How to win your race with technology
Filed under: Campaign Technology, local politics
Today I’m talking to those of you that run in those statewide races that are won primarily on name recognition. Races like Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of State, etc. These are very important positions but are almost always over-shadowed by popular gubenatorial and congressional races. They don’t spend nearly as much money and they don’t raise as much money either. This makes it difficult to manage, especially in states like Iowa with 99 counties!
So the answer to winning is a combination of two things:
- Be competent and know what you’re talking about (people know a fool when they see one)
- Get your name out there
For most people the second is the more difficult of the two. To do this there are three things you need to focus on to be successful in spreading your name.
- Video: You MUST leverage video. Video is both highly searched and easy for any demographic to view. Furthermore, we’ve given you EVERYTHING you need to produce better-quality video on our blog and you can do it everywhere you are. I’ve been asked more than once, “Usually when I’m in front of groups I give my stump speech. Which basically means if I record myself I’ll be recording the same thing over and over again. So why do I need to record every event?” The point is not to just hear what you have to say. It’s to see the people listening to you. See their reactions. You shouldn’t ever upload your entire speech anyways more than once. So take soundbites, create commercials, segment your videos into issue categories. Use video. At your events you or someone on your campaign should be walking around asking supporters why they are going to vote for you. Ask “soon-to-be” supporters what matters most to them in your race. Be creative. Video is the top of the totem-pole and I have yet to see anyone fully leverage it.
- Blogging: Yes, I’m going to beat this dead horse into non-existence. I love what we’ve done with Dave Funk’s campaign. We didn’t design the site but have helped his campaign with content strategy. If you go to his issues page you’ll see a list of 12 or so important issues. Now, obviously we don’t’ want pages and pages of positions on each issue. No one wants to read that much. So we’ve taken small excerpts that cover the general idea but links to a blog category. So every time Dave blogs about Taxes and Spending, you can click on the issues page link for Taxes and Spending and see an archived list of EVERYTHING he’s ever blogged about on that topic. It’s organized, and it gives everyone the level of content they want. That’s step one. Step two is to distribute your content effectively. Sending it to the masses. Your race may only be statewide but remember, in-bound links are important. Publish your content on large networks. We have targeted sites we use for Funk’s campaign and even the most obscure & bland posts get more than 50 clicks easy. So create your content, organize your content and effectively distribute your content.
- Email Marketing: Go and get an effective email marketing tool. Almost every demographic is using this tool. This is equal to Facebook and Twitter in importance when you campaign. This is a way to reach almost every demographic in one simple outlet. Use a good email marketing system that allows you to customize your email blasts, automatically pull in your blog feed and allows you to build customized sign up forms for your website, Facebook and anywhere on the web.
These tools are key. Just because you do them doesn’t guarantee you success, however, if you effectively leverage these three things and distribute them properly you are looking at unprecedented success in your campaign. Remember, you need to create content, organize content and almost more importantly, effectively distribute content.
Matt Schultz for Secretary of State Joins Operation Red State
Filed under: News, Red Alert Dossier, local politics
Today Matt Schultz, candidate for Iowa Secretary of State, joined Operation Red State to supercharge his online campaign.
When running a campaign online there are strategies and tools that go unused by most candidates for public office. The ORS membership site gives a candidate and the campaign team “full access” to a suite of multimedia courses to hyper -accelerate campaign execution.
“When you make a run for office your thoughts should immediately turn to web marketing. I know that’s counter-intuitive for most. But Matt is in the demographic that is typically much more comfortable ‘out of the digital gate’. He immediately brought some video and a WordPress site to the table. He’s also engaging and active on Twitter. The ORS subscription will round out his online strategy and give him affordable guidance that will take his online campaign to the next level.” – Doug Mitchell, Founder ORS
We welcome Matt and can’t wait to see him redefine how to run for public office.
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