For many campaigns, Election “Day” has been underway for a few weeks already with mail-in and early voting. But the final week of get out the vote (GOTV) adds new urgency and intensity. While digital campaigning is largely focused on direct response actions like fundraising and recruitment, it has an important role to play for turnout.
The closer a campaign gets to Election Day, the fewer levers they have to pull as TV advertising and mail become locked in, making digital a valuable channel for additional, last minute resources.
Follow this playbook to ensure your digital campaign spends the final hours of the campaign executing an effective GOTV strategy.
Plan Backwards
Start from Election Day and work your way back to at least Saturday. You don’t want to be in the position of fighting for approvals during that critical period. The only thing you will have time to do is to execute.
Create a timeline for every email, text message, and social media post. Then identify the content needed for each. You may need to scale back your plan or tap into additional resources for help.
Articulate Objectives
During GOTV your objectives are obvious: get supporters to the polls and get voters to support you. But clearly articulating them keeps you focused and avoids unnecessary distractions.
This is a proven tactic for keeping last-minute tasks off your plate so you can concentrate on executing your plan. Each objective should have a designated landing page where all of your efforts are focused.
Create a Content Library
To execute on your plan, you need content. Create a library that you can return to throughout the GOTV period. Have landing pages on your site with voting information, frequently asked questions, and fact-checks on important issues.
Collect photos, graphics, and videos in this library. You should plan to reuse the same creative assets multiple times over your GOTV window.
Set an Internal Deadline for Approvals
Again, you don’t want to be mired in the approvals process when your focus is on executing. Package together everything you need approved and submit it as early as possible.
Let decision makers know that if approvals aren’t received by a certain time, you may not be able to execute on the full plan.
Voter Support
With the additional bandwidth you’ve secured by planning ahead, your attention can shift to voter support. This means replying to comments, DMs, emails, and texts and answering questions voters have about voting generally or specific policy issues.
This is the moment you’ve built your audience for. Make sure you tap into it.
Conclusion
Perhaps the most important part of articulating your GOTV digital campaign plan is getting ahead of any panic from a candidate or campaign manager that would distract you from executing on what really matters.
Truly, the only poll that matters is on Election Day and you don’t want to wake up the day after wondering if more could be done.
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