Local celebrity endorsements can really boost your campaign
Getting endorsements from local well known people can really fire up your campaign. Endorsements from local people can be important for a number of reasons when running for election. Here are a few:
Endorsements can provide credibility and legitimacy to a candidate. If a respected member of the community endorses a candidate, it can help to demonstrate that the candidate is qualified and has the support of people who are well-respected in the community.
Endorsements can help to generate media attention and get the word out about a candidate. If a local celebrity or well-known figure endorses a candidate, it can help to attract media coverage and get more people interested in the campaign.
Endorsements can help to mobilize voters. If someone a voter respects and trusts endorses a candidate, it can help to convince the voter to support the candidate as well.
Endorsements can help to build a coalition of supporters. If a candidate can secure endorsements from a diverse group of people within the community, it can help to demonstrate that the candidate has broad support and is able to bring people together.
Overall, endorsements from local people can be a valuable asset for a candidate running for election, as they can help to establish the candidate’s credibility, generate media attention, mobilize voters, and build a coalition of supporters.
Getting the point across: why leaflets are important to your campaign
Let’s talk leafletting and its importance, it is probably the best way to reach out to voters and explain what you want to achieve if you are elected. Its how the voters will learn about you, be able to receive your contact details and see the messages that you want them to see.
Here are the steps to creating a network of people to help you deliver your leaflets.
Identify the purpose of your leaflet campaign: Determine the message you want to convey and the goals you want to achieve through your leaflet campaign. This will help you decide on the target audience for your leaflets and the locations you want to cover. For example, perhaps your ward, district or constituency is divided into clear distinct areas and so you can deliver a different message targeting different areas.
Create a list of potential volunteers: Think about people you know who might be willing to help with your leaflet campaign. This can include friends, family members, colleagues, and members of local community groups.
Reach out to potential volunteers: Contact your potential volunteers and explain the purpose of your leaflet campaign. Ask if they would be willing to help distribute leaflets in their neighbourhood or other designated areas.
Organise a meeting: Once you have a group of volunteers, schedule a meeting to discuss the details of the leaflet campaign. This is a good opportunity to answer any questions volunteers may have and to assign specific tasks and responsibilities.
Plan your leaflet distribution strategy: Determine the most effective way to distribute your leaflets. This could include door-to-door delivery, distributing leaflets in high-traffic areas, or using volunteers to cover specific neighbourhoods.
Coordinate with your volunteers: Keep in touch with your volunteers and make sure they have the resources they need to effectively distribute your leaflets. This may include additional training or support, as well as providing volunteers with a set of instructions or guidelines to follow.
Follow up and thank your volunteers: After your leaflet campaign has been completed, be sure to follow up with your volunteers and thank them for their time and efforts. This will help build goodwill and make it more likely that they will be willing to help with future campaigns.
You’ve filled out all the details. You’ve been interviewed. You’ve been approved. You’ve been grilled by the local association members. You’ve had to defend your views on building houses, on the green belt, on bins, on litter and on planning permissions. You’ve done it. You’ve been selected. Well done. The hard part starts here.
What to do now that you’ve been selected? Here are 4 top tips to help your campaign get off on the right foot.
Photos – take a lot of photos. Take photos of you next to obvious things in your area/ward/district. There’s an important reason for this. It shows that you are engaged in the area, that you know the issues that the voters are facing and that you are proactively acting on them. If you can get photos of you with party members even better, it shows you are supported and that they believe that you can win. You’ll put these photos on leaflets and post them on social media. Use them to connect with voters.
Get talking – start putting yourself out there. Start knocking on doors and start talking to voters. Not only will you learn what the issues of your area are but these conversations will convince people to vote for you. I have had many a conversation about local issues which started out difficult but ended with a promise to vote for me. Alternatively, you’ll find out whether they will vote for you or not. Either way, you get your answer!
Get in the local groups – whether it is joining the Facebook groups or joining the local litter picking womblers, joining the local groups will give you a wealth of important information about the issues that are plaguing your area. Whether it is potholes, housing, litter or missing pets, there is always knowledge to be gained from joining these groups.
In 100 days there will once more be elections in the U.K. as polls open across England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.
It’s an incredibly exciting time regardless of what level of experience you are at with your campaign. Whether you are standing for the first time or the tenth time, elections can be unpredictable.
It’s an opportune moment to sit back and review your campaign. How has it gone so far? What conversations have you been having? What data have you been collecting? How have you been processing it? It is important to record voter conversations but most crucially their voting intentions (which will undoubtedly change in the months to come too!).
Have you been taking photos of yourself out and about? Have you been developing ideas for your leaflets?
Lots to do, lots done. Let’s kick start the campaign! Here’s to the next hundred days.
There are so many reasons that a person would want to run (or stand, confusingly) for election. Why do you want to run?
Do you want to change things? Big things? Small things? Maybe your local bin collection is poor and you want to make it better. Maybe a sign won’t get fixed and you’re tired of it being broken.
Maybe you want to help people that cannot help themselves. Maybe you want to see your town succeed and grow and want to be a part of it, shape it.
Maybe you want to gain experience of standing (or running, confusingly) in preparation for running again at some point in the future.
Maybe you’ve been asked to run by your political party as a paper candidate (someone to just appear as a name on a ballot paper).
Maybe you are angry. Maybe you want to fight injustice, maybe you want to tackle climate change through changing laws, maybe there is a law you want to see created, to right a wrong.
I’ve heard people say that there are right and wrong reasons to run for office. Helping your community, challenging injustice being the two prime ‘good’ reasons. My political party asked me and I want to win, are often presented as bad reasons. I disagree with these, there are reasons to run and good or bad depends entirely on your explanation to the voters. There’s good and bad explanations of why you want to run. That’s all that really matters.
Don’t ever run for office unless you know why you want to run
These are all valid reasons to run but it is really important to understand why you want to run. People will ask you on the doorstep, why should they vote for you? It is incredibly important that you know why you want to win. Why people should vote for you. Voters can always work out if you aren’t being truthful to them. Not only that, but asking yourself why you want to run for election will help to answer the question of what type of campaign you want to have. If it’s as a paper candidate your resources will be limited, your reach small and your outcome is a very likely loss. If it to gain experience, you will want to either run a standard, run of the mill campaign, gather voting data and intentions in preparation for the next campaign, maybe your aim is to generate a buzz about yourself, grow your reputation. If you are angry about an injustice, then you want to spread word about your campaign as fast and as wide as possible, through leaflets, social media, local newspapers, local media. Maybe you want to win. Maybe you think you can win.
Whatever your reasoning, let me say this, running for office is never easy. It will be time consuming, emotionally tough, potentially financially draining and absolutely requires the support of friends and family. Make sure you have this last one in spades, it’ll be crucial. The potential reward of winning will often outweigh the above issues though, the high of the election night and count and the hard work that follows are why people choose to do it.
So, the very first question to ask yourself, before we go any further, is:
I suppose the first question to ask is, why. Why do this? Why start a website called ‘How to run a good campaign’?
I decided to create this website because I noticed a gap, I was sat, much like yourselves, thinking about campaigning and what advice I would give to someone who was just starting out on creating their very first campaign. I searched to see what others would say and found to my amazement, practically nothing, almost zero information, and advice on what to do with your amazing campaign idea, how to do it, how to create change. Nothing. Pages and pages of ‘buy this product to find out how to run a good campaign!’ or ‘hire our services and we will tell you how to run a good campaign’.
Naturally, I thought to myself, this needs to change. Good campaigns can change the world but it seems that this information on how to run one, even the basics, are hidden behind pay walls, shared whispers, and people ‘in the know’. We are going to do things differently here.
Let’s change this. This website will, with time, explain how to run all sorts of campaigns. We will start with the type that I know the most about, political campaigns and electioneering but we will be branching out into marketing, advertising, demonstrations, product launches, and lots more.
I also think it would worthwhile being reflective, seeing what we can learn about campaigning from the past. What were good campaigns, why were they good? What were bad campaigns? Why did they fail? How can we avoid those mistakes?
I’m really excited for you to see what’s coming. The mission statement is simple, how do you run a good campaign?
