What is Political Messaging?

Political messaging is used to refer to any act or form of non verbal communication that influences a political strategy, campaign or leader. Political messaging is used for political reasoning that has concern for an electorate or target audience. Political messaging can originate from many facets, and is shaped by community outreach, understanding the electorate and current affairs within a demographic/ audience segment. There is a widely held belief among elected officials that messaging matters and that the message parties choose plays an important role in the public’s response.

The Importance Of Political Messaging

Speaking the truth, highlighting the positives, deflecting; call it what you will, but there is no denying how important political messaging is. Effective campaigning goes hand in hand with a coherent, persistent and consistent message and must be deployed across all political campaign tools and methods of campaign distribution. You must find something to say that is relevant and that resonates with your target audience. Most politicians state a problem and then propose a solution. This shows the public that they are problem solvers and not just going to rest on their laurels. There is also a sense of collaboration about campaign messaging as it is developed in response to voter input.

A lack of consistency in political messaging can dissuade your electorate and change the publics response to your campaign.

Political Message Testing

We can say with confidence that the faster you decide on a message, the more time you have to refine it. Establishing your ‘working’ campaign message at an early stage gives you more opportunities to run tests on how people are interpreting your ideas, good or bad.

Testing can be done in many forms, it can be as simple as debuting your message at a political rally, broadcasting your political message across political social media platforms, gathering data from the audience members or seeing how your messaging is received through door-to-door canvassing. Lots of politicians run quantitative tests such as polling which tells you how many people think something. On the other hand, qualitative research tells you why people think what they think.

Creating testable messages and seeing how they fare in different demographics and locations through polling and online advertising is commonplace nowadays. Being able to gauge the reaction of the crowd is fundamental when conducting qualitative research. If you can’t tell when what you're saying is being welcomed positively, then you have no business running for office in the first place.

Delivering Messaging

After you are happy with the testing you have carried out in relation to your messaging, you must correctly use this research to deliver different versions of messaging to different demographics and locations.

Elections are all about turnout which, in turn, is all about voter contact, engagement and 'Get Out The Vote' (GOTV) strategy. This means different things for different demographics. Among older voters, more traditional campaign tactics are key. Among minority voters, churches and unions are important messaging channels. If your political funding allows you to spend budget on a billboard advertisement, it would be strongly recommended that your message would reach your target audience. For example, you could be advocating for road improvements at a, particularly bad junction. People stuck in traffic might start to take notice of what you're campaigning for as a result.

For campaign messaging to work effectively, it must be implemented early on, much like your campaign strategy. It must be employed as part of your long-term strategy and have some flexibility to adapt and improve.