When I ran for City Council in Jefferson City, Missouri, in the mid-1990s, it took a few hundred dollars, a lot of walking door-to-door, and stacks of yard signs to win. Of course, printed on cardboard and stapled to a wooden stake, Kammerdiener and Kuttenkuler (my opponent’s last name) looked exactly the same at 30 mph.
By the time I was an RNC regional political director at the turn of the century, it took a lot more than that to win any race at any level.
Candidates’ voices needed to be heard on the radio and over voters’ home phone lines.
They needed to be seen on TV, sometimes forced to pay for time in the most expensive media markets in the region.
Winning campaigns needed to be in the mailbox with voter contact mail that could find its way through the clutter to deliver the message.
Voters’ behavior has changed along with the times, though.
Now digital and mobile advertising is taking hold of politics.
Voters are giving up their paid TV subscriptions in record numbers. In the first quarter of this year alone, the 13 largest pay TV providers lost over 470,000 subscribers.
They are ditching their landlines for smartphones and turning to their smartphones over 150 times a day to watch sports, read books and magazines, get their news and share photos with friends and family.
Campaigns need to change, too.
If your campaign doesn’t evolve, you won’t win.
You need to reach voters where they are today and use your campaign dollars in the most effective way possible.
That will include a combination of voter contact mediums, including TV, direct mail, radio, paid phones, digital advertising and mobile advertising.
How much of your budget should you spend on mobile?
We suggest campaigns put 10-20% of their media budget toward mobile advertising.
In 2016, over $100 billion will be spent on mobile advertising.
It’s the scale of TV with the precision of direct mail at the cost of phones.
Not all mobile advertising is the same, though. Only Majority Strategies can deliver more people, more data, for less.
Get started with us today, and bring your campaign into the 21st century.
