Research & Campaign Strategy
Winning campaigns start with a plan. Running for office is a major time commitment and it is imperative for a candidate to be organized. Third Coast has designed and executed hundreds of winning campaigns.
Case Studies
Campaign Planning & Strategy
Developing a campaign strategy is not an option. It is a necessary condition if you want to win. An end-to-end strategy incorporates several key elements, but the most important are:
- Campaign brand and imaging, including logos, color schemes, and slogans
- Mapping key issues to voter segment
- Catalog and curate owned physical and digital assets, including website and social channels
- Budget and fundraising plan
- Campaign calendar with key dates, i.e., endorsement sessions, community events, etc.
Third Coast has over two decades of experience building, developing, and executing political campaigns from the ground up.
Voter Analysis
Voters are not created equal – even within the same party! Pew Research, a globally recognized and renowned research institute, has tracked voter typologies for nearly forty years. Pew’s findings show that there are nine different voter types.
Democrats and Republicans alike fall into four distinct voter typologies and the ninth is a group that is “in-between” or generally referred to as “persuadable.” A winning campaign does not rely on a one-size-fits-all approach to voter targeting and engagement.
The majority of political campaigns send one message to all voters while research and empirical evidence support a diversified approach, targeting voters with messages that will best resonate with them based on their unique beliefs and values.
Third Coast has designed 100s of voter targeting programs, incorporating fifty data points and secondary research to build voter profiles for the campaign. The Voter Message Mapping document outlines the unique voter typologies for the campaign and provides the insights for messaging and channel strategy, i.e., TV, digital, direct mail, etc.
Media Management
A campaign strategy and voter targeting plan are the foundation for winning campaigns. The Candidate Action Plan and Voter Message Mapping inform the Media Management Framework.
The Media Management Framework incorporates the campaign strategy, core district level and nuanced level issues with voter versonas. It provides the basis to understand what creative will best resonate with specific voters and across what channels.
Media messaging also plays a critical role in how we build content. General media positioning falls into two categories:
- Candidate Experience. Does the candidate have specific political and/or policy experience they can draw on to speak to the issue? Is this an issue where voters feel experience matters?
- Candidate Persona. Candidate persona can focus on what the candidate can do as opposed to what the candidate has done. Other messaging techniques can call out external forces to highlight the reason for the issue.
Third Coast’s strategy development and voter typologies are data-driven. This approach provides the basis to determine what content you need to win. By organizing content and determining what content needs to be developed, Third Coast ensures a smooth launch, making sure you don’t waste precious time during campaigning on content development.