Do's and Don'ts for Any Campaigns

Do's and Don'ts for Any Campaigns

Political Video Do’s

DO put your message up front! – Remember, the average voter will only listen to your video for 6 seconds before turning it off unless it sends the right message. Be sure to put your candidate’s name and the message of the video up front, before the person closes the window or goes to another video.
DO make it different! – Voters are more likely to listen/watch your political video if it is “different.” Have you thought about using a fun way to present your video? What about mimicking other successful commercials? Or you can make it sound like a radio newscast. How about making a video with a conversation between the candidate and a well known person? Think outside the box.
DO follow the rules! – In many places, political videos must carry political disclaimers (like those found on Newspaper ads and direct mail letters), and may be subject to restrictions or regulations depending on where your located or where your ads are being shown. Know the rules, and follow them!
Political Video Don’ts

DON’T annoy the voters! – Running the video too often is annoying. Make different videos, don't keep showing the same images over and over. Videos that are poor quality, hard to hear, or overly verbose annoy voters. You should have videos that are made in HD and are broadcast ready.
DON’T forget that the media is listening! – Never say anything in a political video that you wouldn’t want printed on the first page of the newspaper. Additionally don't show anything that you don't want on the news as well.
DON’T waste money! – Be sure that your political videos only go to registered voters (or, if you’re running in a primary, to registered voters in your own party). Running your ads made to people who can’t vote for you are a waste of time and money.
Although times have changed, campaigning is harder than ever! Today, there are simply too many voters, and too little time, not to mention money, campaigning. Simply put, trying to contact voters regardless of who they are is a waste of scarce resources. This may sound like common sense, but far too many local campaigns fail to follow this advice. Too many campaigns try “the more the better” approach to voter contact, which is not the best thing to do, be precise don't cut a piece of paper with a chainsaw.

Take Aim

Today's campaign relies on targeting – choosing, in advance, which voters to contact and devoting time and money to increasing the quality and quantity of that contact. This targeted approach applies to every facet of the campaign’s voter contact plan. Targeting relies on research and strategy, you must uncover the pockets that you serve and market to them. You can find all the information to make these decisions online. Additionally, don't go to every supermarket and shake hands because this could prove to be a waste of time.
Before starting any campaign, your staff or you should research past elections, voter demographics, turnout and precinct information to determine several key numbers. First, determine how many votes are needed to win this election. Second, determine how many of the votes are needed to come from each of the precincts in the district. The goal is to determine not only how many votes you need to win, but what types of voters you are looking for and what precincts those voters reside in. Once attaining all this information your on your way to a successful campaign, understanding who you're going after and why.

Make Contact – Over and Over Again

Once your campaign has determined which voters you need to target, it will need to focus its voter contact activities (Online Videos, Online spokesperson, Youtube Channel, Commercials, Social media sites, and most important your campaign site) on those targeted groups of voters. Remember visual advertisements work the best when promoting any product or service. Now since you have already established what number of votes you’ll need to win, target various groups of voters that equal (or exceed) that number, and contact them over and over again with your message.

Maintain Control

After your campaign has proven successful, determine what worked and what didn't. Exploit uncovered weaknesses, improve campaign messages, look at the competition, and always stay positive. Additionally give your volunteers specific tasks and objectives in your campaign. Lastly keep in touch with those that voted for or supported you. For more information please keep reading our blog!
By Brian Zippin

Fundraising for your campaigns!

Fundraising for your campaigns!

Build relationships with individuals and have them help you. To find individuals to help your campaign that are most passionate and that will do the most to help you, look to your Community Business Leaders/members. Make a list of Top Recruiters, Top Donors, and Top Fundraisers in your community, write them a message and call them to tell them about your campaign. Writing personal messages to your community members will greatly improve your chances of attracting these key people or organizations to your campaign. Once they decide to join your campaign, your next step is to ask them to donate to the campaign and to tell their friends as well. This can be very effective at jump-starting a campaign. Also during your fundraising events make them fun and memorable to you and your constitutes.
Feature the campaign on every one of your affiliate's causes. Featuring your campaign on affiliate causes is the second step of creating a fundraising campaign – be sure to carefully select every affiliate's cause. Since you are supporting these affiliates their views and what they stand for could effect your campaign process. Additionally, these affiliates could be and organization, a business, or cause for something. These people are some of your best contributors through marketing, donations, or time.
Send regular (once a week at least) bulletins/emails about the campaign. To send a bulletin/email, make sure your personal Facebook Profile is linked to your campaign site. Once your Facebook Profile is linked, you can go to any affiliate cause and contact those members that you feel should help you with your campaign.
Using Videos and Photos
Video and pictures are incredibly powerful motivators for individuals to donate to your fundraising campaign. If you have compelling, inspirational videos about your fundraising campaign, you can post them to your cause and send them in bulletins/emails to cause members while asking them to donate. You can also use the URL at the top of the page to spread the word and give people an easy way to promote your video or spread the photo around Facebook and other social networking sites.
Follow-up about the impact of the campaign, what worked, what didn't, how your affiliates can continue to be involved, and what’s next for the cause. Do this by sending emails to the key members with another message to get out in front of the people. Better yet, ask for input from your cause members and most active supporters and get a discussion going. What worked and what didn't work? Was there a member or group that did not support you correctly or caused problems? Did one of your messages that you sent out not interest the people? Did you contact the right people? Answer these questions and more to make your campaign successful for the next fundraiser.


What NOT To Do
1.Don’t link to anything outside the cause, except perhaps a link to more information in the first bulletin/email.
2.Don’t ask them to do 3 different things in the same bulletin/email. Choose one action you want them to take, and link to that several times in the bulletin/email.
3.Do not use your website’s donate page. Link to your cause’s donate page in the bulletin to take full advantage of the peer-to-peer fundraising aspects of causes as well as the viral effects of donating on Facebook. To get the donation link for your cause, click on the Donate button, then cut-and-copy the URL for that page into your bulletin/email.
4.Do not deviate from the message. For the duration of your fundraising campaign, don’t send bulletins/emails about other campaigns, other news items, or other petitions. Make sure all of your messages somehow tie back to your fundraising campaign.
5.Do not make your bulletins sound like press releases. Keep messages short, personal, and casual. Focus particular attention on the title, which will determine whether or not your members open the bulletin/emails.

How to run and manage a Marketing Campaign for Public Office

How to run and manage a Marketing Campaign for Public Office

Key points that I would like to cover and are imperative to any campaign is

• Donations and Fundraising

• Marketing your position while staying current with the issues

• Having a great online presence.

Donations and Fundraising is key to all campaigns in order to be successful and competitive. Running a successful campaign requires a lot of donors and key events to make those donations flow in. Additionally you should have a safe online donation page on your website, able to take credit card donations immediately and easy. You have to document all your events, then make sure that you can share the experience with all the constitutes that couldn’t make it. Video taping these events and posting them online will show your expert fundraising abilities, while sharing all that you do with the World Wide Web, which increases your chances of winning your election.

Marketing where you stand on key issues is another important part of any political campaign. You have to stick to your guns and let people know were you stand at all times. Especially if there are any new hot topics in the news you have to be right there expressing your opinion through all forms of communication; TV, internet, radio, and of course in person. This is crucial to all campaigns, if you come in 3 weeks after a story breaks you wont look to good. There is a great advantage to the first candidate who speaks out about the different current issues affecting your constituants. The early bird not only gets the worm but they also get the press coverage. Additionally if people are searching for those topics your video,article, and viewpoint will be the first results, getting you in front of voters and increasing your changes of winning your campaign.

Most of you already know that having an awesome online experience and presence is crucial to any political campaign or business. Successful campaigns that have a website, blog, YouTube channel, facebook, twitter, and about 4 other social networking sights, increase the chances of winning ten fold. Of course, if you don’t keep it updated on a daily basis with current issues, positions, and informative videos, your campaign might not survive till Election Day! That’s why the most important part of your campaign is being in front of your constituents as much as possible through web, video, blogs, and nightly news. Don't be shy. You must share with everyone what you stand for and why.

Remember information is the key to all successful campaigns, and I hope this information helped you. If you have any questions or would like to know more please feel free to contact me at www.zipinmedia.com/campaigns.

By: Brian Zippin

3d technology the future of mainstream use?

3d technology is finding itself everywhere today but some movies still don’t use it. Why not? It's used in movies, games, computers, and now even Newspapers.

"Iron Man" just came out this weekend and I had the pleasure of watching it. I thought it was great, but I was wondering why it was not made in 3D. Based on the research I have done, I feel that one of the biggest reason "Iron Man" wasn’t made in 3D was because the cost of upgrading the movie after the fact is immensely expensive. Another reason not to, Thanks to the horrid post 3D work on "Clash of the Titans", is knowing that remaking the movie simply won’t look as good as if they first made it in 3D to begin with.

Sony has just announced that it's next generation of console games is now in 3D. They first introduced these new 3D games for the Play Station 3 System and I’m almost positive that the next gaming system that they come out with will be entirely 3D.

Computers are also on the verge of including 3D entertainment options, with talks of making the first 3D desktop is in the near future. Google is one of the project leaders on this endeavor. The new technology will allow the desktop users to have multiple icons on different levels making them stackable. Also they would include a range of other browsing and surfing features that would look really cool on a 3D desktop.

In London a local newspaper is introducing the first 3D article for their readers. It is featuring pictures from this upcoming world cup in Africa and should really set the bar for newspapers going forward. They are including with there paper some 3D glasses to enjoy the article.

Is this 3d Technology becoming mainstream? If so what’s next Sports? I hope so!

Businesses around the world are looking at 3D entertainment and are embracing it. I personally think it's going to be the future but we will find out in the years to come.

By Brian Zippin

How to run and manage a Marketing Campaign for Public Office

Key points that I would like to cover and are imperative to any campaign is

• Donations and Fundraising

• Marketing your position while staying current with the issues

• Having a great online presence.

Donations and Fundraising is key to all campaigns in order to be successful and competitive. Running a successful campaign requires a lot of donors and key events to make those donations flow in. Additionally you should have a safe online donation page on your website, able to take credit card donations immediately and easy. You have to document all your events, then make sure that you can share the experience with all the constitutes that couldn’t make it. Video taping these events and posting them online will show your expert fundraising abilities, while sharing all that you do with the World Wide Web, which increases your chances of winning your election.

Marketing where you stand on key issues is another important part of any political campaign. You have to stick to your guns and let people know were you stand at all times. Especially if there are any new hot topics in the news you have to be right there expressing your opinion through all forms of communication; TV, internet, radio, and of course in person. This is crucial to all campaigns, if you come in 3 weeks after a story breaks you wont look to good. There is a great advantage to the first candidate who speaks out about the different current issues affecting your constituants. The early bird not only gets the worm but they also get the press coverage. Additionally if people are searching for those topics your video,article, and viewpoint will be the first results, getting you in front of voters and increasing your changes of winning your campaign.

Most of you already know that having an awesome online experience and presence is crucial to any political campaign or business. Successful campaigns that have a website, blog, YouTube channel, facebook, twitter, and about 4 other social networking sights, increase the chances of winning ten fold. Of course, if you don’t keep it updated on a daily basis with current issues, positions, and informative videos, your campaign might not survive till Election Day! That’s why the most important part of your campaign is being in front of your constituents as much as possible through web, video, blogs, and nightly news. Don't be shy. You must share with everyone what you stand for and why.

Remember information is the key to all successful campaigns, and I hope this information helped you. If you have any questions or would like to know more please feel free to contact me at www.zipinmedia.com/campaigns.

By: Brian Zippin

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