your technique.

14. Personal branding

Like it or not, the campaign is personal. As a candidate, you embody the values of the campaign and you need to represent that in your public persona and throughout your entire political campaign strategy. Don’t be afraid to take strong positions with your political views and don’t be too politic. Voters want to see personality and for that personality to be consistent across social media, public appearances and campaign messaging. It is important to discuss the personal branding of the candidate at the beginning of the campaign so it is strategic and proactive, rather than just responding to what happens on the campaign trail.
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Action tip: Research your audience, and set out your personal brand in terms of backstory and current positions. Have a kick-off meeting with your campaign team where you explain to them the personal brand that you are all working with.

15. Campaign Team Onboarding

Your campaign team size will have a significant impact on your ability to campaign successfully. It is an important strategic element to aim for the highest possible number of volunteers and paid members of your campaign (that you can afford or that you have the ability to manage). Team onboarding drives can take place online or when meeting supporters but a system should be in place to take someone from declaring an interest in becoming a team member, right through to having them onboarded very quickly. This process can be handled through email if the system is in place. Additionally, don't forget to look within your network or a volunteer's network and begin relational organizing to mobilize your canvassing team and various campaign strategies.
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Action tip: Build a template email that can be sent to anyone who declares an interest (and whose email is captured). This template email will include requisite information plus an invite to either a campaign onboarding meeting that takes place weekly, or to a campaign team software like Ecanvasser. If you would like a template email just request it from us in the chat box below.

16. Combating Fake News

Fake news, misinformation, lies, whatever you want to call it, has been around forever in political campaigns and it will continue to be. Being able to respond to it means you will need to have a social media presence and a public presence. Otherwise, you will be unable to counteract the false information.  Politicians need to be able to respond to accusations of fake news quickly and to provide hard evidence where necessary to refute those claims.
If your campaign feels that somebody is spreading fake news about you then it is advisable to challenge that publicly and get out ahead of the story. If you have developed your social media presence you may find you are able to lead the conversation rather than react to what is happening.
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Action tip: Assemble a list of possible areas of misinformation that the campaign might come up against and develop clear responses to these or have clear campaign messages for those areas. Make sure you have good social media channels that have connections to media outlets and social influencers.

17. Campaign Messaging

Campaign messaging needs to be developed on each issue area with background information, the candidate’s track record in this area and their plan for that area in the coming years, this is integral to your overall political campaign strategy.
Once all of these have been filled out the overall campaign message that incorporates the personal brand of the candidate can be developed. Remember to be distinctive, your campaign messaging can be the same as your opponents but it does need to be delivered differently.

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