Campaign Strategy: How to Evaluate SuccessEveryAction Admin Mon, 06/24/2024 - 10:20 by Joe Fuld (He/Him) Evaluating Campaign Strategy One of my favorite books is The Score Takes Care of Itself. If you have not read this book,  give it a read; it’s a great resource on strategy an applicable to politics and organizing many ways. Weather you work for an advocacy organization, a political group, or a candidate campaign, you work on a team with many moving parts. It is impossible to manage all those parts alone. By defining clear goals with measurable outcomes, you can set the path for victory and measure all aspects of the campaign on whether they are on the right track to success.You need a custom campaign strategy.Now more than ever, with all the analytics political campaigns and organizations have access to, it is vital to set clear, measurable goals for success and evaluate your campaign strategy against those goals.  What may have worked for another effort may fail miserably for yours. This possibility is where a custom strategy comes in to play. So, creating benchmarks for success that fit your campaign in mind will be critical. Let's look at the ways you can evaluate success for your campaign strategy. What is success? This is not always the question folks ask when developing a campaign strategy, but it should be. Defining what success looks like is critical.  Success is not always just about winning a campaign or passing a bill.  When starting on a new project or even evaluating an older one it should be a priority to set goals and measure the success of your campaign strategy; folks around your table will not agree on this same version of success. Having a thoughtful discussion on this will lead to a better campaign. Find the right metrics to achieve strategy. Think about the goals for campaign strategy. Success metrics should not  just be, “Did it work?” You need measurable benchmarks that are meaningful to your organization.  Albert Einstein once said, “Everybody is a genius. But, if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it’ll spend its whole life believing that it is stupid.”  If you define the success of your campaign strategy by the wrong metric, you can end up continuing a program that does not work as well as it should, or worse, cutting off a project because it was not “climbing trees.”When it comes to campaign strategy, there is a difference between solutions and success. There are several ways to solve problems, but some solutions may have unintended consequences or be organizationally untenable. It is also beneficial to set realistic goals and continuously measure your progress to gain a clearer picture of the elements that contribute to the success of your individual campaign or organization.Get real input on what success is.Disagreement about what constitutes success can lead to failure if you do not discuss it with a complete table of partners and reach an agreement. Do not rush this process, but do not put it off either. Yes, campaign staff and consultants who focus on campaign strategy can be helpful but ensure this is a unanimous agreement on the final plan. Get folks together, ask clarifying questions, and do not be afraid of disagreement.Be strategic about primary and secondary goals and use both when evaluating success.Perhaps your event did not raise as much money as you had hoped, but it did get a ton of publicity and a few new supporters who may turn up for the next one, for example. If your primary objective was fundraising, you might explore alternative strategies; meanwhile, consider hosting cost-effective events to achieve the secondary goal of expanding your organization's membership and enhancing its public profile.  By splitting our goals, and definitions of success, rather than eliminating “failed” fundraising events, we get a more accurate picture of our strengths and weaknesses and what to do differently to make our next attempt successful.Plan for and execute real program evaluation. Initiating and concluding a campaign with a well-structured plan to establish and assess goals is crucial. We talk a lot about program evaluation, but is it surprising how few folks do it properly. Put together a plan to evaluate the success of your strategy - check out our resources on program evaluation here.  How do you judge the success of your campaign strategy? Leave a comment or drop us a line here. Sign Up for our Blog! Meta Keywords campaign strategy Meta Title Evaluating Success for Your Campaign Strategy Meta Abstract Do you a have a successful campaign strategy? What is success? These are not the questions folks ask when developing a campaign strategy, but they should be. Meta Description Do you a have a successful campaign strategy? What is success? These are not the questions folks ask when developing a campaign strategy, but they should be. Categories Campaign Strategy Tags Campaign Basics| Successful Political Campaign| Campaign Best Practices| Campaign Communication| Campaign Strategist

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