Grassroots Tips

The Three Types of Media

September 9, 2014 by Drew McKissick in Grassroots Tips | Leave a comment

types of mediaIf you are involved in politics in any capacity – whether election campaigns, grassroots lobbying efforts, or just actively supporting the things that you believe in – you have a message to communicate.

So how will you do it?

There are three basic types of media for getting any political message out to the public: “social/digital media”, “earned media” and “paid media”. Social/digital media covers online bases like Facebook, Twitter, blogs/websites and viral email. Earned media means just that, you work for it. And paid media is what it sounds like, it costs money.

Which options you might use will have a lot to do with what you are trying to accomplish and what kind of resources you have available.

Social and Digital Media:

Social networks make it easier for a group or campaign to interact with people in the same way that they already interact with one another. They offer a means to not only communicate with supporters, but in a place where they can increase your exposure by “endorsing” you or promoting your content to others and expand your base.

It’s like “word of mouth” advertising for the digital age.

Finally, your profiles or pages on these services, along with any websites/blogs, online groups, email newsletters or downloadable resources that you might have, are known as “owned media”. Since they’re yours, they don’t cost you anything to use, and you don’t need anyone’s permission. It’s worth investing time in building these “owned” resources for current and future use.

Earned Media:

For every campaign earned media is critical. From press releases, op-ed columns, letters-to-the-editor, interviews, press conferences, events, speeches, forums/debates, etc., it all comes into play.

The simple fact is that, other than the work that you put into it, you can’t beat the price – free – which makes it that much MORE important for lower-level races that have few resources to begin with.

Of course the “free” part doesn’t mean that things just happen by themselves. Someone has to put in the time and effort. From writing letters-to-the-editor or guest editorials for the local paper, to arranging events (and encouraging media coverage), to doing media interviews (after someone invested time promoting them) to writing press releases calling attention to your cause…it’s all an investment.

The result can be good (cheap) coverage that you have some control over and that helps get your message out to a larger group of people.

Paid Media:

Paid media can be a powerful tool to get a message out. It can be used to drive a message home because it can be repeated, and it can help overcome low name recognition or negative publicity.

And because you pay for it, you control it.

It can be expensive but effective, and it comes in many forms: radio and television ads, direct mail, the Internet (web banners, rented email lists and paid social media ads), newspapers, magazines, billboards, signs and bumper stickers.

The “broadcast” variety is much more expensive and less targeted. But direct mail and email are more targeted and can be tailored to individuals or groups based on demographics, geography or issue concerns. In other words, they’re customizable, (if you have a database that helps you “know something” about the people that you want to communicate with).

Pretty much the same holds true for internet ad campaigns. Google’s Adwords and Facebook ads offer options that display your message only on targeted sites, targeted content, or sponsored posts that display only to targeted audiences that you choose.

In most lower-level campaigns, you shouldn’t focus so much on paid media that you ignore the other types. View it as an “accessory”, not a necessity.

***

Remember, these are just channels. Make sure that the message is effective before you invest time and money in communicating it.

How to Leverage Campaign Contributions

August 19, 2014 by Drew McKissick in Grassroots Tips | Leave a comment

money 2If you have been involved in politics or helped with campaigns for any length of time, then you have learned how important money is to the political process.

The old saying that “money is the mother’s milk of politics” is true, but there’s a deeper truth there than just the importance of money, but rather the importance of “early money”.

Just like a mother’s milk helps a child grow, early money helps a campaign grow. And early money attracts more money, because it helps a campaign build the things that it needs in order to be viable. And people like to invest in campaigns that look like they will win.

So what does this have to do with you?

If you want to have a greater impact over which campaigns are “viable” and have a shot at winning, you can coordinate with other conservatives on which candidates should get “early money”.

There are many large groups that do this on the national level, such as the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List and the pro-abortion Emily’s List, (which actually stands for “early money is like yeast”). But these are large national groups focused primarily on federal races.

What’s needed are groups of conservatives who will work together to leverage campaign contributions on the state and local levels, which get far less attention and fewer dollars.

Start a Donation Group

You don’t have to create any kind of formal group or register with any government entity. Just have a group of like-minded conservatives who decide they want to collectively seek out and raise early money for targeted candidates and encourage other conservatives to support them as well.

Adopt some rules in order to target more effectively. For example:

  • Agree that you want to identify quality candidates in winnable seats – with good long-term political potential, (such as the school board candidate who could probably win a state house seat in the future).
  • Agree that you will only recommend X number of races (in order to concentrate your resources rather endorsing everybody that anybody happens to like). This is critical.
  • Agree on a threshold of support a candidate needs to be on the list, (like three-fourths of the group…or even unanimous support).
  • Agree that everyone will at least give X to everyone on the list or to X number of candidates on the list.

After everyone has made their own contributions, promote the list to others.

Leverage Your Support

Arrange the list in such a way that it has the campaigns’ mailing addresses and website donation links to make it easy for people to contribute. Then send it to everyone’s email lists with a letter of support over all of your signatures. Post it on Facebook and/or a webpage somewhere. Promote it by linking to it in online ads (even Facebook ads). Finally, you could even give your “group” a name if you want it to look more formal.

Keep in mind that most people are too disconnected from politics to make campaign contributions. Further, of the 18% of Americans who actually do contribute, most of those dollars go to federal or state-wide races – where they have the LEAST amount of political leverage.

An effort like this can help convince people to contribute to conservative candidates that they otherwise didn’t know anything about.

Remember, contributing to good candidates is one thing. Contributing to them early is even better. But organizing an effort to get other conservatives to collectively contribute early is best.

That’s real leverage.

Talk to other conservatives you know about starting a campaign donation group and leverage your impact.

The Truth about American Political Participation

July 31, 2014 by Drew McKissick in Grassroots Tips | Leave a comment

stringsSo often many Americans tend to chalk up “the way things are” to someone pulling the strings behind the scenes. Of course we are usually naturally suspicious of power and probably watch too many movies with conspiracy theories for our own good.

But the truth is that no single person or even a few individuals really “run” things, (despite the delusions of some presidents or judges). But at the “macro” level of American politics, it is true that a fairly small group of Americans (relative to the total population) do collectively “run” things.

Here are some American political participation numbers from Pew and the Census that give you an idea of just how many (or few) people are actually pulling which strings:

  • Percent of eligible Americans who typically register to vote: 63%
  • Percent who usually vote in presidential years: 58% (of course only a little over half of them vote for the “winner”)
  • Percent who usually vote in non-presidential years: 41% (meaning about 21% vote for the winner)
  • Cast ballots in typical local elections: less than 15% (meaning about 8% vote for the winner)
  • Vote in party primaries for major elections: less than 15% (that’s both parties added together…meaning about 5% vote for the winner of either primary!)
  • Sign petitions: 32%
  • Lobby or communicate with elected officials: 30%
  • Attend political meetings of any kind: 24%
  • Contribute to candidates: 18%
  • Join groups to try to influence public policy: 15%
  • Attend political rallies or speeches: 12%
  • Send letters to the editor: 10%
  • Work for political campaigns or parties: 8%
  • Attend organized protests: 4%
  • Are part of the official structure of the two major political parties: as low as .002%

A decent percentage of Americans (about 2/3’s) do at least one of these things on a regular basis. 34% did one or two of these activities within the past year; 16% did three or four, while 13% did five or more.

These are the people who are really running things.

They have the most influence over the system in general. They register, they vote, they organize. They are the political party machinery, they pick the nominees that everyone else gets to choose from in November, they fund the campaigns, they work on the campaigns, they elect the politicians from the school board on up to the president, and they speak out to elected officials about public policy – and they are more likely to be heard when they do.

Their only qualification for “running things” is that they decided that they want to.

Are you one of them? Are your friends? Do you know any fellow conservatives that need to “decide” that they want to run things too?

Pass this along and tell them how.

← Older posts
Newer posts →