Why is it important to get your message across to the right people?

When every fledgling campaign comes into existence, it soon realizes two important things. First, the opposing campaign is not the only competition it faces, and second, that having the best qualified candidate doesn’t guarantee success. The primary reasons for both phenomena are essentially the same: it is getting more difficult to reach people. As a result, sometimes the campaign that wins isn’t always the one with the best candidate, but is the one with the best message and strategy for communicating it!

Advertising agencies think about reaching the mass market. But campaigns for public office and campaigns to move public opinion must think about voters as individuals, driven by individual backgrounds, interests and circumstances.

Evolving technologies give us inexpensive and cost effective new ways to reach those voters —individually. Not as a mass audience. Campaigns can move beyond homogenized messages that have been made to fit into a handful of media spots or a budget-limited number of direct mail letters or printed pieces.

The Internet, email, inexpensive data storage, new mailing and phoning technologies and techniques are opening the way to intensive personalized campaigning.

All of this is permitting campaigns to do more with less—at a more personal level of contact with voters than ever before. For campaigns that understand the changing nature of the process, this is a significant opportunity.