New Media - (or more commonly referred to as "digital media") refers to the use of websites, e-mails, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, online databases and other digital tools used in a nomination or election campaign to marshal support, organize volunteers, seek donations, promote events, and otherwise get voters to vote for you on election day.
Traditional or Old Media - refers to the use of print materials, campaign brochures, fact sheets, sign-up sheets, lawn signs, road signs, TV radio and newspaper ads, prepared speeches, etc.
Campaign Tactics - refers to the methods used to convince voters to vote for you. It includes campaigning door-to-door, get-out-the-vote activities, rallies, debates, coffee get-togethers, fund raising, etc. It also includes marshalling volunteers to work for your campaign.
Managing - in a campaign environment means focusing attention on your volunteers so that you get the maximum effort and impact for your campaign. Managing volunteers means recruiting them to your cause, training them so that there is consistency of messaging and effort in your campaign. Once recruited and trained, managing volunteers means maintaining contact, keeping them interested in the campaign, getting them to work on the campaign, marshalling their efforts so that you identify the maximum number of supporters.
Managing definitely DOES NOT mean "managing" or "supervising" in the traditional sense of having control over a group of people - like an office manager. Your success or failure will depend to a large degree on how well you keep your volunteers interested in your campaign.
A well-organized election campaign makes effective use of all four - Digital Media, Traditional Media, Campaign Tactics and Managing supporters and volunteers.
The bottom-line objective in an election campaign is to get people to vote for you. After all, its votes ...... not debates, brochures, lawn signs, blogs nor websites ..... that win elections. And this is where a well-trained and motivated cadre of volunteers will determine whether you win or lose the election.
How "New Media" Changed The Game
A large percentage of people are connected to each other through the Internet ....... e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, websites, other social media, etc. The effective use of the Internet in election campaigns is a relatively new phenomenon. While databases on stand-alone or networked computers have been used in election campaigns for over 20 years, the use of on-line databases has been relatively new - 10 years or less. It's only been since the 2008 and 2012 United States presidential elections that "Digital Media" has become fully integrated online so as to be able to manage and recruit a strong volunteer base, mobilize voter support, and ultimately to ensure that your supporters get out and vote.
Some Marketing & Communication Concepts
Marketing and communication textbooks will tell you there are 3 elements in a sale.
- Contact
- The Pitch
- The Close.
- The Front End, and
- The Back End.
The Front End
80% of front-end activities are fairly straight forward. So-and-so knows someone who has a contact with a community leader or organization (service club, religious group, community organization, retirement home, etc). Or someone knows someone who is willing to sponsor a meet-and-greet in their home or in the party room of their condo. For the other 20% it's not so easy
Take volunteers for example. Engaging volunteers on the front-end, it's not so straightforward. And yet engaging volunteers is crucial to the success of any election campaign. If you have a strong group of motivated volunteers, you can accomplish a lot with your election campaign. Whether it's stuffing envelopes, going door-to-door, election-day activities in getting out the vote (GO-TV), putting up lawn signs, entering those e-mail addresses and supporter info into the system, or any other campaign activity, volunteers are key for a successful election campaign.
So with a group of motivated volunteers, what tools can you use to ensure that you get the maximum effort out of your group? How can you keep track of their personal information ..... name address, phone number, e-mail address, volunteer preferences, campaign training, etc, etc. If you want to rally them for a special event (rally, door-to-door blitz, GO-TV effort), how can you readily contact them? How can you keep track of what they've done so as to better deploy them for future activities. All this and more. (But I'm getting ahead of myself. More on this later on.)
It's my opinion that few candidates understand how to seamlessly link Digital Media to Traditional Media so as to leverage Campaign Tactics for increased voter and volunteer support.
New Media - Managing Your Supporters
Let me give you an example. If you're sponsoring an event, you usually have a couple of sign-up sheets where you ask the attendees to sign the sheets. The sheet includes the usual name, address, and phone number.
- Does it include an e-mail address?
- Is a "personalized" e-mail sent to each person attending shortly after the event?
- Does the e-mail include a link to the candidate's website?
- Does the e-mail include an invitation to "Like" or (more importantly!) "Friend" the candidate on Facebook?
- Are these persons asked to volunteer for the campaign?
- Is there a "call to action"!!??
- Regular e-mails of campaign events attended or upcoming?
- Regularly scheduled get-togethers like a monthly "Politics In The Pub"?
- Special events such as rallies, BBQ's, corn roasts?
- Weekly volunteer-training activities like "How To Do Door-To-Door Canvassing", "Phone Banking", "Using the supporter-tracking app"?
- Facebook posts with a schedule of where the next door-to-door canvasses will be?
- Photo-ops of volunteers on the latest door-to-door canvass?
- Twitter posts of where they'll be in the next few hours, etc?
- GO-TV activities!!???
- Is the candidate asking these persons to volunteer for the campaign? Or is it someone else?
- ....... and the list goes on-and-on, and on-and-on .....
- Is there a call to action!!??
My limited campaign experience tells me there are gaping holes in how volunteer efforts are managed. Typically most campaign websites have a page for volunteer sign-up. It may or may not have check-boxes for areas of campaign interest for the volunteer. Pressing the "Send" button results in an e-mail being sent to the campaign office in-box or registered in a database. An automatically generated e-mail is sent to the volunteer thanking them and maybe indicating that someone will be in touch. (More on the contact management system in a later post.)
The volunteer then waits to be contacted by the campaign office.
My experience with contact by the campaign has not been good. In fact, it has been pathetic. In most cases I was never contacted - a lost opportunity, eh!?
In one case when I was contacted, a personal e-mail was received from the central party organization indicating the local riding association would be contacting me shortly. They never did.
The one instance where I was contacted, it was 5 days after I clicked on the "Submit" button before I received a telephone call. And this in the middle of the election campaign.
- The caller had no script that would call me to action (How about "Bob, can you come into campaign headquarters to meet you so that you can discuss where you'd like to fit in the campaign?"),
- No discussion of my check-boxed campaign interests, and
- No returning phone number or contact person if I did visit or call.
So I got proactive and told the caller I'd meet them at a specified time.
But where do I meet you?
(street address location specified)
Where's that?
(More information specified)
Is that behind the ABC Shopping Centre on Downtown Road?
(yes)
Okay Joe, see you tomorrow afternoon at 2:30.
Note that it's me who's leading the conversation and not the volunteer co-ordinator!
What Should Have Happened
Within 24 hours I should have received a phone call, or, as a minimum, a personalized e-mail from the campaign office signed by a person (volunteer co-ordinator with a name) and a telephone number indicating they would be in touch by phone within 24 hours. That conversation should have gone like this from the moment the phone rang.
Hi Bob. I'm Joe Blough from Cathy Candidate's campaign office. Thank you for offering to campaign on Cathy's behalf in the upcoming election.
(Conversation)
Bob, I see from the on-line form you filled in that you're interested in campaigning door-to-door and in election day activities.
(Conversation)
Bob, we'd like to put you to work on the campaign as soon as possible. In order to familiarize you with the campaign, I'd like to meet with you to discuss the campaign, to find out more specifically what your interests are and to put you to work on the campaign as soon as possible. Campaign headquarters are located in the ABC Shopping Centre at the corner of Downtown Street and Suburbia Drive. That's at 1234 Downtown Street. Do you know where that is?
(Conversation)
What time would be convenient for you?
(Conversation)
Great Bob! We'll see you tomorrow, Tuesday at 6:30 pm. And in case you didn't get my last name, it's Blough - B-L-O-U-G-H, Joe Blough. And Bob, just to make sure we stay connected, the phone number here at Campaign Headquarters is 613-555-1234. That's at the corner of Downtown Street and Suburbia Drive in the ABC Shopping Centre. Just look for the campaign signs on the front of the store.
(Conversation)
Thanks, Bob. We'll see you tomorrow.
Piece 'a cake, eh!? Quite a difference?
But I haven't even got into my experience when I went to the Campaign Headquarters. That was something else!
But now it's time for a cup of coffee, brand identification, and the connection with politics.
See you on the next post.
Bob M.
