Your Campaign’s Opponent Isn’t Who You Think It Is

Who is your competition?

It may seem like a simple question with an obvious answer.

But if you answered, “the Democrat,” you’ve responded incompletely. At the ballot box on election day, yes, that’s your competition.

Now that campaigns are happening mostly online, however, you’re competing with everyone. Every voter you’re trying to reach online day in and day out is also being targeted by companies, organizations, and influencers for their attention. That means your opponents also include Target, Kylie Jenner, and Game of Thrones.

Because your competition is so stiff online, it’s essential that everything your campaign does online is done as effectively as possible. Simply doing better than your immediate political opponent isn’t good enough.

Best practices matter because you’re not just competing against Democrats or even other politicians. They matter because you’re in the fight for individuals’ attention, which is a finite resource and becoming scarcer by the day.

You can’t add more hours to the day for voters so we’re all fighting over the same scraps of attention, usually left over from something far more entertaining than politics. And in those rare seconds when you break through and get their attention, you’ve got to seize the moment.

Your website needs to be found instantly on Google. The homepage should load instantly and render correctly on their mobile device. The call to action to sign up for your email list should be clear and compelling. When you email them, the subject line has to be descriptive and catchy and hit at the exact right moment. The link to donate in the email needs to be clear, compelling, and near the top.

Remember, we’re talking about seconds, not minutes here. Everything should work perfectly. That’s where following best practices comes in. Just being better than the campaign next to you on the ballot doesn’t cut it anymore.