There are so many campaign election ideas out there. But the question arises, which ones are the most effective?
As the election day draws near, political campaigns look for ways to get in touch with their supporters. Here, successful campaigning can be extremely important in winning over voters’ hearts and establishing an emotional bond.
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Modern political campaigns operate differently now, thanks to the growth of social networks and mobile devices. We’ll look at the best election campaign ideas to help you reach voters in the most effective way possible.
What’s a Political Election Campaign?
A political campaign is a well-organized effort to influence decision-making within a specific group. Political campaigns are frequently used in democracies to refer to electoral campaigns in which representatives are elected or referendums are decided.
Contemporary politics’ most prominent election campaign ideas center on general elections and contenders. Such as those for the head of state or head of government, frequently a president or prime minister.
How to Choose the Campaign Message?
The campaign’s message contains the candidate’s ideas that they want to share with the voters. It is used to persuade those who share their opinions to support them when they run for office.
The message frequently includes several talking points regarding political subjects. To leave a lasting impression on the electorate, the points often reiterate the key aspects of the campaign.
In many elections, the opposing party will attempt to “off-message” the candidate by raising issues of policy or personal interest unrelated to the talking points. Most campaigns prefer to keep their message general to reach the greatest number of potential voters. An excessively specific message may turn off voters or cause the candidate to take longer to clarify things.
For instance, in the 2008 American presidential election, John McCain used the message “Country First” to emphasize his sense of patriotism and political expertise. Later, the message was modified to highlight his status as “The Original Maverick” within the political establishment. Throughout his campaign, Barack Obama maintained the same straightforward, unchanging message of “change.”
Techniques Used for Political Campaigns
A campaign team must think about how to spread the campaign’s message, find volunteers, and collect money. This team could be as little as one motivated individual or a large team of professionals.
Campaign advertising uses elements of politainment, a kind of entertainment and public relations that combines elements of propaganda, commercial advertising, and entertainment. The legislation, the available resources, and the participants’ creativity all restrict the channels political campaigns can use to spread their views. The campaign plan is a formal strategy that frequently combines these tactics.
The strategy considers a campaign’s objective, messaging, target market, and available resources. Typically, the campaign will work to find supporters while also spreading its message. Aaron Burr invented the modern, transparent campaigning process during the 1800 presidential contest in the United States.
Joel Bradshaw, a political scientist, identifies four fundamental ideas in creating an effective campaign plan.
- There are 3 types of voters that can be identified in any election: the supporters of the candidate, the supporters of the opposition, and the undecided.
- It is possible to identify the individuals that belong to each of these groups using information from previous election results, voter registration records, survey research and media monitoring.
- Obtaining the support of everyone is neither feasible nor required
- To succeed, campaigns must focus all of their resources – time, money, and message – on critical voter groups.
Modern Technology and the Internet
Nowadays, a key component of contemporary political campaigns is the internet. For various forms of activism, communication tools like e-mail, websites, podcasts, and videos allow for speedier contact amongst citizen movements and the dissemination of a message to a large audience.
These Internet-based tools are used for organizing, lobbying, community building, volunteering, and fundraising for causes. Additionally, individual political candidates are promoting their election campaigns online. In a study of Norwegian election campaigns, politicians said they interacted with people on social media and exploited it for marketing purposes.
Nowadays, online election campaign information can be shared through landing pages, Google’s snippets, social media open graphs, etc. Now, this information can quickly reach a large audience thanks to technology integration. The 2020 Kerala elections and the 2015 Aruvikkara election both tested and used this successfully.
The first candidate to file for the 2019 mayoral election was Marcus Giavanni, a social media consultant, blockchain developer, and rival for second place in the 2015 Denver mayoral race. Marcus Giavanni contained campaigns using cutting-edge algorithms, artificial intelligence, and voice indexing predictions.
Read 5 Political PR Challenges and How to Handle Them
Election Campaign Ideas You Can Use
#1 Engage with the public via social media and live video
Political social media is now dominated by live video.
Social media video allows politicians to break their own news and engage in real-time dialogues with citizens, acting as a substitute for traditional newscasts.
For instance, many politicians now regularly stream live on Facebook and Instagram to engage with voters and non-voters. Live video enables meaningful and engaging conversations rather than just talking to voters.
Live social video is particularly effective for smaller, local politicians who need to address issues that might not get big news coverage.
Florida House Representative Anna Eskamani has used Facebook Live to tell people about unemployment benefits and other issues throughout the COVID-19 scenario. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez uses Instagram live’s regularly address topics and to inform her voters.
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Live video is perhaps one of the most intriguing social media elements that politicians should utilize, from behind-the-scenes footage to virtual town halls.
#2 Ask and answer questions
On social media, a way to increase engagement is to ask for questions.
And Q&As are the mainstay of political accounts. Asking your followers relevant questions is a quick approach to promote some back-and-forth communication. It also demonstrates your willingness to hear what your supporters have to say.
You can review your questions privately and post the responses to your followers using tools like Instagram Stories. This enables you to publish more insightful comments and provide something voters can refer to later.
Another way to do Q&A’s is via social media live’s. Anna Eskamani is doing weekly live Q&A’s via the platform to communicate with the people regularly, followed by the hashtag #AskAnna.
These Q&A segments can be held in person, or even facilitated by the media.
#3 Influencers
During an election campaign, endorsements from famous people or other powerful figures can increase a candidate’s visibility and legitimacy. A well-known celebrity or someone with a sizable fan base might support a candidate in various ways, including by making public pronouncements, showing up in campaign commercials, or even raising money on the candidate’s behalf.
Obama’s “Yes, we can” was one of the most unusual campaign advertisements to date, and it was only accessible online. The Black Eyed Peas’ Will.i.am and Bob Dylan’s son, Jesse Dylan, produced an advertisement that set music to Obama’s concession address in the New Hampshire primary (after he lost the state to Hilary Clinton).
It has a run of more than 30 famous singers singing his lyrics. When the film was first uploaded to YouTube, it quickly became popular, receiving over 26 million views in a matter of days. It resulted in an online fundraising boom and a fresh wave of energy for Obama’s campaign.
68 percent of the electoral votes went to Obama, who defeated John McCain of the Republican party.
#4 Create a website for your electoral campaign
Building a campaign website is one of the first and most crucial things that every candidate does before an election. The value of having a quality website is enormous and may be the difference between success and failure for some. It frequently serves as the electorate’s initial impression of the candidate, so it must be written to appeal to them.
A good campaign website should be user-friendly yet complex simultaneously, simple but informative, and engaging. It shouldn’t appear hastily put together but shouldn’t be extremely intricate or cluttered. It ought to function as soon as possible. While some politicians choose to market themselves on social media and other channels, many politicians stick to their campaign websites.
This is the webpage for a politician that ran for office in the Public Advocate race in a special election in April 2019. Since this is a high position, several of the competitors have invested a lot of time and money into it.
As a result, one of the candidates, Jumaane Williams, created this website for his campaign. With this website, he sought to stand apart and succeeded in doing so. It is a cutting-edge website with a clean design that exemplifies what Jumaane is all about. Additionally, it has a strong call-to-action button that enables users to engage with the website.
#5 Fundraising
Raise funds to assist your election campaign—one of the most crucial things you must do when running for office. There are numerous approaches you might take, and each has advantages and disadvantages of its own.
Holding fundraising events is a well-liked method of raising money. It may be something straightforward like a meal or party or a bigger event like a concert or auction. Whatever event you choose to host, make sure it is well-organized and that you have a solid marketing plan to spread the news.
Another choice is to ask people or companies for donations. You can do this by distributing letters or emails asking for funds or by creating a website where people can donate. Make careful to explain to potential donors how and what your campaign would benefit from their contributions.
Over the past three months, Pennsylvania Lt. Governor John Fetterman raised $22 million for his Senate campaign, more than doubling his previous fundraising total.
The amount, which came from 330,000 separate donors (most of which were small) marks the Pennsylvania Democratic Senate nominee’s highest fundraising quarter to date and raises his overall cash collection to more than $48 million, according to Fetterman’s campaign.
Candidates who create personal brands based on their distinctive backgrounds and interests are always successful. Sarah Crawford, a candidate for the North Carolina Senate who gained notoriety as an ardent runner, found it difficult to garner support while the COVID-19 pandemic was in effect. It just made sense to have a virtual 5k fun run! Small donations were accepted from Crawford’s fans to sign up for the 5k, which offered runner medals and other benefits.
#6 Get in touch with the media
Journalists are involved in elections by choosing which candidates to cover. Just those decisions may have a significant impact on voters’ perceptions.
As difficult as it may be to accept, Regina Lawrence, executive director of Agora Journalism Center at the University of Oregon SOJC, claimed that name recognition is the primary factor influencing elections. According to research, some candidates may become almost invisible if they fail to pique the media’s interest.
Reach out to the media and make sure they are aware of what you are doing if you want to ensure that your election campaign receives favorable coverage. To inform people of your events and plans, you might contact the local newspapers, radio stations, and TV stations. Press releases are another tool you can use to advertise your campaign. Good media coverage can help your campaign gain momentum and reach more voters.
Sometimes it’s difficult to keep track of which media published your press releases so it’s important to employ a media monitoring tool. A tool that does just that is Determ, which provides you with additional information regarding your online mentions. It gives insight into the impressions they generated, the surrounding sentiment, and a list of online sources that mentioned you.
Here’s how you can draw a list of top influencers by sentiment from Determ, on the example of Raphael Warnock.
Conclusion
Even though it is hard to cover all potential campaign strategies, we have provided an overview of some of the more potent ones. We hope you found it instructive and useful.
If you’d like to find out more on how a media monitoring tool can help you in your election campaign, book a demo with our experts and we’ll find the best way to boost your strategy.