Political Campaign Tips and Strategies by Online Candidate

The Fundraising Chicken and Egg Question For Local Candidates

Fundraising might not be fun for political candidates, but it’s a necessity. People can win elections on a shoestring budget, but that’s the exception. Typically, the candidate that can raise and spend the most money tends to win.

The cost of running for office has increased dramatically over the last few decades. This is because campaigns are now more expensive and require more staff and resources than ever before.

The problem for many first-time local and down-ballot candidates is getting enough financial traction to attract enough initial donors. Without enough money, it’s hard to convince donors that your campaign is viable, but building the campaign to a viable status requires money.

It’s the classic chicken-and-egg scenario.

How much does it cost to get started with a campaign?

The cost of running a political campaign often depends on the office you are seeking. For example, if you are running for office in a small district, then your campaign will cost less than if you are running for state office or Congress. The size of the city, town or district will determine how much money is needed to run an effective campaign.

Campaign costs depend on three things:

1) How much money is raised by the candidate or organization
2) How much money is spent by the candidate or organization
3) The type of campaign being run

Appeal to donors and potential donors

Raising seed money is the first thing a campaign committee pursues once a bank account is created. This begins with an initial fundraiser, which is usually focused on getting friends, family, and fellow supporters to donate funds.

If you’ve run for office before, you already have a list of people who have invested in your political career and will likely do so again. If this is your first time running, you can look to donors of other candidates in your party or even enemies of your political opponents. You may be surprised who provides initial contributions.

[bctt tweet=”First time political candidates should look for support from donors of other party candidates. http://ow.ly/uEc130gBjz4″]

Odds are, you’ll need to put in your own money at the start. After all, if you aren’t willing to spend some of your own money to get elected, why should anyone else?

It’s also about image. Print your fundraising letters and materials on attractive stock. Your presentation should make it appear that your campaign is already motion and growing. Donors want to support a possible winner, not bet on a potential long-shot.

That’s one reason why online campaigning is a great strategy. A well-designed website can make a political organization look larger than it might really be. Social media, online news articles and campaign press releases can enhance that perspective and can help generate real interest and attention from donors and voters.

Best of all, the barriers to online fundraising have dropped over the last decade. If you have a campaign bank account, then setting up a donation system is simple. With a website as your online hub, you can use social media such as Facebook and Twitter, email, paid online advertising and even offline promotion to solicit support.

With a little up front money and some work, it makes sense to start campaigning online as early as possible. Campaigns need to raise money from a variety of sources in order to be successful, and they need to do so in an efficient way. The most common way for candidates to get their campaign off the ground is through fundraising events such as dinners, picnics or other events.

So, break that fundraising chicken-and-egg cycle and focus on the important thing – winning your election!

Hundreds of campaigns start early with our affordable Monthly Option to raise seed money to grow their campaigns. We provide the tools to build and manage your online presence. Learn more.

Image courtesy of Gualberto107 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

They’re Not Campaign Supporters Until You Get Them in Voting Booth

The ultimate goal of any political campaign – local, state or federal – is to get people to the voting booth and cast a ballot. It’s a simple idea that it cannot be emphasized enough.

It’s not about fundraising, it’s not about drawing big crowds, and it’s not even about getting high public approval ratings. All those things are good, but they are simply mean to an end.

“A lot of supporters thought I was going to win, so they didn’t bother to go out and vote. Turnout was low, and I lost.”

Never let your supporters grow complacent. Even if your race is a cakewalk and your opponent is an incompetent candidate with nothing going for them, make it the race of your life. The closer you get to voting day, the more you need to remind voters that only their support will help you win, and without their vote, you won’t win.

Every vote counts. If someone doesn’t have the means to get to the polls, help them. Organize volunteers to drive voters to the polls. Add voting information to all of your end-of-campaign communications. Local elections are often won by the thinnest of margins. Don’t let anyone forget that, because in the end you need more than ‘supporters’ or ‘popular’ support, you need the voter turnout.

[bctt tweet=”If a #voter can’t get to the polls, help them get there. http://ow.ly/Z9Pd30gBjLH”]

After all, good intentions in politics mean nothing unless it’s backed by a vote.

Get a jump start on your online campaign press kit. Use our political print templates to add a professional edge to your campaign literature and handouts – or view all of our digital products.

Facing Down A Campaign Print Disaster

Here’s a problem a few of our clients have encountered: They’re all set to send out a candidate mailing when they realize that they have registered the wrong campaign domain name printed on the brochure! The horror! What could be worse?

It’s not the end of the world. If this happens to you, don’t panic.

If you are an existing Online Candidate client, contact us and let us know the situation. We can register that incorrect domain name for you and point the address to your existing website. That way, when someone types in the incorrect web address, they will still end up where you want them to be. We’ll charge you for the new domain name, but not for the redirect itself (as some web hosts do).

If you are more of a do-it your-selfer, check your domain registrar to see if the domain name is available. If it is, purchase it immediately. Don’t wait, because domain harvesting companies may automatically register the name after a short time.

After you have made the registration, contact us and let us know what the new domain is and what site you need to have it point to. Then we will set up the redirect on our end and give you the proper name server information that you will need to configure the new domain name. Once that is complete, you’ll be all set!

If the domain name is taken and not for sale or the domain already exists as a website, then you may be out of luck. You might want to invest in stickers to cover up the incorrect domain name with the proper one or scrub the whole print piece.

We hope it doesn’t come to that. That would be a real horror!

Learn more about our Political Website Design services. Check out actual client design samples and our client feedback!

Post In Haste, Repent At Leisure

Think before you post.

One of the most dangerous consequences of online campaigning is that anything and everything can be scrutinized. From offline speeches that are uploaded to YouTube to even the most banal social media posts, everything is fair game.

While a candidate cannot control everything that appears about them online, at the very least, a candidate should not add to the problem be making social media posts in anger or under duress. It’s easy to get angry online. Nasty personal posts and angry comments can demand an equally harsh response.

Avoid the temptation to lash out. Just remember that not everyone is going to like you online. People are going to criticize you and say mean things. It’s simply the nature of the social media environment.

Think before you post and double-check what you link to because the internet remembers everything. Make sure what you post is written clearly and unambiguously. If you are posting images, take a good look at them before they are uploaded. Make sure your videos are edited and make a point. The last thing you want to do is say or post something that could come back to bite you.

Like offensive comments about gay people or minorities.

Or saying outrageous things about your political opponents.

Or accidentally Tweeting a photo of a woman in bondage gear.

Just in case you thought that no one saw your dumb but quickly-deleted post, the eyes of the web are always open and watching. Politwoops is an archive of the public statements deleted by U.S. politicians. Most of the time the deleted tweets are due to typos, but some are not.

Are there going to be things you post that you will later regret in the future? Of course. Many times, the actual act of deletion is what brings attention to an old post. Tweeted about an endorsement six months ago by someone you’d rather not be associated with today? Yep, even those old announcements can still be found in the archives.

Deleting old Twitter tweets and Facebook posts is a lot easier than deleting forum thread comments, posts or images on other websites. Old material that you may not know about or have long forgotten could be out there, waiting to be discovered.

Even if you successfully take down old material, any content can be archived. Users can take screen shots, search engines can store archived copies of pages and even entire websites can have snapshots stored in sites like the Wayback Machine.

With everything a candidate does online under a microscope, how can the modern candidate avoid the critiques and criticisms of removing or updating old material?

One way to blunt the impact is to simply admit that you’ve changed your mind about a post or topic. Admitting to something is the adult thing to do, and it often counters accusations that you are trying to hide something.

Besides, when someone intentionally wants to keep something hidden, it makes people only want to see it more…

Online Candidate provides an easy-to-use online campaign platform loaded with built-in tools and additional resources – all for one low price. We’ve been helping candidates WIN since 2004 – and we can help you.

Image courtesy of iosphere at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

In Which Tense Should You Write Your Website Copy?

We’ve recently had a few clients reach out to us, concerned that their campaign websites are not ranking as well as expected for candidate name searches. Generally, this has to do with the age of the site, the existing content that ranks and whether the campaign website copy actually mentions the name of the candidate.

It’s true. We often seen websites that barely mention the name of the candidate in the text. A search engine cannot know what a web page is about if there isn’t enough relevant text on the page.

Another factor that influences how quickly or how well Google ranks a site is the tense in which the content is written.

Writing in the first person narrative means writing from the “I” point of view. Such as: I am running for office. I have the necessary skills and ability to do the job. My background is in…

The third person form is to write from the omniscient point of view. Such as: Bob Smith is running for office. Bob Smith has necessary skills and ability to do the job. Smith’s background is in…

See the difference?

Writing in the first person is:

More personal sounding
Replaces the candidate’s name with ‘I’
Tends to become stilted and boring in delivery
Can kill your search engine rankings if the candidate’s name is never mentioned

Writing in the third person is:

More authoritative
Allows more ‘branding’ by mentioning the candidate’s name more often
Generally better for semantic search engine ranking

Tip: Want your name to show up in Google searches? Write website content in the 3rd person.

While you are free to express yourself as you choose, we recommend copywriting the bulk of your web content in the third person. That way it sounds stronger, tends to be less repetitive, and will probably provide an SEO edge in ranking.

First person narrative is more appropriate for a candidate’s ‘open letter to voters’ or personal message.

Tips for adding the candidate’s name to first-person copy:

If you want to use first person narrative, create ‘pull quotes’ to include the candidate’s name into the copy. Repeat a line of copy, but instead of using the ‘I’, use the the candidate’s name instead.
Add a call to action at the bottom of your page or pages. For example, “Vote Jane Smith for Mayor on November 3”. Now you have the name and position sought together. You may want to make this text an H2 or H3 header.
Use the name and elected position on the page description metas throughout the site.
A domain name that includes the name of the candidate is helpful.

But no matter what tense the material is written, be sure that the candidate’s full name is included somewhere in on each page of the website. Use a name in the page titles as well.

Looking for sample campaign website copy and content?

Visit OnlineCandidateResources.com. Access is free for all Online Candidate clients. It’s designed to help give your website – and campaign – a winning edge.

Alternate Domain Names for Campaign Websites

Sometimes the original domain name of your campaign turns out to be the wrong choice. Though you had thoughtfully considered your original domain name, as the campaign moves ahead, you find that it just isn’t working out.

It might be because the name is too long or the candidate’s name is too hard to spell. A name that seemed good in the beginning is now causing complaints from supporters and potential voters who are having a tough time getting to the site.

For example, the political campaign website address of georgejonesfortinytowncouncil.com is, technically, a decent name. It incorporates the candidate name and the position sought. The problem is that the longer the domain name, the harder it is for someone to remember or accurately type into a web browser.

One way to solve the problem of having too complicated a political domain name is to simply get another domain name and redirect (or ‘park’) it to the original. For example, ‘votejones.com‘ could be pointed to the original ‘georgejonesfortinytowncouncil.com‘ site. The shorter name is a lot easier to incorporate into brochures and other print materials. By using a name redirect, you don’t actually need to set up a new website.

You may also want acquire and point a second domain name if the original is easily misspelled. Another instance may be where a campaign is not using another website or microsite anymore yet wants to redirect any residual traffic to their primary site.

On a technical note, this is called a 301 redirect, with ”301″ interpreted by search engines as “moved permanently”. It is not very hard to implement and it should preserve any existing search engine rankings.

We had this issue come up recently for one of our candidates. They thought they needed another website to go with the new name. We were able to get them set up with a second domain name pointing to the original site without a problem.

When to consider registering an alternate domain name:

When the candidate’s name has a common misspelling. If your name or organization is commonly misspelled, it’s a good idea to register that domain name and redirect it to your site. This makes things easier for users who may give up if they don’t reach your site on the first try. It also keeps competitors from snatching the name up and using it for other purposes.

For single and plural variants. If your domain name consists of a noun that has plural and singular forms, you may want to consider getting both names.

In the case of a nickname. If you have a nickname or if an opposing candidate nicknames you, consider purchasing that name defensively. It’s too easy for an opponent to create a website based on your nickname or point the domain to another location that you would not approve of.

For campaign print materials. If you happen to have a very long or difficult domain name, having a secondary name can help. A shorter name can also fit better on brochures, door hangers or campaign signs. Long names are fine when they are web links, but ‘smith4mayor.com’ is a lot easier to type into a web browser than ‘electsmithfortinytownmayor.com’.

When you are planning to use a .org or .net domain. These extensions are fine for organizations and are intended for that use. Even today, however, most people type in .com to the end of a domain they type. Because of that, it’s a good idea to also secure the .com domain in addition to the .org or .net domain name. When someone types in the .com version that you do not own, they will end up in an entirely different website! If you cannot secure the .com version of your name, you may want to try a different name altogether.

When your first choice doesn’t work out. Sometimes your first choice just doesn’t work out. Looking back, the name might have been too long or it no longer matches the position you are currently running for. If this happens, it’s not the end of the world. You can always switch your site to the new domain name, and use your old domain as your secondary domain. Done properly, ‘smith2020.com’ becomes ‘smith2024.com’ without skipping a beat!

With the arrival of new political TLDs like .REPUBLICAN and .DEMOCRAT, some candidates and organizations are using these vanity domains for their branding.

On a technical note, pointing multiple domain names to a single website needs to be done by whoever controls your web hosting. Parking domains or even converting domains from one name to another is not difficult, but if it is not done properly, it can affect your SEO and search engine rankings.

We provide free domain redirects for clients that use multiple domain names. If you want to see if a domain is available and register it for your use, simply go to our client portal. Domains can be registered with or without a campaign hosting package.

FREE DOWNLOAD: Political Domains and Hosting – What You Need To Know
Related: 5 Things To Know About Your Campaign’s Domain Name

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