With less than a year until the election, candidates on both sides of the aisle are pulling out all the stops to secure their position as the nominee for their respective parties.
Candidates should start advertising as soon as they have collected enough money to sustain a healthy advertising budget. Without a healthy bottom line, you run the risk of falling flat halfway to the finish line.
While TV ads are a time-honored tradition, candidates are realizing they need to utilize additional advertising mediums to target more specific demographics. While TV ads have a significant reach, they often fall short of reaching very specific demographics of voters and donors that campaigns are aiming to target.
Digital ads not only help campaigns reach those desired demographics, they make it easy for donors to contribute to the campaign in seconds. With an effective call to action and an easy way to donate, digital advertising is excelling in the area of immediate donations, a place where TV cannot participate. “It is becoming increasingly difficult for campaigns and political advertisers to reach audiences through traditional methods,” Craft Media/Digital CEO Brian Donahue explained to the LA Times. “The most rapid area of growth is in digital and social media. It has been extremely effective.”
While some candidates may feel they should be the primary voice of their social media accounts, it isn’t possible for them to dedicate the amount of time needed for an account to be successful. The key to a successful digital and social campaign is to entrust staff members with elevating the message of the campaign while maintaining the objectives and standards of success that should be set before the first post.
Dedicating your campaign dollars to the right advertising mediums ensures continued success throughout your campaign. If you put your dollars to use in an effective and strategic way, you will experience a growth in engagement and others will begin to spread your message for you.