The Campaign Corner series looks to give three tips about commonly asked campaign issues. Do get in touch if you have any questions you would like to suggest.
Today’s Campaign Corner question: I work in marketing for the day job, where measuring impact and altering our plans as a result is the norm. In the evenings when I become a Lib Dem campaigner however, measuring seems to go out the window and we just do what we always did. Surely we can do better than that?
A very good question! The short answer is ‘yes’. I’ve talked before about some of the online numbers that should be tracked (The two crucial email numbers I didn’t mention), so here are three offline figures:
Delivery network coverage: what percentage of your ward is covered by local helpers, excluding your key activists? A good delivery network (complete with good delivery slips) is vital for getting our messages out all year round. A genuinely local network which does not rely on one or two super-activists doing masses on their own is also much more sustainable. It can cope with events such as one of them falling ill, becoming a councillor or getting a new, busy job.- Canvass data: the sibling figure is how many residents do you have voting intention data for? It is a particularly useful number to track as people often neglect canvassing relative to other campaigning activities.
- Money raised: having a good broad base of fundraising makes the local campaign finances much more robust than if you are reliant on just a few key activists stumping up the cash at election time. It also makes for a healthier party with stronger local roots – and there is always something more you can sensibly spend money on.
Got any other tips? Please do share them in the comment thread below.
Want to know more about local campaigning? Campaigning In Your Community by myself and Shaun Roberts should be right up your street. It’s available for only £4 from ALDC and you can read an extract for free here.
Previous Campaign Corners have included:
- How do we get more leaflet deliverers?
- What to do on the doorstep
- How to make Focus leaflets looks better
* Mark Pack has written 101 Ways To Win An Election and produces a monthly newsletter about the Liberal Democrats.
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3 Comments
How many votes you get is also a measure of impact.
I think i depends on what you want the data for. The data you mention is fine for a candidate or a central office to measure whether a local ward or constituency is being effective, and if so that’s good to know.
But the data you mention isn’t much help if you want to know why things are going wrong, in places where that is happening, or if you want to know what specific, locally-relevant actions to take to improve medocre support.
At a guess, in these rather common and realistic situations, you (or the local team) might need to assess how well the local team represent and know the local area, how well they understand what drives local opinion, how rapidly the local team identify and respond to local issues, how good their access is to local publicity such as newspapers and radio.
Marketing experience should be a great help in finding ways to objectively measure these things. Number of stories/interviews/blogs in a local newspaper per month? Comparative statistics relative to competitors?
“For example, choosing the right local campaigns is important, but if you aren’t doing that, you won’t be generating the local support and goodwill necessary for a good delivery network to be achievable.”
This is true. But in my experience, even if the local campaigning is okay, the delivery network often remains poor, because the local activists are too shy about asking for help.
The ideal is that you have a complete delivery network, without needing to use any of your canvassers, so that those who are willing to canvass can focus on that.
And maintaining a delivery network is not a one-off activity. Occasionally, people will drop out for one reason or another. So finding new deliverers should be a constant activity (something your canvassers can be doing while they are canvassing). Bringing in a lot of people to blitz a ward to create a delivery network may be necessary, but the locals need to work at keeping that network going, and to replace those who leave.