Selling Success: What To Include (And Leave Out) For Your Post-Election Report

It's been a few weeks since the post-election dust has settled, and you've finally had the opportunity to assess what went well and what could have gone better in your digital campaign. Now it's time to create your post-election report for decision makers within your organization.

This report is critical in demonstrating the value of digital campaigning and helping to secure future investment from your team. So, what should you include (and leave out) in your post-election report? Let's take a look.

Tell A Story

The post-election report is the perfect opportunity to tell a compelling story about your digital campaign. Highlight the challenges that your team faced throughout the campaign, as well as the successes you achieved along the way. This will help decision makers better understand the value of their investment in digital campaigning and its impact on electoral outcomes.

Rather than defaulting to a report organized by marketing channel (email, web, social media, etc.) show how an integrated digital campaign fits together to achieve the overarching goals of a campaign. 

Curate Key Metrics

Your post election report should not be a data dump. Instead, select key metrics that align closely with your campaign's real world objectives. These should include metrics related to email marketing, online fundraising, social media, and website visits.

Select one or two metrics, explain why they matter and how they’re calculated. Add context to how digital campaign activity contributes to shifts in the metrics.

Identify Relevant Examples

In addition to the high-level metrics that demonstrate the arc of your digital campaign, connect specific examples as the drivers of these results that should be copied going forward.

For example, if you had a particularly successful post on social media, include a screen grab of the post and explain why it was so effective. This will help decision makers get a better understanding of how the digital campaign worked in practice.

Be Honest

The post-election report is only effective if you're honest about what was luck, what could have gone better, and what were mistakes. This will help decision makers better understand the difficulty of predicting success online and make more informed decisions about future digital campaigns.

Articulate Recommendations

Don't assume that your readers will come to the correct conclusions on their own. If you have, after carefully analyzing the data, identified actionable steps to correct or improve a future digital campaign, outline what they are and any challenges that must be overcome.

Conclusion

Creating a post-election report is a great way to share the success of your digital campaign with decision makers. Start by telling a story and curating key metrics that will help them understand the objectives and successes of your digital campaign. Identify specific examples that drove these results, be honest about what could have been done differently, and make actionable recommendations for future improvement.