You’ve landed a big endorsement for your campaign. This endorsement carries such weight that it will increase your profile as a candidate.
The endorsement may help you raise money, convert undecided voters into supporters, pick up other big endorsements, or perhaps all of the above.
But how do you get the word out?
Here’s five ways to properly announce and publicize a big endorsement for your political campaign./
1. Send a Press Release
The press release is the most traditional way to announce your endorsements. It’s been around forever and still works.
Whenever you land a significant endorsement you should always send a press release to all the media outlets.
These media outlets include newspapers, radio stations, and television stations, local bloggers and YouTubers that are covering your race or politics in your area.
At the least you may get a story in your local paper. At the most the endorsement could get mentioned in a radio news report or maybe your local TV news may send a crew out to cover the announcement.
Perhaps a political blog will write about the endorsement or a local YouTuber will get the endorsement out to their followers and into the search engine stream.
Here’s the guidelines you’ll need for writing a standard press release.
2. At An Event
Depending on the endorsement, you might want to make the announcement at a live event with the endorser.
You could hold a press conference with the endorser to specifically get the announcement into your local news. If that’s the case, you’ll need to send the media a press release inviting them to the event.
You also can announce the endorsement at a fundraiser and have the endorser speak there.
This can help you raise money by creating a buzz among your donors and show momentum is on your side during the campaign.
3. By Email
Since you’ve already written a press release about the endorsement, you should definitely massage that copy and email this news out to the voters.
At the very least email it to your supporter list. If the endorser is a name that will help bring voters to your side, you should also email it out to your targeted voters as well.
This isn’t just your personal email list. It’s important that you as a candidate are building an email list just for your campaign to communicate with when needed.
4. In Social Media Posts
Whatever you send out to the traditional media, should also be shared on all of your social media channels and posted to your website.
Even if no one that you send the press release to covers your the endorsement, you can make sure the news is out there through these social media channels.
Create posts on Facebook and Instagram about the endorsement. Send out a Tweet on X announcing the endorsement with a link back to your website with details on the endorsement for those who want it.
And remember, social media is very very very visual — always include a picture of the person endorsing you in your updates.
If your endorsement an organization like a police officers or teachers association, use their logo if they will allow you to do so.
But always be sure to get permission to use their logo and don’t ever use a government seal or logo by mistake.
5. Live on Social Media Channels
A newer way to announce an endorsement is to do it live on social media channels like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and X (Twitter).
If you hold a press conference to announce an endorsement or do so at a fundraiser, have someone stream it live to your social channels.
Or you can simply pick a time and a place to go live with your endorser on YouTube or another social channel. That works too and may actually be less demanding.
After ending the live stream, you can then edit the video, add captions, trim the video’s length, and keep the video up on your page.
Candidate Take-Aways
Big name endorsements are great to have on a campaign.
Unfortunately, they do nothing to help raise your candidate profile or assist in your fundraising efforts if people are not aware of the endorsement.
But if you utilize as many of these five ways of publicizing your big endorsements when you get them, you’ll effectively get the word out to voters, donors, and other elected officials.