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Running a political campaign is a monumental responsibility. You have to decide what your platform will be, build a team, launch a marketing campaign to build your brand recognition, and build an online presence. If it sounds like it’s too much for one person to do, that’s because it is, and that’s only a small portion of what it takes to run a political campaign.
America is the land of opportunity, and you have an opportunity to help shape the policies that govern the United States if you run a tight campaign. You may be able to start a campaign with only an idea, but continue reading to learn what else you need for a successful candidacy.
Here are the basics for newcomers
You need a rallying cry for your campaign.
If you’ve paid attention to the past few presidential elections, one key thing you will have learned is that you have to have an idea around which you can rally voters. It can be hard to get people to come together to agree on anything, let alone politics. That’s why one of your primary jobs as a civil servant is to be a vision seller.
The main key to being a vision seller is to choose a specific platform of significant importance to voters that is also near and dear to your heart—and stick with it. Even if you have an entire warehouse of great ideas, your goal should be to pick one and ride it until the wheels fall off.
If there are a lot of issues about which you’re concerned, the best way to choose one is to figure out what voters are thinking. With analytics tools and polling, you can get valuable insights into the matters that rank highest in importance to voters and find a niche for yourself by meeting voters’ specific needs.
The great thing is that if you have the right software tools, like CRM or even Amazon seller software, you don’t have to be an IT expert to reap the benefits of analytics and big data. The automation of machine learning algorithms allows campaigns to perform voter research with the efficiency that Amazon sellers perform customer and product research.
Being a vision seller isn’t about being an amazing salesperson—it’s about getting valuable insights into the concerns of voters and developing plans to solve them. Once you have a platform and a plan, you’re ready to take the next steps.
You need to build your online presence.
These days, whether you’re running a small business or a political campaign, you have to have some brand or name recognition and an online presence, meaning you need much more than an email address and a social media profile. Having a campaign website is a crucial part of the setup of your campaign.
The good news is that you don’t have to be a web designer to build a great website for your campaign. With the Online Candidate software suite, you can create an awesome campaign website that attracts potential voters and donors and gives you a competitive edge.
Furthermore, you can write blog posts as a content marketing tactic and as a way to share your political ideas and opinions. By conducting keyword research and using best practices for SEO (Search Engine Optimization), you can create an online presence that helps you rank higher in online search results. Even with a small budget, great content, a robust website, and a comprehensive SEO strategy that stresses backlinks and keyword use, your campaign can compete online with any other in the U.S.
You need to streamline as many processes as possible.
If you’re running a large political campaign that requires you to travel state or nationwide, you need a new system to streamline as many of your nonessential processes as possible. If you have several field offices, there are many things to consider before automating a facility, but it could save you lots of time and money. Many of the things you do via human workers, such as sending emails and making phone calls, can be handled by software that uses artificial intelligence and automation to complete nonessential tasks.
Running a political campaign is hard work, so you shouldn’t expect a quick win over any opponent. However, with a vision for the future, a plan to sell that vision, and the right tools, you can you could have a long-term future in politics.
