The Campaign Workshop Blog

In our post-COVID-19 pandemic world, having a thoughtful membership communications strategy is more important than ever. For labor unions and advocacy organizations, effectively engaging members across mediums can make a real difference in realizing organizational goals and visions. Motivating members to act, such as turning out in elections or putting pressure on lawmakers to pass legislation, is a core part of member communications.

Political campaign training- here is the scoop: There are lots of decisions candidates need to make before they start a run for public office and a political campaign training can help provide some clarity for first time candidates. In our opinion, attending a political candidate and campaign training is a must for any potential candidate.

Independent expenditure campaigns play a unique and vital role in many elections. They can support candidate campaigns by filling the gaps that they may have in their strategies, resources, or messages. These independent campaigns can use digital advertising to target different audiences, convey different messages, and use different tactics than candidate campaigns. This can help the candidate campaigns reach, persuade, and mobilize more voters.

If you've ever worked on an issue advocacy campaign, you know that convincing a person to even listen to your message can be a difficult task. Now, more than ever, public opinion has become harder to shape when people tune out information more than they tune it in.

A strong campaign message can be the linchpin that differentiates success from failure. However, a common source of confusion in campaigns is the conflation of a campaign message with a central issue. The reason behind this confusion is the passion that fuels issue politics—which often drives candidates and advocacy groups to perceive their chosen issue as their core message. This is a mistake. A campaign message is not merely a reflection of an issue or set of issues; rather, it seeks to establish a more profound connection between the candidate or campaign and the voters they are reaching out to.

For those of us who closely follow political debates and electoral politics, only a few things are as disheartening as seeing our favorite candidate veer off course from their intended candidate messaging. Whether it’s a rant, a lengthy tirade, or a complete departure from their message, it’s truly frustrating to see them lose their way to the point of becoming incoherently off track.

What information independent expenditure (IE) campaigns can use depends on who you ask, and what set of laws you’re covered by. In recent years, you may have seen candidate campaigns that appear to bend over backward to make photos and b-roll videos publicly available on their website (a classic example of this being “McConnelling,” which went viral in 2014). Why? What are voters going to do with all this stuff? Well, it turns out that in most cases, the audience isn’t the run-of-the-mill voter at all. These campaigns may instead be trying to make information publicly available for independent expenditure campaigns to use.

We love podcasts here at The Campaign Workshop. When we're not busy working on our own podcast, How to Win a Campaign, we love learning, laughing, and growing through our favorite podcast shows and hosts. Jump into fall by checking out the top podcast recommendations from The Campaign Workshop staff.

A picture is worth a thousand words, especially in the world of political communications, where space is limited, and readers’ attention spans are minimal. This means that the images you choose for your campaign are critical and will likely require some level of investment.

Summer is a time for rest, relaxation, and yes, reading! Summer may be ending but check out the top 2023 reading recommendations from The Campaign Workshop Staff. Check out our staff’s picks for the best books of their 2023 summer!

In the world of political campaigns political power is often achieved through the party convention process. Whether you are running for state representative, county office, or President of the United States conventions still matter in many places.

When we started building training programs, we had a limited training tips to work from. However, after connecting with great mentors, going through various training programs, and learning through trial and error, we have accumulated tools to run effective training session.

Organizations and campaigns have used patch-through calls for years when they need many people to reach out to elected officials. But in an era of cord-cutting and digital everything, will folks still take the time to get patched-through to a lawmaker? And will lawmakers listen? The answer is maybe.

Have you been implementing SMS for advocacy, or texting for advocacy, into your issue advocacy or public affairs campaigns? Texting for advocacy is an important tool for nonprofits and organizations creating an issue advocacy communications program.

Advocacy emails are a powerful tool. For many groups and organizations, advocacy emails can amplify their message in a positive way. As you are probably well aware, most people use their email for both work and personal use, so communicating with your supporters with this medium is a logical choice.

We have all seen the exponential rise of short, viral videos in the last few years¬–so how can we garner the same popularity for advocacy videos? As social media platforms continue to expand and become more popular, creating videos for your campaign can prove to be a worthwhile financial and creative investment. 

Online advocacy campaigns are a powerful way to raise awareness, mobilize supporters, and influence decision-makers on a variety of issues and causes. Selecting the most effective types of digital media to use is essential for maximizing impact and engaging with your target audience.