Electoral success is impossible without proper political messaging. Effective political messaging involves evaluating your target audience, choosing the right topics, and perfecting your tone of voice to share your agenda and goals, as well as gain support for those. But how do you differentiate messages intended for local, national, and European audiences? Let’s start by clarifying this distinction then offer some strategic considerations for crafting the best political messages tailored to your audience.
The importance of values in political messaging
Each political party or movement begins with defining its values and policies. And though the latter may change and evolve, there is always some set of ideas which are known and understood by organisation’s members and supporters and which then create the public image or brand of the organisation. When this first and rather difficult task is accomplished, each organisation faces the next one – transferring its policies and values into political messages for both everyday political work and electoral campaigns.
Daily politics and campaign dynamics
Both types of messages are extremely important and certainly none is easy. Everyday political work can turn into an endless cycle of committees, meetings, hearings, voting, and compromise. Perhaps these bits and pieces are not the most exciting news, but they are the cogs of democracy and political staffers have to find creative ways of formulating messages about these processes for the broader public. It is important for two main reasons: first, it is important to improve understanding about democratic process and thus protect it. Second, these messages will serve as the basis for more creative ones during your campaign.
Political campaigns have many different angles from which to analyse them. Individual campaigns of candidates vs general campaigns of the political parties, electoral campaigns or campaigns for specific causes, and many others. Perhaps the most common campaign division is the one according to the level of elections – local, national, and European. Each level has their own topics, issues and interests at stake, programs, and candidates. Inherently it means that political messaging needs to be tailored for each level and occasion. How to understand which messages are best fit for each occasion?
Distinctive messaging at different governmental levels
Local governmental level is perhaps the closest one to people and it addresses their everyday individual needs, from infrastructure and utilities to participatory budgets and community projects. The topic span is vast and the impact of each specific policy is feld by respective communities the fastest. Therefore political messaging on the local level has to be very precise, targeting specific needs and suggesting clear solutions. It does not mean one can not get creative, however you need to stay on point – solving everyday immediate needs asks for precise sharp messaging.
National governmental level tackles broader strategic goals and aspirations of the nation. Although issues and questions are as vast as at the local level, they can be viewed from a more broader perspective. It is no longer about a specific street or communal project, it is about the country’s infrastructure, national security, economic prosperity, cultural and political identity. Therefore political messaging still has to be sharp and data-or-solution-based, but it needs to be more inspirational and emotional to attract the attention of the whole society. Your messages have to address the priorities of your electorate but have a strategic vision for the whole nation.
European governmental level perhaps is simultaneously easier and harder to work with. Easier in the sense that political parties mostly work with overarching themes like prosperity, development, collaboration, and unity – very inspiring ideas and concepts. Harder in the sense that often these concepts become almost too vague and distinct to identify and connect with. The goal of political messaging on this level is to talk about the European level while bridging them with national or even better local levels’ issues and questions.
Strategic considerations for crafting political messages
One of the most damaging mistakes political communication staff make would be to shape messages only based on the nature of specific elections. For example, in roughly a month people across the European Union will go to the ballot boxes to cast their votes. Does that mean that political parties have to only talk about European matters for a month? Definitely not.
In fact, based on my experience of running five different political campaigns and basing them all on data and research, I can assure you that political messages should be about your voters – their needs and interests. It is not about the EU, national matters like healthcare or some road construction on the local level. Rather it should be about how a certain topic, idea, solution or policy is going to affect your voter. Keep in mind the following foolproof strategies for crafting political messages for your voters:
- Addressing your voter concerns: political messaging should demonstrate that you know your voters’ concerns and priorities and your policies are exactly about them. Don’t talk about national security in a broad theoretical sense, rather frame security policy around your voter’s aspirations or even fears – why it is good or bad for them specifically.
- Integrating levels: on all levels of political messaging you have to know your data and specific concerns of your voters to bridge them with your policies and solutions regardless of the governmental level. If you know that community X has problems with local infrastructure but the closest elections are European, find a way to talk about how politicians on the EU level can be of help for economic growth.
- Consistency and relevance: addressing your voters’ concerns does not automatically equal being populist. You have to be consistent with your policies through different campaigns and political cycles, but your messaging should be relevant for your voters.
Remember that best political messages are not European or national but rather they are touching, relatable, creative, and sometimes even provocative.
Constant communication
To summarise, political staff have to work on best possible solutions and political programs, have to collect and analyse data, make sure that communication does not end with the campaign but is a constant backdrop of the political party’s work. However when it comes to defining political messages for any occasion, one has to remember – it should always be about the voters and not about institutions or types of election. Because the centre of it all is always an individual with their aspirations and challenges.
