It’s another Saturday, so for those who tune in, welcome to a diary discussing the Nuts & Bolts of a Democratic Campaign. If you’ve missed out, you can catch up anytime: Just visit our group or follow Nuts & Bolts Guide. Every week I try to tackle issues I’ve been asked about, and with the help of other campaign workers and notes, we tackle subjects about how to improve and build better campaigns.
When it comes to driving voters, a lot of attention is paid to facts and figures and plans. When those same voters go into the voting booth, their decision to vote is often driven by the story. We’ve known for a long time that human beings care a lot about storytelling, and we use our stories to relate to one another. Even more than statistics and facts, we like to personalize the information we receive by having a story to go with the data.
So, how can your campaign be successful about telling your story?
The first rule of all communication: WIIFM
People often ask how they can convey their story/biography/purpose to the public in a way the public will care. How do they humanize policy and plans? How do we become relatable? Before you start on any of those questions, the first question you have to ask is simple: What Is In It For Me.
WIIFM—What is in it for me—is the way in which most people listen. They can listen to you tell your story, and their attention stays strong if they believe there is a benefit to them listening intently. It may be a story they want to relay to someone else later, or it could be a policy prescription that directly impacts them. Whatever your story, even if it is a biography, it has to make the listener feel as though they get something out of their time by listening.
This is why when we speak even in biographical terms about why a candidate runs, I tell candidates to think in action-oriented phrasing about themselves. Make their story interesting so that people think it was worth their time to pay attention.
If your story or narrative is dry and “just the facts” voters will have a difficulty staying interested, and as a result, they won’t pay attention or remember anything you’ve said. If your background story is at least interesting, they feel that what was in it for them was knowing another interesting story about another human being. It is absolutely okay to be entertaining—if it holds attention and tells the voter what is in it for them is being entertained. If you talk about policy or your plans, make sure you relate those to members of the audience—what is in it for the voter by adopting your plans.
Every story must have an element that brings in why it matters to the listener.
Short and punchy rather than long and boring
A candidate running for Congress gets up and tells a one-minute long story about a woman whose son passed away due to gun violence. She tells the story well, and she concludes with why this drives her policy, that she thinks of this constituent and the impact on her life. The story is relatable, punchy, and short.
Another candidate talks about the same experience. Rather than a one-minute story, he tells the same story in a three-minute time frame with a lot of details and information the first candidate left out. He talks about the deep problems that this has on our country, the concern over gun violence. He doesn’t conclude with how this translates into his policies, but he does talk about how we as a nation have to improve.
Which candidate was more effective? The audience listens to the story and they want to feel included. They can also develop fatigue around a story or dislike for listening to jarring details for a longer period. More importantly, if the same audience heard both speeches back to back, in most cases, they would prefer the first one. The reason is that audiences like to feel as though candidates can boil down important information to give them the information most needed to take action.
While a longer version of a speech may work in certain audiences, time has shown us that people want to hear action elements within a story and they want a focus on outcomes. Short, punchy storytelling is far more effective than long and detailed storytelling.
Next week on Nuts & Bolts: Celebrate poll workers!