of Delegates in 1994. At that time, if I wanted to connect with voters, I had
three options. Direct Mail, Door Knocking and Doing Media Buys. For the most
part media buys are just too expensive, and when running for State Senate or
State House of Delegates or County Council you will over-shoot your district.
Direct Mail was good but you need to do three mailers before most voters start
paying any attention. Door knocking was the most economical way to connect with
voters, along with fairs and other events. I probably spent the bulk of my resources on direct mail and
door knocking, (there really is no substitute for door knocking). However, I
did get talked into doing a $2,500 radio buy for 7 spots. (Biggest Waste of
Money!!!). But if you are running countywide or statewide, it is worth doing
some media buys right before the elections. Fast forward to 1998: Most candidates were starting to use this
new-fangled gizmo called the world wide web. Most of the first generation of
campaign websites were cyber billboards along with some bio links and position
papers. Former Michigan Congressman Dick Chrysler made the most effective use
of the web in 1998, and his site was updated twice a week (Yeah, twice a week, how
times have changed). His website included a bio, press releases, position
papers and a few pictures from events. Today, we have many options that are more effective than mass
media buys, direct mail and just door knocking. Targeted email and social media
advertisements are now available at a much lower price point than direct mail.
We can develop sophisticated walk books, targeting just the Republicans. We
also do high-targeted Facebook ads that will be visible only to people in your
districts. And we can do YouTube ads for a fraction of the cost of traditional
media buys. IMPORTANT NOTE: A good digital
campaign can be done at 1/3 the cost of traditional direct mail just as a
targeted YouTube ad can be done at ¼ the price of traditional TV &
radio variety.
Let’s dive into the happy world of your Digital Campaign Plan
Digital Campaign Plan
WEBSITE
Have a Real Website, since there are so many great ContentManagement Systems (CMS) to choose from:
o WordPress
o Drupal
o Joomla
o Umbraco
o SharePoint
Don’t be a miser. Pay someone to do a professional job, becausethe last thing you want is a website that looks like someone’s nephew did for
free. The advantage of a CMS is that once the site has been built, anyone on
the campaign who can use MS Word can make updates to the page. Your website
should be updated daily, since new content will increase traffic to your
website. If you can’t do it daily, here’s a suggested schedule: Monday,
recap weekend events; Wednesday update, talk about what happened since Monday
and highlight weekend events; Friday, reaffirm weekend events, as well as push
for volunteers to attend events. When you design your website, keep it consistent with your
political collateral, since you don’t want to be the campaign where everything
looks different, and you look like a rank amateur. THIS ISN’T THE IMAGE YOU
WANT. Develop the plan down to the Authority Line (AGAIN YOUR WEBSITE MUST HAVE
AUTHORITY LINE). When collecting donor info for online donations, ask for name,
address, phone, occupation and email. (One, you need all this for reporting
Name, Address, Occupation. You want the phone and Email to build your lists.)
Things you MUST HAVE on your website
· Ability for people todownload your palm card · Ability to download position
documents · Ability to sign up to
volunteer
· Media Content
· Donate Link
· Links to all Social Media
· Sign up form
· Phone Number and Addressof Campaign office, (DON’T use your home address)
Website Check
Pick a webhosting provider -+ I recommend Bluehost.com,HostGator, dreamhost.com, Godaddy.com, codero.com or RackSpace.com) NOTE: I use RackSpace and Codero for my professional
business and I use BlueHost for my associations. PICK A CMS (NationBuilder, Drupal, WordPress, Joomla, Umbraco,
SharePoint) Pick a theme – Pay for the theme – Don’t get a free one.
However, if you want a Free Theme, the best one is tesseracttheme.com, if you
want to pay for a theme themeforest.com, teslathemes.com and themify.me have
great selections) Hire your developer, make your deadline clear, nail down costs
for initial development and updates. Make sure you have all the passwords and emails and logins for
your domain, hosting provider and CMS.
Social Media
You want to be on social media, and yet you don’t want to be onevery social media out there. Stick to the Big Four (Facebook, Twitter,
LinkdIn, and Instagram). You may want to have a Google Group as well, but this
isn’t as important as the big five. Start with the Big Four. Your target audience will weigh heavily
on what social media network is best for you to start with. Regardless of what
networks you choose, focus on learning your audience patterns, lingo, and
habits. Take that understanding to inform your social media strategy.
likes up early, always link new content from your website to this page. Add
pictures of all your events on your FB Page as well as links to your position
papers. On Facebook, take advantage of Facebook ads where you can have
your email lists run against Facebook members. With this information, you will
be able to target Facebook ads only to people who vote in your district.
campaign. Things you should tweet are events where the candidate will be
attending, fundraisers, position paper updates, press releases, successful fundraisers,
donate to campaign (Money Bomb) . Don’t tweet things like what the candidate had for dinner. This
may be funny but again, it looks like amateur hour. That is what Instagram is
for.
link to your press and position documents. LinkedIn data is different because
members have professional incentives to keep their profiles accurate and up-to-
date. Use real member-generated demographic data to reach the right
audience: job title, company, industry, seniority, and more. This makes
LinkedIn great for highly accurate targeting.
is truly a reflection of the impact and influence Instagram can have when used
correctly. It is no wonder that Instagram is one of the top apps used today and
especially popular among a younger crowd. While it is a lot of fun to use with
a personal account, Instagram is a unique social media platform to promote your
organization and can be used as an advocacy campaign tool. Instagram is also a great advocacy campaign tool to use to
attract a younger audience. It boasts an ever growing community of over 300
million users who share close to 60 million photos every day. While Facebook
and other social media platforms are beneficial when trying to reach a diverse,
mainly older audience, more than half of Instagram users fall into the 18-29
age demographic. In fact, it has overtaken Facebook and Twitter as the platform
with the largest population of younger users. In addition to age, Instagram has
the most equally diverse audience compared to frequently used social media
platforms when it comes to education, income, gender, and location. Remember, anytime you want to use it, just like Twitter and Facebook,
frequent posts keep your volunteers & supporters updated and are the
main reason to invest time in social media.
Final Thoughts
In 2017, you should be putting your digital campaign together, so that New Year’s Day 2018 you can send out a Tweet to your supporters, as well as posting on LinkedIn and Facebook that you are running and we have 309 days to Election Day. It is June, and you have plenty of time to tweak your digital plan if you find something isn’t working. You don’t want to be doing this in January 2018.
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to digitalcampaigns. My next column, Part Two, will discuss how to make use of mailing
lists to raise money, Internet Activism on Blogs, and how to target YouTube
Ads.
I have additional resources and textbooks on digital campaigning, so please feel free to contact me at dwight@PoliticalArchitects.com.