4 Elements of a Basic Campaign Plan

A campaign plan is a document which coordinates and directs the actions of a campaign. The creation of a premium campaign plan can be an immensely complex process, particularly on a large political race.

The large degree of complexity in the campaign planning process makes it rather easy to develop a weak plan. If a house were to be built missing even a few key planks it would be at risk of collapsing, and if a wooden boat were missing a few key planks it might sink.

One solution to all of this complexity is to take a step back and create an exhaustive basic campaign plan. Then we can proceed to fill in each area with layers of greater detail until we reach the task level.

The Basics

The most basic function of any campaign plan is to outline an answer to the question, "What are we going to do?" In general, a political campaign has three components:

1. Plan
2. Gather and Grow Resources
3. Execute the Plan to Convert Resources into Votes

Those three steps sum up the strategy, or theoretical approach, of any political campaign. The next step is to drill down from the high level of strategy to the specific tactics, or tasks. In other words, a campaign plan must also answer the question, \"How are we going to do it?\"

This article will briefly outline the general tasks involved in any campaign plan. The four key elements we will discuss are research, message strategy, raising funds, and spending funds.

Keep in mind that there may be additional tasks depending on the particular campaign, and the tasks mentioned will almost certainly be executed in different ways depending on the level of the campaign.

Research, Analytics, and Messaging Strategy

Research in politics includes voter information, donor information, and information used in the creation of a messaging strategy. Information used in the creation of messaging strategy includes polling information and information concerning political opponents.

Any campaign should strongly consider conducting a professional poll. Other sources of messaging data include social media engagement and sentiment, website analytics, and polling data from outside the campaign.

Data is sometimes hard to get, but once it is in hand the messaging strategy is straightforward. Candidate should discuss issues on which the public and the candidate agree, and refrain from discussion on those issues on which the public and the candidate disagree.

The candidate may also point out the areas in which the opponent and the public disagree, or the candidate may decide that is not in their interest because it may reduce the comparative favorability of the candidate, or it might improve name identification of the opponent.

Raising Funds

Once the messaging strategy has been decided it seems natural to proceed into discussing how the message will be spread. However, a discussion on how funds will be raised must occur first because spreading a message involves expenditure.

Discussion on raising money should occur constantly, both before and after the research process occurs. A campaign will experience cycles of research, funding, and spending. Raising money allows research to be of a higher quality, while creating a fundraising plan after some research has been completed allows the fundraising plan to be more effective.

The fundraising process involves gathering start-up capital and growing that capital, although in some cases the candidate is able to self-fund entirely. If a candidate cannot raise start-up capital to begin the snowballing process they should reconsider running for office, or become content with the reality that they are a message candidate and plan accordingly.

Different techniques may be used when fundraising and each requires different amounts of time and money to execute. When raising money we will maximize revenue by identifying potential donors and their expected donation amounts, then assigning the most appropriate prospecting technique for that donor.

Research shows that personal interaction improves the chance of converting a potential donor. For example, a phone call is more effective than an email, and having the candidate sit down for coffee with a donor is even more effective than a phone call. It would be ideal if the candidate could personally interact with everyone, but it is not practical. Emails can be sent without a time constraint, but sending email also has a cost.

In short, every method of donor conversion has some cost, and the most effective methods are often expensive. It is neither the case that we should spend as much as possible, nor is it the case that we should spend as little as possible. To properly lay out the optimal mix of fundraising approaches would require at least its own article and plausibly several books. The campaign plan should contain a section on fundraising specific to the context of the particular campaign environment.

At a high level, the fundraising section should discuss whether professionals will be engaged in fundraising and it should mention specific roles and responsibilities. The fundraising section should delineate between digital and offline fundraising, and it should discuss the specific tasks that the candidate will be engaged in.

All of these tasks should be discussed along a specific timeline. An underdeveloped fundraising timeline is the mark of a mediocre campaign. Early money is like yeast or a snowball, but late money is about as good as no money.

The schedule will identify deadlines for various fundraising goals as time goes on. Fundraising deadlines themselves can also help in raising funds because donors respond when there is a sense of urgency to their donation.

Spending Capital

Spending money is far easier than obtaining it. The way in which a campaign spends capital can and should vary widely depending on the specifics of that race.

A spending plan should note consultants hired along with their specific roles and responsibilities. The plan should outline the technologies which will be purchased or rented, the print and digital marketing budgets, and the timeline, budget, and plan for the ground game.

The ground game plan frequently earns its own section due to the complexity involved. A particularly important section of the ground game is the GOTV plan, which is the plan to get out the vote. It is common to see this plan broken out even further into its own dedicated section.

All of these budgets should be specified down to the line item. General plans which estimate cost without specific lists of items to be purchased are to be avoided like the plague. Moreover, plans must include a timeline which will match the fundraising schedule.

Conclusion

In conclusion, a campaign plan should both be built on and plan for research. It should contain the messaging for the campaign. It should describe the way in which funds will be raised and spent, including the delineation of roles and responsibilities for the larger campaign organization. These basic elements systematically comprise the basic elements of a campaign plan, but there is plenty of room for additional work. The final trap to beware of is the trap of over-planning. Once a strong plan has been formed the real work has only begun.