Digital Marketing Checklist for Political Campaign in Nigeria

By brandler Digital Marketing 0 Comments

The 2019 election is drawing near and so many political parties in Nigeria are still trying to get a piece of the online visibility. Social media and digital marketing is now an integral part of the twenty-first-century political campaigns. Digital marketing has a great role to play when it comes to politics, elections and campaigns.

Gone are the days where political parties and aspirants focus strictly on the traditional medium of advertising which includes radio, Television, Newspapers and posters. Even though all these might still be valid, but it is only for a period of time some of these services might become obsolete in the nearest future. A smart political party knows the cheapest, easiest, most effective and easiest to track method of advertising is through digital marketing services such as social media marketing, pay per click, online advertising, content marketing, etc

We have seen the impact of social media and digital marketing in different elections across the world. The most popular being, The United States, United Kingdom, France, Nigeria, Germany elections, just to mention a few. One of the greatest dreams of every political party is to always reach and engage the right audience who will vote for them. To also get them informed about their political party, their vision, their aspirants etc. Above you also want to engage voters on a personal level, convince them and ensure they make you their right candidate to vote for during the election.

Gone are the days where political party throw money into the air to run campaigns without measuring the result, every campaign should have some set of key performance indicator (KPI) for each campaign.

The digital marketing is still one of the most effective methods for reaching more people as at today where we have Billions of people connected to the internet, on different social media platforms and on their mobile waiting to be reached.

Political parties spend billions of dollars yearly on travels and logistics moving from one community to the other trying to reach as many people as possible. But most of the time, the amount spent doesn’t match up with the results obtained compared with digital marketing. With social media marketing, you can reach millions of people from the comfort of their homes whether they want to see you or not, note you are not invading their privacy. For example, the cost of setting out to reach people in the homes with the traditional advertising will run into hundreds of billions with a lot of manpower and hours spent. Most of your expenses are not even spent on the real campaigns but are spent on logistics and wages. But with digital marketing, You can reach millions of people on the go.

Advantages of Social media and Digital marketing in Political campaigns and Elections:

It is one of the most effective forms of advertising
It is the cheapest and you get to reach more people compared to the traditional mode of advertising
It is easy to set up
It is less stressful
You can easily monitor your spending and easily change strategies.
The results are measurable

Here are the digital marketing checklist for every political party

Hire a Digital Marketing Agency: This should be one of the first steps to take when planning a political or election campaign. Hire a good digital marketing firm. Digital marketing companies understand the market trends better, they have digital marketing professionals that will help you create digital strategies, identify your target audience, create content for that specific audience, help you plan your budget and above all help you reach and engage your audience effectively.
Get a Domain name: Your domain name is simply your website address, it is a string of letters when people type on web browsers takes them to your website. The first step to take before declaring your political ambition or once you are thinking of running for a political office is to get your domain name and every possible extension reserved. It is highly advisable to purchase all close or similar combination and all possible domain extension. This is to avoid your opposition from purchasing your domain name and using it to drive traffic to their site or possibly using it against you. For example, If there are two aspirants ABCDEF and GHIJKL are both running for the presidency. And Mr ABCDEF decided to buy www.abcdef.com , then Aspirant B noticed he is getting lots of traffic and traction, he could decide to buy www.abcdef.org , www.abcdef.net that way when people search for abcdef there is every likelihood that the other extensions will be displayed. That way Aspirant GHIJKL can then redirect the traffic to his own site www.ghijkl.com
Do Some Branding: At this age, branding is everything, this has been proved to be effective in all areas of life and politics is not an exception. Your first line of action is to create your campaign logo and graphics. This will be used for souvenirs, promotional and campaign materials. It will also be needed for your campaign banners, flyers, posters, website, social media, online ads and even in your email marketing. Branding goes a long way in today’s social media strategy for political campaigns.
Content Marketing: You must have heard the saying that content is king, this rule also applies to political campaigns. Content marketing for political campaigns is creating content which could be in form of text, graphics, images, videos, animation etc to promote, educate, engage and stimulate the interest of your target audience. Always ensure all content is properly reviewed and coordinated, free of errors, void of grammatical blunders or controversial statements that may stir public anger or cause any public outcry.
Photoshoot: As the saying goes, pictures speak a thousand words, therefore, you need professionally shot photos. Photography is an art of creating and processing photos, capturing important moments and creating impressions. Your photos should convey the kind of person you want people to see. You need to Portray some form of flexibility in your pictures by taking several shots in different attires. Let your picture correlate with the message you are trying to pass. Make sure you smile, smiles have a way of making people accept you. Maintain a good posture at all times, some postures may reflect fear, shyness, defensiveness or low self-esteem, watch out for these. Get a professional photographer.
Get a Professional website: How best can you blow your own trumpet? If not on your website. The easiest ways to get people to know more about you, your achievements, your vision, goals and your past achievements, what you stand for etc is on your website. Get a professional website design company in Nigeria to design your website. Your website should be robust but simple and easy to navigate with every characteristic of a professional website. It should be well detailed with information such about you, Your vision, Your goals, Your background, Your social responsibilities, educational background, contact information, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), what you stand for, your political agenda etc. Ensure that your website has every feature of a world-class website. Your website must be mobile friendly with good user experience across all platforms.

Social Media : Need a more effective way to develop a deeper connection with your audience? then think social media. One of the easiest ways for your message to go viral is through social media. Social media is also one of the fastest, effective and easiest ways to reach millions of people across the globe. One advantage of social media is the fact that you can identify your target audience, create content for the audience, you can then target those audience and measure results live. There are millions of your potential voters on several social media platforms. Also, social media gives a two-way communication making it easy for you to engage your followers in real time. So it is highly recommended to join the top social media platform where you can easily reach your audience, the top social media platforms include facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, Youtube, Linkedin, Pinterest, snapchat etc. Each of these platforms has their peculiarity, Create unique contents that are specific for each platform.
Email Marketing: Email marketing is another great way to connect with your target audience by sending them newsletters, news, recent achievements what you are up to and other information you may wish to project. Email marketing might not be one of the most popular digital marketing strategies, but you can use it to drive traffic to your website, social media and also pass a message fast. There are lots of email marketing platforms to choose from such as MailChimp, constant contact etc. When you are running email marketing, Please avoid buying email lists, It is always advisable to build your own email list through subscription button on your website or through a link on your social media pages. Getting a list from a third party site could lead to your account being marked as spam or you could be reported for sending unsolicited messages.
Search engine optimization (SEO): It is not just enough to have a website. people need to be able to find you easily when they search for some certain keywords on search engines such as google, bing, ask.com etc. Ability to enhance your visibility and Getting lots of visibility online is called search engine optimisation. This often starts with website audit, keyword research, content creation, backlinking etc
Blog: Blog often, Have a list of blog posts you release weekly or daily, to ensure your followers are updated on the latest happenings in your political campaigns. Write on ways you will address different happenings when you are elected, write on how they can get their Permanent voters cards, write on why they should vote for you etc
Amplify your presence Connect with bloggers and social influencers: Even with all your budget, your influence, your social presence etc, You still need to leverage on the presence of Bloggers and Influencers this is because they have successfully built loyal followership over a period of time. They can easily influence their followers and you can leverage their followership to reach more people.
Run Online Adverts: Another digital marketing checklist for political campaigns is to run online advertising, pay per click (PPC), google adsworld, custom ads etc. Online adverts have been known to be one of the leading forms of advertising in the twenty-first century. Always run online advertising for your political campaigns to allow you to reach more people.
Mobile Advertising: Mobile advertising is a process of reaching or advertising to users on their mobile device and smartphones. This includes short message service (SMS) text to multimedia advertising. Mobile advertising is not limited to just SMS, It also involves using Multimedia messaging services, mobile applications and mobile websites etc

Tools to monitor Your Digital Marketing Campaign results

WHAT CAN WE DO FOR YOU

Set up social and political digital strategies
Help you optimize your website for mobile and search engines
Create robust and quality content
Help you identify your target audience
Help you with Online customer service
Help in managing your online presence
Help to build, set up, launch your online political campaigns
Monitor social and online influence
Quality Link building to help SEO and website traffic
Create a Professional, user-friendly Website

For Your Political Digital Marketing Campaigns

At Brandler Solutions, we offer digital innovative services. We will help you build a long-lasting online impression. We know how to reach your target audience.