May 2019

This is part 2 of 3 blogs posts Past, Present and Future of Political Digital Marketing. You can find part 1 here, Is Your Campaign in the Past? Using old political digital marketing tactics is a sure sign you’re behind the times.

This blog post is going to tell you whether your campaign is using modern tactics. Make an appointment with Ryan Gravatt at Raconteur Media if you’re already concerned about your campaign’s political digital marketing.

Is Your Campaign Using Modern Political Digital Marketing Tactics?

Political campaigns are shoestring operations. An overarching concern within all aspects of a shoestring operation is how to stretch the budget. Political campaigns wrestle with the question, “Can we spend less and get the same or better result?”

Political digital marketing is the answer in most cases.

Political digital marketing costs less relative to the traditional tactics that enable campaigns to scale quickly and frequently to your supporters and audience.

Resist tactical evolution, especially if their tactics helped them win and especially when those perceived have a perceived value of helping them win again. Why? Campaigns have stakeholders – consultants, candidates and staff – who hold on to the status quo, and their intransigence to new tactics is the obstacle. It’s understandable. Why change what works?

Your Campaign is in the Present IF…

Your Website Loads Quickly

And by quickly I mean less than 10 seconds. Mach Metrics released a study that the average landing page loads in 22 seconds on a mobile device. That’s key because for a modern political campaign, more than 50% of your traffic should be coming into a landing page. You’re driving most of that traffic to landing pages with advertising. So a page that loads slowly is a leak in your pipeline for locking down votes, raising money and spending wisely.

You are building an email list of voters and donors

It’s important to know who is on your email list. While open rates, click rates and the size of your list are important metrics, having voters and donors on your list correlates to success on election day. Donors are voters. And while donors are financial contributors, any dollar they give your campaign is a vote you can count on election day. Voters may become donors, but not always. Voting and contributing to political candidates are habits. So having an email of people who are not voters and donors means you are making assumptions in your communications and marketing. To belabor the point, grooming people to become voters and donors is hard, expensive work. So start your list building by reaching out to voters and donors in your district.

Your advertising is data-driven

Data-driven advertising for political and issue campaigns is the best, most efficient tactic for modern political digital marketing. Stop any advertising you’re doing that is not data driven. Demographic targeting wastes money. It’s a wish rather than a strategy. You’re hoping, wishing that people who vote will see your digital ads when you use demographic targeting. Example: Let’s use Facebook to advertise to people who watch Fox News.

A data-driven campaign uses a source of voters within Facebook or an advertising network to deliver ads only to those voters, no one else. Nothing gives you a better return on your advertising spend than delivering your message to the right voters at the right time.

You are making data-based decisions

A modern political campaign makes decisions using data. And there’s so much data in political digital marketing it helps campaigns execute the best, smartest tactics. If your digital marketing vendor doesn’t provide specific analytics reports, demand it. You can measure the quality of your Website traffic. You can measure the quality of your social media posts on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. You certainly can measure the quality of your advertising campaigns with advertising reports, which need to go beyond impressions and clicks for sure.

Get Free Advice

I hope you found this blog post helpful or at least it made you ask yourself some questions about what you should be or could be doing. For some free advice, make an appointment with Ryan Gravatt at Raconteur Media if you’re already concerned about your campaign’s political digital marketing.

This is part 1 of 3 blogs posts: Past, Present and Future of Political Digital Marketing.

Is your campaign in the past and using old tactics of political digital marketing?

Political campaigns resist tactical evolution, especially if their tactics helped them win, and especially when those perceived tactics have a perceived value of helping them win again. Why? Campaigns have stakeholders – consultants, candidates and staff – who hold on to the status quo. Their intransigence to new tactics is the obstacle. It’s understandable. Why change what works?

Well, in digital political marketing, the proven tactics of your last election become out of date as soon as you win. The tactics you adopted at the beginning of your campaign, which could be 18 months before your victory, are not current. Trends change. Technology gets better. Metrics and analytics show a better way to reach your goals.

Political digital marketing is a growing force within election campaigns. The amount of money campaigns are spending on digital marketing proves this. Even if a campaign is doing the same old stuff, it is spending more money on digital marketing because all campaigns are doing more digitally. So, with an inevitable commitment to more digital marketing spending, a campaign should get out of the past and set its trajectory on the future of political digital marketing.

This blog post is going to tell you whether your campaign is stuck in the past. The next two posts will tell you if your campaign is in the present and whether your campaign is ready for the future of political digital marketing. Make an appointment with Ryan Gravatt at Raconteur Media if you’re already concerned about your campaign’s political digital marketing.

You’re campaign is stuck in the past IF…

You don’t have an email list

The name of the game in an election is scale quickly and frequently to your supporters and audience. Email checks all these boxes. A campaign operating without an email list is a campaign that will have to spend more to scale its reach quickly and frequently.

You are buying or renting email lists

Renting, buying or borrowing an email list is a failing tactic. Your campaign needs to build an email list from scratch. Renting, buying or borrowing an email list makes you feel like you’re going to scale quickly and frequently. But the truth is the emails you send are going to no one who knows you or cares much about your campaign. Worse, the messages may go to spam.

You don’t have a campaign Facebook page

Candidates need to use a campaign Facebook page – not their personal page. The differences are tremendous in order to scale quickly and frequently.

You are buying digital ads to target demographics

Digital advertising has many benefits and helps a campaign scale quickly and frequently. However, demographic target – ex: buying ads on foxnews.com because “this is the news site for my voters” – is a fast way to waste money without reaching voters. A campaign might as well light money on fire if it’s buying ads on sites rather than targeting voters.

Your campaign lets a generalist manage digital communication

Don’t confuse the ability to post on Facebook with the strategic expertise to manage a digital communication or marketing plan. Political digital marketing is an art and a science that builds upon itself. Too often, campaigns confuse motion with progress. If your campaign is allowing a generalist or even someone without proven political digital marketing expertise, your campaign will not scale quickly and frequently. In this scenario, your campaign is confusing motion ( posting on social media ) with progress ( actually touching voters and supporters and moving them into a deeper relationship with your campaign).

Friends, At Raconteur Media, we consider ourselves the luckiest folks in digital marketing because we have friends and clients like you. For 16 years, these relationships have helped us become the agency we are today.

The most significant changes to Raconteur Media came in the last 12 months. We had our most successful year ever. We added several new team members. And we celebrated 16 years of being in business. All of this happened because of friends and clients like you.

THANK YOU for 16 years. We are planning for the next 16 years and beyond! I will be communicating with you personally.

Curious what 16 year of experience can do for you? Please Make An Appointment talk with me if you have any questions or thoughts before I reach out to you.

Social media is alive and well, and only growing in influence. Keeping up with the ever changing and updating trends can seem overwhelming and even a lost cause but there are strategies that will offer peace of mind.

Schedule your posts ahead of time.

Block out some time on a weekend or whenever there’s a gap in your weekday madness to schedule your posts for the week. There are even some free online tools to help you accomplish this. Hootsuite allows you to schedule posts in advance and choose the times they will be posted in the future. Scheduling regular posts can help show your customers that you’re active and working and ready to help be a champion for them.

Observe companies who you aspire to be.

Learning from the best is always a good strategy when starting something new. Take notes. Be observant of what types of posts get the most attention. Observing your competitors’ practices and what helps and doesn’t help them can allow you to learn from other experts in the field.

Hire a consultant.

Hiring someone to manage the headache for you is a viable strategy for anyone with a schedule too packed to even begin thinking about a social media strategy. Don’t know what to post? A consultant will help you decide this as well. Thinking of running for office but don’t know how to navigate the social media waters? Raconteur Media has the team who understands your goals and will work with you to be your guide in your campaign.