The Campaign Workshop Blog

What Can a Political Consultant Do for My Campaign?

For any campaign, it’s crucial to hire the right people—and in many cases, your team might include a political consultant. So, what exactly is a political consultant? How does a consultant differ from a campaign manager? Do you need a consultant, and if so, how do you go about finding a good one that you can afford? If these are the sorts of questions that plague you, this is the blog post for you: political consulting explained by political consultants. What's the difference between a…

Here Are Some of the Things That Digital Political Consulting Firms Can Do for Your Campaign.

These days, digital political consulting firms can be part of an army of consultants campaigns hire – including mail, phones, and general strategy. But digital is a pretty broad term and many digital firms can wear multiple hats. As a result, there is a lot of confusion about what a digital consultant actually does. Before hiring a digital consultant, it’s important that you have a clear sense of the services they can offer and what you’ll need to…

Navigating the Pros and Cons of Political Yard Signs

Political yards signs are everywhere during elections—and we all like them as much as the next political junkie, but very early on we were taught that POLITICAL YARD SIGNS DON’T VOTE. We have heard all of the excuses of why your city is different and unique, and that if you don’t have more campaign yard signs than your opponent, you will lose. Reality check: it has been our experience that this is absolutely not true.  First off, there is no such thing as a cheap yard sign. This might be…

What Are Campaign Slogans and Why Do They Matter?

Below you will find everything you need to know about campaign slogans and how to write one that will motivate people to vote for you. A word to the wise, if you haven’t yet developed a campaign message, you’re going to have trouble coming up with a winning campaign slogan, so we’ll politely suggest that you need to pump the breaks! Need help nailing that down? Check out our blog…

How to Stretch Your Political Campaign Advertising Dollars

Not every candidate has a large budget for political campaign advertising. Digital advertising is generally the most cost-effective paid media strategy, especially if you use self-serve platforms. With platforms like Twitter bowing out of the political space entirely, there is a lot of concern about running political campaign advertising online. Google has already significantly limited the targeting opportunities available to political advertisers and Facebook’s requirements for…

Connect With Voters by Creating an Engaging and Concise Stump Speech

Here is our ultimate guide to writing a great stump speech. We all know that the candidate is the campaign’s best asset, and the stump speech is the best campaign tool for delivering a 7C’s (clear, concise, contrastive, connective, creative, compelling, consistent) message and personal story about the candidate and campaign.  WHAT IS A STUMP SPEECH?  A…

A Strong Political Campaign Strategy Means a Strong Campaign

At any level, campaign fundamentals can mean the difference between building a winning or losing political campaign strategy. A lot of this will seem like common sense (and it is), but bear with me, because a lot of this stuff often falls by the wayside as campaigns are being built. In essence, a strong political campaign strategy (meaning, the overall plan to achieve an electoral victory) should rest on a foundation of some very basic building blocks and principles that will help to…

 

Issue Advocacy Campaigns Need to Expand Their Reach–Here's How

At The Campaign Workshop, we love issue advocacy campaigns. As consultants, we get to work on a wide variety of campaigns and with a wide variety of clients. While we could never pick a favorite, working with a group of passionate people to make a substantive change on an issue they care about is our jam. People working on advocacy campaigns are the experts in their issues and are a true resource when we are working hand in hand on crafting a campaign to reach…

Best Practices for a Non-Profit Print Ad

Whether it’s for Coca-Cola, AARP, or your local 4-H club, the goal of a print ad remains largely the same: get the reader to take an action. That action could be buying more pop, calling Congress, or raising a prize pig. To make that happen, you need to catch people’s attention and then clearly and concisely tell them what you want them to do. A print ad can be expensive, so make sure you’re getting your money’s worth. Below are a few of the best-practices we have used to create advocacy print ads for…

Learn a Few Best Practices on Political Writing

Recently a student at Queens University, Stephen Crotty, reached out to The Campaign Workshop with questions for his paper on political writing. Stephen’s questions were really thoughtful and forced me think critically about some of the things I do when communicating for politics. Stephen kindly agreed to let us repost his questions and my responses as a 7 questions post.  What are the most prevalent genres of writing that workers in political campaigns encounter? Studies have shown that a voter…