Starting a Political Campaign: 8 Things To Know

Whether running for federal, state or even local office, starting a political campaign is no small undertaking. Many people do not even know where to begin. A political campaign committee must be created, hiring a campaign staff and campaign budget must be put together.

On top of that, you have to craft the right voter message and create an effective political campaign strategy to win.

The digital realm is a critical pillar for today’s successful candidates. If you are a first-time candidate, you have a lot of work ahead of you.

Election preparation includes the basics

Determine both your long and short term goals. You’ll need to know your deadlines, such as candidate filing and other campaign reporting. You’ll want to know how many votes you need. Look at the total voter turnout over the last few elections and how many people from each political party voted. Other factors they may influence turnout is the timing of the election. Special elections and non-presidential election years tend to have a lower turnout.

What issues are you running on? Issues that are important to your constituents and community should be the primary issues you run on. Your proposals for dealing with those key issues is what you will use to develop your campaign platform. How you communicate your vision for addressing those issues will help determine your messaging.

You’ll need to know how much money to raise. Research the expenses of past election winners of the same position for to get an idea of what your own election will cost. This will be the first step to set up an overall budget of how much you’ll need to spend (and raise).

One of the largest obstacles that political campaigns face is raising initial campaign funds. Your fundraising plan should incorporate a way to collect both offline and online donations. Your plans, goals and budget will determine when and how much you need to raise.

Put together your campaign team. Determine the specific tasks that need to be accomplished and find individuals with the skills and experience to effectively handle those tasks. You will need team members for research, planning events, fundraising and donations, marketing, and volunteer coordination.

As you put your team in place, clearly communicate your plans and goals for the campaign. Clear deadlines and expectations should be set for each team member. Don’t let anyone go off on their own. Everyone should provide regular updates on what they are doing and their progress. Get your people committed and put your plans to action.

Register as a candidate

To get on the ballot, you’ll need to register as a candidate. The registration process and requirements differs between states. Most states have a registration deadline in order to get on the ballot.

Check with your secretary of state’s or county election website for information on filing requirements. There will be certain paperwork and fees you will need to pay. If there are signatures required, you will need to figure out how you will get them in time.

In order to increase your visibility, you will need to become known to the electorate. These activities can help improve voter recognition:

Create a strong visual identity for your print material, signage, and website. This includes choosing a color scheme, and logo design.
Hosting campaign events. Public events such as town halls, rallies, and meet-and-greets provide opportunities for voters to meet and interact with the candidate. This can help to build trust and support.
Participate in candidate forums and debates. This will allow you to communicate your message, vision and platform to a broad audience and build their name recognition.
Host events and other public appearances. Not all of them need to be fundraising
Advertising: This includes online and offline mediums such as television, radio, print, text, and online. Multiple ad channels will reach a larger audience.
Social media platforms can help you connect with voters and share campaign information, updates, and events. This is particularly important if you want to reach a younger and more engaged voter base.
Get support from influential people, voter groups, and organizations.
Neighborhood canvassing. Many voters are impressed when a candidate personally shows up at their door.
Get out the vote efforts

All your campaign strategy and activities should be tailored to your specific campaign, your issues, and your target voting audience.

Launching your campaign online – the right way

Whether you are running a congressional campaign or want to begin a local political campaign for mayor or town council, you’ll want to prepare early.

Your campaign theme is the message used to communicate an integrated political message. It should be based on a clear reason why you are running, and backed up by an overall identity that shapes the overall campaign. This message should be short enough to not only tell a story, but can also be broken down for talking points that can be delivered to voters.

Your theme may be closely related to your campaign brand, which incorporates the look of your print material, signage and online presence.

As a politician, you must build a brand for yourself

Your colors and logo design reinforces your brand. Even your font selection and imagery contribute to how your campaign is perceived.

In some ways, this makes you little more than a product to be promoted.

It may sound a bit dehumanizing, but it’s true. You need to market yourself shamelessly – online and offline – to improve your visibility.

All your campaign materials, from print material like brochures, flyers and signs to your online presence, must be consistent in design and color. Every blog post, tweet and Facebook update must conform with your brand identity.

This means keeping your messaging – visual, design and tone – consistent across platforms.

Once you have established your brand, don’t change it. And if you have to, do it very early on. Changing up your campaign logo, colors or slogan midway through the race will only confuse voters. We’ve seen clients change logos halfway through a race, and it almost always causes more disruption than it’s worth.

Related Reading: The Power of Branding Your Political Campaign

Building your political digital presence

Running a local political campaign is tough. No matter the position you are running for, it’s a battle both offline and online. To achieve online visibility, you must take control over what people see about your online.

If you don’t define yourself online, someone else will. And that will probably be your opponent.

While some candidates feel that they can run a political campaign only through free social media accounts, there is a huge problem with this.
Not everyone is on social media. Not everyone wants to be on social media.
If you promote yourself within a walled area, only those followers inside will see your message.

Engagement is an important part of building a successful digital political campaign. Social media and email are powerful tools that allow you to connect with voters and building a community of supporters.

Your campaign website is the hub

Your campaign website should be the centerpiece of your online brand. It is the hub that ties together your print, social media, email marketing and digital advertising. A website is open by default and can be accessed by the public, anywhere. (Find out the price of a campaign website.)

For social media, you’ll want to begin with a Facebook page. Other social platforms, like Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat, can come later.

Tech Tip: Never use personal social media accounts for your political campaign. Facebook, in fact, does not allow for political campaigning on personal accounts.

If you began using social media early, you may already have an audience of supporters that you can communicate to. You can cross-post your content to multiple networks when possible to save time and reach more voters. Facebook, in particular, is a powerful platform to request donations and begin political advertising.

Many politicians use live streaming to interact with voters and non-voters. It’s not particularly difficult, and you don’t need a broadcast studio. In many cases, you can simply use your mobile phone to broadcast. These types of virtual events have become more popular through services like Facebook Live.

Cutting through the noise on social media can only be accomplished through paid advertising. You’ll need a budget for online promotion to get you through Election Day.

Increase your chances of winning the election

Launch day for your online campaign is always exciting. Put together a checklist to cover all your action items. To increase the chance of everything going smoothly, you’ll want to have the following in place:

Your campaign website, which should be easy to navigate and include clear calls to action.
Social media accounts, along with their graphics.
A campaign Google account, for analytics, email and more.
Broadcast email system, including signup forms on the site.
A plan to advertise, and perhaps a digital budget earmarked to make it so.
Double check that everything works as it should.

Tech Tip: As soon as you can make your site live, do it and have others go through it. Make sure the site is working properly for when you make the big announcement.

A well-designed website and social media accounts that are active and engaging will help you establish yourself as a credible candidate. They will help you connect and share your message.

Creating and distributing content is an essential part of any online strategy. When developing a content strategy, you should do the following:

Identify your target voters: Learn the key demographics and interests of your audience. Create content that directly speaks to them.
Clearly define your message: Clearly articulate and repeat your political message over and over. In other words, always “stay on message.”
Create content that engages: Go beyond text and images with your content. Use videos, infographics, press releases, and social content to keep your audience engaged.
Use a content calendar: Plan out your content in advance and schedule material for specific times, such as primary and Election Day. Also, plan out how you will promote campaign events and fundraising initiatives.
Develop and use marketing channels: Social media is fine, but also consider mobile outreach and email to engage a wider audience.

Final tips

Many candidates keep their campaign websites on a ‘coming soon’ page right until the campaign launch day. Then they wonder why their site does not immediately show up in search results. Search engines take time to index websites. Just because your site goes live does not mean that it will be indexed right away – or at all. One way to trigger search engine spiders is to link to your site from another source, such as a Facebook or Twitter account.

If you open up the site a little sooner than your announcement day, that will help get the site indexed. Besides, no one will likely be searching for it anyway. And if they do find your site, does it really matter? That’s not to say that your launch announcement should not be heavily promoted. You will need that initial excitement to capitalize on your initial fundraising and outreach efforts.

Getting into politics is a big decision. Even if you are running for local government, you need to lay a proper foundation and prepare to announce your candidacy.

To learn more on how to begin a political campaign, sign up for our email list for campaigning tips and strategies. Online Candidate also provides a variety of political web design and digital marketing services.

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