Political campaigning and promotion is not just about advertising, broadcasting, and delivering persuasive election speeches. Still, it covers a broader area that focusses on the positioning of the party in the electoral market.
Almost all political parties and politicians use advertising or promotions methods to communicate all the time.
It could be to improve the reputation of the government or about a new plan that needs branding, educating voters about a new policy, or even to promote a politician. Whatever the reason be, there must be a strategy to campaigning. With the advent of social media, promotions are straightforward, real-time, interactive, and firmly focused on building relationships. It is about continuous support to the party and not just for getting votes.
Successful campaigns demand a 360-degree approach!
Campaign strategies should primarily consider digital campaigning too. Getting the candidate websites ready and easily accessible, optimizing candidate social channels, building email lists, and constructing attractive social media advertorials are some of the recently developed trends. All strategies towards this should focus on the campaign goal and strength.
Every election campaign is unique, and there are several aspects to take into account to create an effective political campaign. The following sections of this article will discuss some of the key elements.
1. Knowing your Constituency and voters:
Get a picture of the constituency before starting your political campaign—the history and geography of the constituency. Understand the aspects of the culture of the region with its political challenges in it. Get an understanding of the important opinion leaders in the region. When the goal is to win the constituency, it is important that everyone gets the message and knows it well enough.
It makes sense to obtain a good map of your constituency. Looking closely at the villages and towns- its roads, paths, and landscape. People will very likely expect to know these things from you as a campaigner. Knowledge of regional conditions is an important requirement that will help you to plan the logistic part of your campaign.
Chalk out and decide how many votes you need to win. How many voters you need to campaign for and persuade them to support you. Also, determine what makes these voters different from other voters who will not support you—commonly known as targeting the voters or simply targeting. This aim of targeting is to determine which group of the voting population is most likely to make you win, and thus you need to focus your campaign efforts on these voters.
Check out the regions where your party holds strong along those of the competition.
Find out if there are new groups of people, say new voters who are yet to take part in the election, and need to be addressed. Locate the loyal voters who always vote for your party. These places definitely need to be addressed regularly as well to make sure that there is a high turnout for the voters. Now look for the main strongholds of your political competition. If the area traditionally votes for your opposition, it would not be wise to spend too much time and energy on these areas unless you believe that you have a reason that anything major is going to change in the area. So it makes sense to make the best use of time during campaigning. Try to look for the undecided voters or the swing voters. These maybe 2-3% of the voters or more. Look for the areas where new citizens have moved in or young voters can be addressed.
2. Building a narrative:
Narrative is the most important aspect of any successful political campaign. What interests is the story behind the candidate? His history, his personality, his beliefs, and all of the vital characteristics which make him a voting worthy candidate. It is essential to build a narrative that voters can relate to. So here, the political party or the candidate himself becomes the brand that people need to relate to by building a common ground to get their support.
The USA was filled with energy and enthusiasm during the election campaign in 2008. The people were convinced that they would play a key role in the campaign. It is crucial to convey your ideas in stories. The reasons being that people can remember stories very easily, very relatable, and gets credibility if one links it to one's personal life experiences.
Let me give you an example of how one can go about a narrative in a "story" form. One can always find his own way and tune it as per the audience. Let's say the candidate is speaking about employment issues in the community.
This is how not to do it: "Vote for me. I will create new jobs for us and will not forget anyone who supports me. The candidate of the other party only provides jobs for his supporters. I will put an end to that."
This is how to do it: "My parents used to work all day from early morning until late evening. They did not have any weekends and usually had to work in the field after their jobs to get by. As a child, I learned early on what hard work means. I will not lie to you and simply promise jobs. I do promise, however, that I will do everything I can to make sure that men and women who work hard are protected better, and that young people receive a good education and training."
Let's say now the candidate is speaking about health issues in the community.
This is how not to do it: "The health system is priority number one for me! I will make sure that three new clinics are built in our constituency, and in a few years, the health care here is as good as in the capital."
This is how to do it: "Which of you have someone in your family who was seriously ill last year? Raise your hands. Almost everyone! And how many of you were helped effectively and immediately by doctors and hospitals? I don't see as many hands. If someone takes ill in your family – mother, father, brother or sister or your own child – you worry so much. That is when we need effective help quickly. That is when we need hospitals which are easy to reach, doctors who are well trained and have enough medicine. If we want to achieve that here, we have to fight a long hard battle for it. I want to fight that battle with your help."
3. Brand Positioning:
Brand positioning is defined as a place you want to own in the target consumer's mind based on their view of the world. It is the simple statement that defines your strategy and then the method used to get the message far wide across so as to try to create a rippling effect.
The slogans must be clear and direct in conveying their messages. It should not let anyone imagine or decipher the message. It should work as an instant brand value. It is often said that the best politicians are always campaigning.
After you have created a clear and direct message, it is important to stick to it at every occasion throughout the campaign. It is known as staying on message in political terms.
4. Social media promotion:
Social media promotion plays an enormous role in Politics and democracy. In these modern times, social media has become the easiest medium for politicians and political parties to bank upon. The aspiring youth of the country is the easiest to reach through social media. Why not utilize social media platforms as a strong tool to connect with the people? One can even create multiple Facebook pages for each region. It is the best in today's time to leverage social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
During the last decade, elections, advertisements rose tremendously on an epic proportion. With increased mobile penetration in developing countries, there seems no better medium to promote than Digital Ads.
One can use multiple Facebook pages for various promotion themes apart from the party main page, which was used for paid promotions. It is a fact that one needs to go regional, especially with such diverse culture and language nations, to reach the masses. Social media is definitely one of the most effective platforms for raising awareness, encouraging people to come out and vote, and promoting candidates.
A vast majority of the social media users are young people demographics, which makes it a great platform to motivate even those who are not keen on voting or in politics. There are several tactics that can be considered to connect with potential voters on social media, such as being direct and operating a Facebook page to misleading and manipulative. Having an active Facebook page is a very effective way to garner support for the candidate. He can reach thousands or lakhs of voters using posts and updates. One can also raise awareness by creating a viral video or image in an organic way. Also, having a website that accepts donations or a brochure that describes your campaign are good strategies to work with.
5. Negative campaigning:
The game is simple. To win the election, the candidate needs more votes than their competitors. While the main way to achieve this is to highlight the positive things and goodwill of your candidate, the other way is to highlight the negativity about the competitor. Negative campaigning is basically a form of political promotion that focuses on convincing people not to vote for your candidate's competitor. A very well known form of negative campaigns is where one talks about the scams, their political failures, etc. This may seem a dirty approach; however, it works and has huge benefits. In fact, a negative campaign is specifically directed to those who are most likely to vote for your opponent. So this campaign can help to change their mind and sway these voters to your candidate's side. This takes place in the form of debate or direct television ads or speeches. However, it must be noted that negative campaigns must be supported by strong positive campaigns too.
6. Direct promotion:
Though social media and television remain the best platform to connect with young voters, there are many people who respond to direct promotion. Tools such as banners, leaflets, short manifestos, and direct mail are great ways to persuade people in a certain geographic region to vote for a particular candidate or party. Since this is targeted for specific regions, this works well for local elections. With the right amount of promotion, this gives your candidate a significant advantage. One needs to focus on the community level on your benefits or how one can improve the community and have an advantage over your competitor.
7. Media and public relations:
Television and radio platforms are old mediums that attract massive audiences, thus making them a valuable tool and a part of any effective political campaign. Coming on television or radio and making public appearances is one of the important aspects of any political candidate. Be it political debates, media interviews, or local area meetings; one needs to communicate to people regularly. One can easily earn a massive amount of publicity with the right strategy and pitch and can sway away from the confidence of the voters.
Any politician should have a rock-solid PR strategy throughout, being present on Omnichannel such as print, social, TV, digital.
Conclusion:
Finally, it all sums up to campaign strategy, which sets the difference between winning and losing no matter what kind of election one is standing for. The winning campaign is the one that takes time to target people, builds a persuasive story or message, and follows through the strategy.
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