The Campaign Workshop Blog

The lion’s share of your political or advocacy campaign will be spent on message development and saturation. But as Election Day looms, you’ll have to start focusing your efforts on get out the vote/ GOTV. While you should make sure to include the rest of your online platforms in your GOTV efforts, a good place to start is social media. Not surprisingly, it’s a great digital platform for social pressure. You can use social media in a few ways to encourage your target audience to vote.

Election Day is rapidly approaching, and while many campaigns and advocacy organizations are already implementing election-driven digital campaign strategies, day-of digital campaign techniques require a much different approach.

As Election Day approaches, I thought it would be a good idea to share some best practices for your GOTV Plan- Get Out The Vote Plan. These are tried and true GOTV tactics —we know they work.

Jeanette Russell is the Marketing Director for Attentive.ly, a tool we feature in our list of top campaign tools. Attentive.ly will help you make sure you get the right message across to the right list segment through social listening. Attentive.ly connects with most major CRMS as well.

As we get deep into Get Out The Vote season, you may be up late at night looking for phone scripts or a 1-800 number on voter protection. Have no fear we are here to help. Here are all of our favorite get out the vote/ GOTV resources all in one place.

This week we go Inside the Campaign Studio with political consultant Madalene Mielke. She is the Founder and Principal of the Arum Group, LLC.  She has over 20 years of experience working in political campaigns.  Madalene specializes in political and non-profit fundraising and political training.  

Over the years, we have seen folks develop some bad political campaign habits.  But the good news is that many of these bad campaign habits can be prevented by good organization and a focus on fundamentals. Read the list below so you can spot the warning signs and keep your political campaign on track.

LinkedIn is one of the most popular social media platforms and digital tools currently in existence. It’s available in 20 languages, has 238 million users, and each week users give 50 million endorsements for products, services, businesses and even campaigns.

7 questions with "The Campaign Doctor" Craig Varoga

Craig Varoga provides public affairs assistance and campaign services to a select group of public, private, and non-profit organizations.  His firm offers clients strategic guidance in analyzing public opinion and developing strategies to achieve long-term goals. He answered seven questions about his experience with campaigns. 
 

This week's campaign strategist is Nancy Leeds. Nancy is a writer and Political Campaign Operative who recently earned her MPA in Social Policy and Management at Columbia University. Sometimes people hire her to work on their non-profits and campaigns. When that happens, these opinions are still hers and do not reflect those of her candidates.

Here at TCW, we are fortunate enough to work with some really fantastic folks across the country. From campaign managers to photographers to data people and more, we partner with other supporting players to help our clients win. At the end of the cycle, and during an odd year, we often get asked by some of these folks for help in a DC-based political job search. Here are a few tips I often give people who are looking to land a political job in our nation’s capital:

Every Fourth of July, I think about my former boss, Congressman Jim Jontz. Jim taught me the importance of grassroots campaigns - real conversations, and knocking on doors. Jim was a congressman from Indiana’s 5th district and a progressive legend. In his first campaign, he won a state representative seat by 4 votes. He went on to win a state senate seat by less than 100 hundred votes and three congressional elections by less than four thousand votes total. He was my mentor and teacher in the world of grassroots campaigns.

This week’s Political Consultant is Michael Bocian. He is a founding partner at GBA Strategies, serves as pollster and strategist for gubernatorial, senate, congressional, state legislative, mayoral, and ballot initiative campaigns. With 15 years of experience, he has worked for the DGA, DCCC, DSCC, issue advocacy groups and membership associations.

Paper weight affects how the mail moves through the post office workflow. The paper must have enough durability not to be torn up with the mass of other mail during handling, or by machines, etc. Thicker paper usually fares better in the mail system and is in better shape when it reaches mailboxes. It also has an impact on the reader: heavier paper is perceived as more expensive and higher-end than flimsy lighter paper.

As the dominant search company in the world, Google has the potential to change traditional, political, and advocacy research. As phone surveys become more and more challenging, using digital polling and testing will become more commonplace. But are Google tools going to replace polling and focus groups in the short term? Not likely.

This week, we launched our latest ebook on nonprofit content marketing for engagement and advocacy with Hubspot.

Whether it is your first or last advocacy or political campaign, one thing never changes—numbers matter. Learn what campaign metrics you need to track.