Political Strategies

If you don’t have the budget for a new website, create a social media account and point your domain to Facebook or Twitter.

Social Media is one of the easiest way to build relationship with the voters. Any announcement you post should go on your blog then share it on your social media. Connect with voters and pay attention to what they’re interested in. Try not to constantly ask for support and donations. That gets very annoying and users will block/unfollow you.

Types of social media accounts to use: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin, YouTube, Google + and Google Hangouts. If you don’t have the staff to manage all your social media, use www.hootsuite.com to manage your social media from one dashboard. There’s a free version that includes three social media accounts and $10 a month for up to 50 social media accounts. Start with the free version by connecting Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and add more accounts when your have more money donated to your campaign.

Email Marketing is another great way to connect with voters. Here are a couple of email platforms that are easy to use, Constant Contact and Mailchimp.

Create an email list. Start with friends and family first. To build your email list, make it easy for voters to sign up for your newsletters by having the form on your website, social media and QR code on your print materials.

Pay per Click

As the campaign progresses, add Pay per Click advertising on Google, Bing, YouTube videos, Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and Instagram. Use the analytics data from the beginning of the campaign to target voters. Be consistent with your message, short and sweet.

Obama for America ran one of the most successful digital marketing for political campaign. They used data to answer voters’ questions. Here’s what the Obama campaign did, info from the Forbes article.

“They used existing data in new ways. There was only so much data available to the campaign – voter registration data, polls, and audience data. The Obama campaign used this data and their own insight gleaned from email testing to make determinations about audiences to target and how to reach them. Surprisingly, they actively used set-top box data to understand local audiences at a more refined level than what they could get from broad audience data, not just to target TV ads but also to inform other media channel spending. Digital was a huge factor, but not a huge cost. While the campaign ambitiously used email and digital channels to drive fundraising and issue awareness, the cost was a fraction of TV. They started more heavily in TV, but noted that digital got more attention the more they could measure results, while the cost remained far lower than buying spots throughout campaign season.”

If you win, continue to be active on your blog, email marketing and social media, especially if you plan to run for re-election. Next time around, your digital marketing for political campaign will be so much easier.