First-Time Political Candidate FAQs

Every two years in the United States, there are over 500,000 public offices up for election. During that time, more than a million and a half candidates will seek elected office. For many  candidates, it will be their first race.

In this episode, answer a few frequently asked questions for first-time political candidates.

FAQ topics covered:

• Is it important to campaign online?
• How early should I start my campaign?
• How can I use digital advertising for my political campaign?
• How does someone become verified to run ads online?
• How can I raise money online?

Running for office? Sign up for our Online Political Campaign Tips guide to help get a head start with your digital campaigning. 

Visit OnlineCandidate.com to build your own political campaign website. 

Transcript

Welcome to the Running for Office as an Online Candidate podcast.

In this series, we cover the tips, tricks and ideas for local political candidates who want to leverage the internet to help win their election. 

I'm Shane Daley, partner of Daley Professional Web Solutions and Online Candidate.  

In this episode, I am going to answer a few frequently asked questions for First-Time Political Candidates.
 
Every two years in the United States, there are over 500,000 public offices up for election. During that time, more than a million and a half candidates will seek elected office. For many of these candidates, it will be their first race.

Maybe you are running for office this year. If you are, preparation is essential. Many first-time political candidates find the campaigning process to be overwhelming.

Online campaigning can be particularly confusing for local candidates without much experience in online marketing and website creation.

The first question is - Is it important to campaign online?

Absolutely. It’s where your voter are. As a candidate, you want influence over what people see, hear, and read about you online. This means that when someone searches your name, positive information about you appears in the top search results. This can be information created by others, or it can be information that you create yourself.

Building a online presence early on gives you a leg up when you announce your intention to run for office. Your friends and fans will be the first to check out your campaign website, provide feedback, promote your cause, and help in your fundraising and volunteer efforts.

Back when we started Online Candidate, we were often asked why a candidate needed a campaign website. Those questions seemed to end after the 2008 presidential election when candidate Obama raised a record amount of money. Many were small donors, and many contributed money for the first time - with the average donation was just $68. And a good chunk of the money raised was through online methods.

So, yeah, candidates today don’t need to be sold on why they need to campaign online. The question we hear nowadays is - 

How early should I start my campaign?

In recent years, we are sometimes contacted by people looking into starting their online campaigns as far as TWO YEARS from their election day. 

That may seem a little extreme if you are running for a very local office. But starting early isn’t a bad idea.

One way to get familiar with online campaigning is to learn how social media works on a personal level. Pay attention to what other candidates do online. How do they promote themselves? What online tools are they using? Figure out ahead of time what tools, resources and tactics you plan to use.

You don’t need to have everything in place on the day you start to run for office. A campaign website, social media accounts and a way to take online donations can be enough to start.

How can you use digital advertising for your campaign?

There are many ways for candidates to promote their campaigns online. A campaign website and social media are the most common promotional platforms. You website will act as the hub of your campaign, the place where you will push advertising traffic to promote your message.

Most online advertising is of the paid type. If you are looking for any real exposure, you will need to spend money. The most common methods of promotion include:

•  Social media advertising
• Pay Per Click
• Retargeting
•  IP targeting
• SMS/Texting
• Email marketing

There is no free ride on the internet. Even low-budget local candidates must campaign online to reach voters. How your advertising budget is spent will depend on your resources and how you want to reach voters.

Facebook ads are a cheap and simple way to promote your campaign. You can promote posts and target Facebook ads to various audiences. However, there have been restrictions and disclosure requirements put in place over the last few years. Depending on the number of people you want to reach, pushing individual posts can cost as little as $5-20 each to promote to your followers and their friends or as much as hundreds of dollars if you want to target a much larger audience.

Pay per click on Google is another method of promoting your campaign. Ads are displayed when people search for phrases that you bid on. Most campaigns will target their name, location and keywords related to various issues. Display advertising allows you to broadly market to geographic areas. PPC has been under various restrictions as to who you can target and when. Availability of this ad medium is subject to change.

Retargeting displays recurring ads to people who visit your campaign website. The goal is to get them to return to your site by showing your ads on ad networks that display on other websites. While affordable, this advertising method limits your audience only to those who have already seen your site.

IP Targeting allows you to reach voters directly, even if they have never visited your website. Physical addresses can be translated to IP addresses, allowing ads to be targeted one-on-one to potential voters. You can reach members of your party, households matching a certain demographic or even specific geographic locations.  

Text messaging services have grown in popularity and ease of use. Text messaging has a very high delivery rate. However, recipients must opt-in to receive texts. You can send a mass text message to supporters during important points of the campaign. Text messaging also provides a good follow-up for volunteers who are working phone banks – just be sure to get permission first.

Email is still important. Consider building your own list of subscribers rather than renting or just spamming voters. Most email service providers will kick you off if you do that anyway. The money really is in the list, and if you plan to be in politics for a while, build and guard that list as if your campaign depends on it.

Most online services provide pricing, so you can get a rough idea of how much you might spend on a service over the course of a campaign. PPC and social media might be more difficult budget for. You may want to start a trial campaign just to see what your costs may entail. Even with a rough number, budget extra money for unexpected expenses and for a major push just before Election Day.

Just remember that not everyone uses social media or is plugged in online. Don’t let online advertising be your only way of reaching voters. 

How does someone become verified to run ads online?

Social media platforms and search engines are demanding more transparency and verification from political advertisers. If you plan to advertise on a certain platform, make sure you know what information is required. Give yourself enough time to become properly verified.

This is especially important if you are going to advertise through Facebook or Google. The requirements keep changing, so my best advice is to start the verification process early. I’ve heard a number of stories from people who have had to resubmit information several times.

How can I raise money online?

First, you will need a campaign bank account. This account must be in your campaign’s name, and not a personal bank account. 

Be sure to keep detailed records of all donations and expenses. At some point, you will need to declare that information. You will want to hang on to those records even after the election.

You’ll need a payment processor for your online donations. Because political donations require specific information, I don’t recommend using generic payment processors like PayPal or Venmo. Those services don’t capture the required information, nor do they have online tools that can help you bring in more online donations. These tools include, website integration forms, social media integration, the ability to require particular donor information and, perhaps most importantly, reporting tools.

They may cost a bit more, but you’ll save a lot of time and perhaps bring in more money by using online donation services that are tailored to political campaigns.

Thanks for listening. Have any other questions? Let us know through our Facebook page at https://facebook.com/onlinecandidate.

Make sure to visit our website at OnlineCandidate.com, where you'll find articles, resources and learn more about our campaign website system. If you liked this podcast, you might want to check out our book, Running for Office as an Online Candidate, available at OnlineCandidate.com and Amazon.