Political Campaign Tips and Strategies by Online Candidate

Get Better Results With Targeted Landing Pages

political landing pages A landing page on your campaign website is simply a page where visitors are redirected from a particular traffic source. This can include campaign emails, social media posts, PPC ads and so on. If you want to get more from your online promotional efforts, it is critical to have a good landing page strategy.

Landing pages have specific purposes. For example, one might be a signup page for a specific campaign event. Another might be donation page tied to a a particular email donation request. Whatever the purpose, every landing page should be designed for a specific purpose – that is, to convert its targeted traffic and cause visitors to take a particular action.

In other words, don’t send all your traffic to your site’s home page.

Another thing about custom landing pages is that they are typically not tied into the website’s navigation. They are designed to be ‘hidden’ from everyone except their intended audience. By creating specific landing pages, you can more easily track the success of a page by conversions (signups or donation through the page) or by analyzing its traffic through your website analytics.

Clients can easily create landing pages through their Online Candidate website administration. Here’s a step-by-step overview of how to do so:

Creating a landing page for your Online Candidate site

Hover your mouse over Tools and Widgets, then over Landing Pages, then select Create Landing Page
First, Determine the type of page this will be:
- How are you creating this page?
  - You Supply All HTML – Use this for pages that will entirely custom. You will provide all of the HTML, not just the content.
  - Templated Page – This will create a page with your existing site’s template. It’s similar to creating a regular site page.
Next, add the landing page information:
- New File Name: [Required Field] – 15 character maximum using letters and numbers only. The file name will appear in the web address. It should reflect the content of the page. For example: choosing the file name landing1 for the page will show as: www.YourDomain.com/landing.html
- Page Title: [Required Field] – This is used to name the file in the system.
- Page Description: Required only if this is a Templated Page.
- Keywords: Required only if this is a Templated Page.After you have filled in the information,
click ‘Create New Landing Page’.
Regenerate your site to make the changes live.

Edit a Landing Page

To view a preview of the page: Click on the links of the name of the page.
To delete a page: Click the delete button.
To edit a page: Select the radio button of landing page you wish to edit and click the ‘Edit this page’ button below.

Edit the page information and content as you want.
When you are finished, click “Edit Landing Page”
Regenerate your site to make the changes live.

From there, you can use the link to your landing page for your specific promotion!

Online Candidate clients have full access to our exclusive resources at OnlineCandidateResources.com. Learn more about our powerful website packages and see why so many candidates and campaigns have used our services for over 10 years!

5 Things Candidates Should Never Do Online

More and more politicians are finding themselves in hot water for things they say or do online. But it doesn’t have to be this way. With a little knowledge, foresight and attention, any political candidate can create and maintain a positive online presence.

Because there are so many potential online pitfalls, let’s focus on the most common mistakes you can make online. These errors often reveal a lack of online savvy and can end up damaging your online reputation.

Assuming you have privacy

First and foremost, anything you ever say, post or share online (or offline) should pass the ‘New York Times Test’. That means, if you wouldn’t be comfortable with what you’ve said or done online appearing on the cover of the New York Times, then don’t do it.

Pretending to be someone else

This happens more frequently then you might think: A local candidate creates several profiles on a local newspaper discussion board and uses them to promote themselves or bash their opponents. If the candidate or supporter is outed for doing this, it just looks bad … and petty.

This kind of thing also happens when the opposition engages in political domain name squatting to create fake and misleading websites. This can come back to hurt you when the truth comes out.

Small aside: While working for a local newspaper, we once ran an online poll about an issue concerning a local politician. The trend that morning was against the mayor, but within a few hours the number of votes skyrocketed and the poll suddenly swung in the mayor’s favor. Suspecting that someone was engaging in multiple votes by deleting browser cookies, we took down the poll. Less than an later, I got a call from the mayor himself asking why the poll had disappeared. I told him that we suspected there was tampering, so it was easier to take down the poll than to go through the trouble to trace and block the people who were messing with the poll. He agreed and let the matter go. Makes you wonder why he was so concerned with an online poll…

Trying to delete material after the fact

It’s not the crime, it’s the coverup that gets politicians in trouble. This occurs often with Twitter or Facebook, though it can happen anywhere, even on a campaign website. In this case, a candidate or elected official makes a crude, rude or insensitive remark. Then they later delete the post and pretend nothing happened. Unfortunately, social media posts can rarely be fully ‘deleted’ and pretending they never existed in the first place is silly.

If you must delete a post, do it, publicly acknowledge that you have done so, and move on.

Letting your accounts die slow, meaningless deaths

If you start a social media account and promote it, you owe it to the people who follow you to keep your content fresh and up to date. People will either forget about you or wonder why they decided to follow you in the first place. Either way, it doesn’t leave a positive impression.

If you have a presence on a discussion board, website or social networking site and later find that you cannot maintain your updates, be sure to let your followers know that you are stopping your updates. If you are moving on, let them know where or how you will be providing future updates.

Spam out

Bombarding supporters (or worse, voters who are not actively following you) with large numbers automated or unwanted messages will only annoy them. This can get you a reputation as a political spammer. Yuck.

The biggest offenders are the campaigns who buy unfiltered email lists and send unsolicited messages. Even though political messages do not technically fall under the CAN-SPAM act and are technically legal – sending untargeted bulk messages is a spammy practice and generally unappreciated by the recipients. Growing your own email list is a much more effective way to build an audience.

Quality over quantity should be the hallmark of your posts, Tweets or email updates. Tools like Hootsuite allow you to automate posts so that they are spread out over time. However, preplanned posts tend to be one-way broadcasts. It takes a personal touch to get voters to know, like and trust a candidate. An endless stream of canned volunteer and donation requests just won’t cut it.

Online Candidate websites include an easy-to-use interface, custom design, and powerful tools to make building your online presence as quick and pain-free as possible. Check out our affordable website packages and get a jump on your opposition.

A Local Political Candidate Fail

Political candidates are often hurt by what they say or do on social media. A single Tweet can get a campaign in hot water. Sometimes, though, doing nothing can also become a problem.

As an example, we’d like to share a story about a campaign fail from a local candidate in our area. The name has been redacted to protect the guilty.

The election was a fairly high-profile race. The campaign had started its own Facebook page, promoted it and built a following of several hundred. and then let it wither and die. The first post was June 19th. The last post was on September 25th.

The election was in November.

So, what happened between the end of September and early November? Did the candidate drop out of the race?

No. She simply stopped posting. Nor was the website ever updated again.

There were no status updates in the weeks leading up to Election Day. There were no get out the vote reminders. Nothing. Social media posts just … stopped. After the election, the website remained unchanged. There was no follow-up message on the home page. No thank-you to supporters. Nothing.

Anyone following that campaign would have had no idea what was going on. Since no email updates were ever sent from the campaign, even die-hard supporters were left out of the loop.

To end the suspense, I’ll tell you that the candidate lost the election.

So, was a bad online campaign the cause of her loss? Probably not. She was running against a well-entrenched incumbent. Still, her poor performance online didn’t help.

There are a couple takeaways from this fail. First, don’t take on more social media than you can handle. If you don’t think you’ll be able to keep up with multiple platforms, then don’t start using them. If you commit to a platform, see it through. Don’t leave voters hanging midway through the campaign. It will look like you are either disorganized, not engaged, or perhaps dropped out of the race.

In the long-term, abandoning social media accounts may open them up to negative posts and comments that could remain indefinitely.

Keep your website up-to-date during and after the election. At the end of the campaign, before you shut everything down, you should at least acknowledge the results of the race and thank your supporters. They deserve it.

Find out more about Online Candidate political website packages. Online Candidate website clients get full access to our political campaign resources and articles.

Special Elections and Voter Turnout

special elections and voter turnout Often the election of a local candidate is decided by just a handful of votes. Low voter turnout tends to occur for special elections or primary elections. Because of this, the winner often is the candidate who can motivate the most voters.

Offline, the most effective ways to get new voters is through canvassing, phone banks and robocalling. Personalizing the contact tends to attract new voters. For example, when I first moved into my new house, a candidate for the town board was personally canvassing door-to-door. I did not know much about the local political landscape at the time. But I remembered the candidate, thought highly of the fact that she took the time to speak to me, and voted for her the following month.

A personal touch can make a huge difference, but it can be difficult, if not impossible for candidates to target all the voters they want to reach. But reaching as many voters as possible – and getting them to actually vote – is critical for success, particularly when the election falls at a time when many voters may not be not fully engaged.

Down-ballot disengagement

Because local elections tend to be at the end of the ballot, many down-ballot candidates and initiatives are often overlooked. With long and complicated ballots, voters may turn in ballots with blanks below a certain point. This is called ballot roll-off. Encouraging voters to take the time to vote specifically for you at the polls or to register and vote absentee at home may help minimize this effect. When election victory comes down to just a handful of votes, this could tip the results one way or another.

Personalizing the contact online

Fortunately, online engagement can be personalized to a high degree. With the right information available, email lists can be segmented, allowing for targeted messaging based on location, gender and issue interest. Facebook advertising allows for even more refined targeting. Adwords pay-per-click campaigns can be targeted right down to a zip code.

Target donors based on their past activity and reaction to specific fundraising campaigns. The more you can learn about specific voters, the better you can engage them with a message that will resonate with them. Use this strategy for additional donations and in your get out the vote efforts.

Target the young vote

Recent presidential elections aside, young voters (18 to 24) pretty much give up their vote to older Americans. Again, online efforts to target youth may be more effective, since you are reaching them where they exist in large numbers. If you are able to target your messaging to specific issues effecting the youth vote, that will improve your chances of getting them to engage with your campaign and be more likely to turn out to vote.

Remind and remind again (and again) for better voter turnout

People are busy. They may every intention of voting for you, but when the day comes they just may forget to do it. As Election Day draws near, you should increase your online voter contact via email, social media, text messaging and campaign website updates. Provide voting information, offer rides to polls to those who cannot easily get there, and request for volunteers to help in that effort. Even on Election Day, provide updates throughout the day to let people know what is happening and to keep them from forgetting to vote.

What are your best voter online or offline turnout techniques?

Online Candidate helps hundreds of campaigns every election cycle. Learn how we can give your campaign the winning edge.

What Type of Yard Signs Are Best For Political Campaigns?

Candidates often struggle with the type of sign to purchase. There are basically three types of yard signs for political campaigns: plastic bag, corrugated plastic, and double-sided cardboard.

Here are the pros and cons of each different sign type:

Plastic or Play-bag Yard Signs are affordable, cheap and easy to ship. They are basically plastic sleeves that can be slipped over U-shaped wires. The down side is that they tend to sag over time and do not work well as wall signs.

Corrugated Plastic (poly coated) Signs holds up well through bad weather and are easy to handle. They are most cost effective if a candidate runs often and is committed to the same message and look. They generally slide right over their metal frame. However, a light colored sign might not be entirely opaque. They tend to be a bit more expensive than other types of signs. They are also the most easily stolen.

Double-Sided Cardboard Signs come in all shapes and sizes. They are double-sided and are stapled or glued to their frames. They easily double as wall signs. However, they don’t hold up as well in rough weather as plastic signs.

Selecting the type of sign for your campaign should be determined by your priorities such as price, quantity and re-usability. An experienced sign manufacturer can help you determine what is best for you.

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Negative Linking Your Political Opponent

Link Political Opponent - DIrty Drick One online ‘dirty trick’ that is perfectly acceptable is to link to outside content about your opponent using the opponent’s name as the link text.

For example:

<a href=”https://www.localnewspaper.com/article/ councilman-caught-doing-something-wrong”>Councilman Bob Jones</a>

This type of targeted linking helps ensure that when someone looks up your opponent’s name, certain content may appear in the search results.

Make sure the page you link to is real, preferably from a reliable source like a newspaper, rather than some obscure blog. You don’t want to be accused of promoting bad information if what you link to later turns out to be false.

You also want to link to your targeted source from other places, particularly from social media. Ask you followers to like or retweet your posts to multiply the linking effect.

This technique works best against targets that do not have much of a web presence. If you are trying to have a negative article rank for someone’s name, Google will need to see the article as more important than a person’s website, social media accounts and other related information about them. That can be tough.

Repetition is important and this technique works better when multiple links come from a variety of sources. The more people that link something, the better. This can your campaign website, other websites, blogs, social media accounts and so on.

While ‘Google Bombing’ is pretty much a thing of the past, particularly after the technique was used against a former president, it can still work on a smaller scale.

In fact, we pulled a variation of this trick back in 2003. The work on that local campaign led us to create Online Candidate.

There’s no guarantee this technique will always get results. Your mileage may vary. Either way, you never want to pass up an opportunity to nail an opponent online.

For more online strategies, visit our exclusive companion site, OnlineCandidateResources.com.

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