Believe it or not, this is an election year. This seems strange to me. I’m still feeling the after-effects of the non-alcoholic hangover left from the giddy Trump landslide campaign victory and the almost unexpected win (if you believed the mainstream media) over not just Kamala Harris, but the Democrat majority in the House, and the razor-sharp micro-majority over the Democrats in the Senate.
Based on a long career in political campaign messaging, here are some things you should be doing to help your campaign, or a campaign you’re actively supporting.
Be sure to have a campaign bio. If you’re too busy running your campaign, or you don’t have the writing skills you need, hire a ghostwriting pro to write it for you, with you. I wrote about campaign bios, published Nov. 14, 2024, at American Thinker.
The advice I offered there is still good, and while time has compressed in the past fourteen months, there is still time to write and publish that bio.
Given your active cooperation and participation with your ghostwriter, the book could be finished in as little as three to four months – the usual time is more like six months, but by focusing on this as a priority, you can have the book out there, supporting your campaign, long before your primary.
Plus, there are ways you can further accelerate your bio’s impact. As each chapter is completed, it can be posted as a blog or a “position paper,” giving interested readers a reason to come back to your website regularly. This, in campaign terms, is A Good Thing!
Beware of political messaging that is only really about raising money.
Back on Nov. 4, 2024, I published an article here on American Thinker that warned about the risks of campaign messaging – usually via text or email – that seem to be about politics but are really all about money. People get very tired very quickly if everything you send them is about asking them to donate money. It’s unseemly.
It’s also an invitation for them to consider you one of the text-message grifters who defraud their target audiences. Nobody really knows who’s getting the money or how they intend to use it. A good candidate needs to play it straight with their supporters. Money’s important. Mutual trust is more important.
So go ahead and conduct your online opinion polls – and make them seem realistic – or share with message recipients one or more of the positions you’re running on. You can even post the polls on your campaign website instead of doing them via email or text.
Of course, your website will have on it a pitch to contribute, but that pitch would be disconnected from the information you’re eliciting and the volunteers who, liking your survey, want to help your campaign.
But don’t always make your messaging about fund-raising.
Political Position Papers – in many forms. First, let’s presume you have a series of political positions that you’re running on. Lower taxes. Higher border walls. Whatever they are, you have positions you’re campaigning on. But many voters want more than just ten-second sound bites. They want details. Facts and figures. Now, let’s assume you have them – the facts, the details. What do you do with them?
First, blog each position. Break the position down into a set of sub-points within the position, and blog each one of them individually. Each blog should be from 750 to 1,250 words – no more. If you can blog them in 500 words, that’s even better. Then, on a weekly or biweekly basis, publish one new blog on each position. This way, you can run this for weeks, even months.
If you get a favorable reaction, spread them out – don’t blog each position every week. Instead, blog some each week, every week, but mix them up. Border Security and Middle East Peace one week, Deporting Criminals and Lower Taxes the next week. If your campaign polling reveals that you need to either correct, modify or reconsider your campaign positions, you can replace early blogs with new, more accurate ones.
However, not everyone likes reading blogs on their phones or computers. To meet the needs of those who still value ink on paper, print up pocket folders for each position, then print out rewritten position blogs. Provide these packets to anyone who asks for “more information” on one, some or all of your positions. Registered voters who want to read your positions are pearls beyond price.
Since you already have the position papers written out in several formats, go ahead and adapt each blog for ongoing posting onto targeted social media platforms. A word of advice. Do not post on TikTok unless you want your opponent to ask why you’re using a program created and operated by the Chinese Communist Party. That’s not a good position for conservative candidates.
Finally, two more techniques to use:
- Get yourself booked on podcasts and talk radio programs that closely fit your own positions. You want love-fest conversations about one or more of your positions, rather than by-the-throat political debates.
- Record videos that exactly cover what’s in the position paper blogs and post them on your campaign website – and on a YouTube Channel you’ll have your campaign team create. Use a simple set and shoot these a batch at a time – it’s more economical of your time.
Doing all of this, you’ll get maximum impact for your carefully considered positions.
Market Research. Today, even local candidates have pollsters who conduct private polls to help shape their campaigns. The bigger your campaign effort – Congress, Senate, Mayor, Governor – the more accurate your campaign will be. Here are a few things to consider.
Your campaign director should already have set up a contract with a credible local or regional research organization. Many colleges have schools focusing on market research. There are also commercial research organizations that work for local and regional, as well as national candidates and campaigns. They’ll bring you accurate information, and your campaign will then release findings when they will help you out.
But here are other things you can do.
Fox and their competitors have relationships with researchers. They often empanel groups for what they call focus groups. Real focus groups consist of nine to fifteen people in a closed room, with a single moderator. The focus group session, run from 90 minutes to two hours. The final recording of the focus group should bring it down to 45 minutes to one hour, about half the total time of the group itself.
Professional focus group conductors create what’s called a Focus Group Bible, a flexible document that touches on the points to be covered. This will allow you and your campaign team to understand what will be covered, and what the possible answers will mean to the campaign. Typically, each focus group will be conducted three times, with three different groups. In this way, a “focus group bully” – somebody with delusions of importance who tend to run roughshod over the other participants – can be neutralized. However, a good moderator should be able to control such a bully, isolate and work around him.
Someone should be there to watch the group members so the moderator can focus on his or her goals. I’ve had good luck retaining a psychologist to sit in (but not participate) in a focus group, then report on who was biased and how they skewed the results. These are a lot like jury consultants, who not only help select the jury members, but who watch the hearing with an eye on the jurors and how they seem to be leaning.
That’s easy enough. But there’s more.
Video-record focus groups, using several cameras for viewer interest – and make sure all participants know they’re being recorded. Then edit the video to reflect what the group said. Of course, you only release this if you get the results you want. Then you place links on the campaign website, post the videos on the YouTube Channel mentioned above, and find ways of pulling out 90-second to three-minute soundbites for the YouTube “Shorts” – which YouTube is pushing strongly.
There are other ways you can use – and re-use – campaign information to reach prospective voters in ways that motivate them to come out in your favor on election day. Let us know if this kind of information is helpful to your campaign, or to a campaign you support.
Ned Barnett worked on three Presidential campaigns, as well as dozens of Congressional, Senatorial, Gubernatorial and other state-level elections.
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