Despite the multitude of ways you can reach the voters, it is now harder than ever for a candidate to make an impactful connection with any single voter.
That’s why it is vitally important for a political candidate who is serious about winning to utilize both repetition and consistency in their campaign materials.
Let’s start with the problem of connecting with the voters in today’s highly distracted American society.
We’re all being deluged daily with advertisements everywhere we go. On Facebook, Instagram, the websites we visit, on television, radio, in the mailbox, on Spotify, interrupting the You Tube videos we’re watching, and even during movies on premium streaming services like Amazon Prime.
Ads are everywhere. The marketing messages coming at us are absolutely relentless.
And that’s just from businesses pushing their brands and products at us. Now add your campaign messaging materials into the mix as Election Day nears, especially when the Presidency is on the ballot.
Do you see the problem with connecting with voters now?
People must sort through thousands of marketing messages each day. The vast majority they ignore. They simply do not have the time to deal with them all.
Just think about all of the email you ignore, delete , or mark as junk every day.
There’s a very good chance your campaign’s message isn’t going to punch through to the voters unless they hear it time and time again.
It’s an old cliche in the advertising world that you have to touch a person seven times to make an impact. That old formula is becoming more outdated as each year passes.
It easily takes thirty or more marketing touches today before an ad or message can break through to someone.
On top of that, out of every three ads put before a person, they see only one of them. If even that.
Winning political candidates must be obsessive with the repetition and the consistency of your messaging!
You may be the most qualified candidate with the strongest campaign message, but you can’t trust that voters heard or saw your message the first time you reached them – or even the second.
You need to connect with your targeted voters a third and a fourth time and keep going to make sure they hear from your campaign.
And you can’t drastically change up your message each time you design a new mailer or put a new video up on Facebook.
The central message of your campaign needs to be the same on each and every piece of your campaign’s materials. Your hand outs, your mailers, your text messages, your social media posts.
You must repeat your winning message over and over and over again in all media your campaign uses.
What you say in your stump speech before the firefighters union, must line up with the text of your mailers.
What’s in your mailers must align with what you’ve put up on your website.
What’s on your website must be the same as what you say to the voters when you go door-to-door.
What you’re saying at the door needs to be the same as what your phone callers are saying to voters.
What voters are hearing on the phone has to match up with everything you share on Facebook.
What shows up in the Facebook news feed from you should be in line with what the local newspaper reported about your positions.
Your message must be consistent at all time.
You can’t have a different style, look, or wording with the various messaging tools you’re using. Use the same pictures. Use the same logos. Use the same words and phrases.
And your campaign’s messaging poiknts needs to be repeated and repeated and repeated.
People close to you will tell you that you’re saying the same things over and over again.
That criticism should be taken as a compliment.
It means you’re working against an extremely short attention span in the public.
When someone says they are sick of hearing from you or sick of seeing your ads, it means your campaign’s voter contact and marketing is working.
Don’t use this an an excuse for changing what’s working. Consider it a confirmation that your voter outreach and marketing is reaching your targeted audience.
You’ve punched through! Congratulations!
By using repetition and consistency in your campaign, you’re also staying on message.
And candidates who have a winning campaign message and stay on it tend to get elected to public office.
Now go say the same thing the way you said it before again and again and again.
Oh and if it sounds like I’m consistently repeating myself in this article its because I’m consistently repeating myself in this article 🙂