You may have read my previous
diary about my mother-in-law, who is running for mayor in the city of
La Grange, Kentucky.
I am, for lack of a better description, the communications director for the campaign. Of course, this is my first foray into this type of thing and I'd like a little feedback on what I am doing and what I could do better.
Let me first say, my background is in advertising (I'm a copywriter), so I'm trying to apply what I know to the campaign.
More below...
The first thing you should know is that my mother-in-law is a late filer, so we've got an uphill battle to win the hearts and minds of the good citizens of La Grange. Luckily, it's a small town and she's fairly well known. According to
this article, it's doable.
Write-in candidates are burdened with educating voters about their name and how to write in a vote for them, said Jasmine Farrier, a political science professor at the University of Louisville.
But in local elections, the voting population is much smaller and many of them are knowledgeable, she said.
"In a small, local election, it is possible" to win, she said.
So, we've got that going for us. : )
The next thing you should know, that had my mother-in-law not filed the incumbent would have run unopposed.
Jean Knight, one of the most outspoken council members, has registered as a write-in candidate for mayor. No other candidates had registered for the part-time position as of last week.
Knight, 63, has been on the council for nearly four years. She said she is running to give voters a choice.
So, we've got a late start a projected budget of $5,000 and a job to do. Here's the ad strategy, in a nutshell.
The first thing I did was to set her up a blog. What the heck, it's free. Originally, we were going to set up a blog and a website, but we really don't have enough time or budget for the latter, so today I'm going to change the title of the blog to JeanKnightformayor.blogspot.com (or something along those lines.
Since I don't live in LaGrange and don't know the issues, I've drafted a guy to write for the blog. He should be getting started today (hopefully).
The next thing is to run a few ads in the Oldham Era newspaper. I'll be the first to say, that I'm not a big fan of newspaper advertising. I don't think it works. But, being part of a committee, I have to sometimes go with the flow.
I think the most effective advertising that we'll be doing is the direct mail. We'll be using magnet mailers for both mail and handouts. We've ordered 4,000 of these babies and hope that everyone sticks them on their refrigerators. As an incentive for them to do so, we've put both the University of Louisville and University of Kentucky basketball schedules at the bottom of the mailers (after her info and call-to-action).
Quick note if you're in business for yourself or plan to do any advertising. Always have a call-to-action.
Then, of course, we've got the obligatory yard signs plus car magnets, flyers and banners. And, because it's a write-in campaign, we've got pens! Since we're campaigning in a small community, we'll not be doing any radio or TV. It's just too expensive and we wouldn't be able to target the community like we want.
So, there you have it. That's what we've got going on. If anybody has any suggestions on what else we should or should not do, please let me know.
Thanks in advance.
hink