Before you can talk about delivering the message, you have to develop your message.
Simple and straightforward, the Leesburg Grid is a clear way to hone your messaging strategy and then stay on message – hard for many to do but an important aspect of a successful campaign.
The Leesburg Grid
The Leesburg Grid is divided into four quadrants.
Quadrant 1 is dedicated to what you want your targeted audience to know about you.
Candidate A
Outsider
Private Sector Experience
Wife and Mother
Small Business Owner & Job Creator
Fresh Ideas
Quadrant 2 is where you establish the message you want your targeted audience to know about your opponent or competitor.
Candidate B
Career Politician
Tied to Special Interests
Status Quo
Record of Tax Hikes
Record of Job Losses
Quadrant 3 is for thinking through what your opponent or competitor will say about you.
No Political Experience
Unproven
Untrustworthy
Quadrant 4 is for the positive messaging your opponent or competitor will want their targeted audience to know about them.
Experienced
Record of Accomplishment
Qualified
Cares
Trustworthy
What to Look for
Once you’ve formed the basics of your message and what you anticipate your competitor or opponent’s message to be, you can now look for areas of contrast that will allow you to define yourself (before your opponent or competition does) and define your competition or opponent (before they define themselves.)
Outsider vs. Career Politician
Fresh Ideas vs Status Quo
Small Business Owner & Job Creator vs. Record of Job Losses
Who to Talk to
Delivering the right message at the right time through the right medium only matters when you are talking to the right audience. Survey research and historical vote data are the best resource to develop the right audience to talk to.
Read more about the value of targeting and why you must keep data at the center of your campaign.
How to Deliver Your Message
You know the saying, “Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket?” At Majority Strategies, we take an omni-channel approach to viewing targeted audiences and delivering your message across channels (print, digital, media) to ensure we deliver a targeted message with more precision and more efficiency than anyone else in the industry.
- Print advertising and direct mail
- Website
- Social media content
- Social media advertising
- Digital advertising
- Mobile advertising
- Television
- Radio
Staying on Message
It makes sense that the stronger a memory, the longer one will recall it. That’s why staying on message is so important to any successful campaign or marketing plan. It takes time to burn in a message, and an omni-channel approach provides more bites at the apple to deliver a compelling, creative and memorable message across mediums.
Read more on the science of delivering a message here.
This is the basics of how to develop your messaging strategy and stay on message. Polling, opposition and industry research, and historical analysis are all important components of creating a winning message.