Political Strategy for Winning Election in Nigeria

Complete hands-down guides on Political Campaign Strategy for Winning Elections in Nigeria using new media such as social media, search engines, mobile marketing, internet display advertising, and influencers.

Political campaign strategy for winning an election in Nigeria means a way or manner to achieve a political goal in Nigeria – which is winning an election in any state, region, or the entire country (in case of a presidential election). There are many campaign strategies for winning elections in Nigeria, but all these campaign strategies trickle down to convincing a huge number of voters to vote for a candidate than opposition parties or candidates. Any other thing is just a process or way to the same end (winning the election).

The main political campaign tool for winning an election is communication: communicating the values, benefits, and solutions to the masses’ challenges; telling voters how you want to solve their problems, what you stand for, and why the electorates should vote for you compared to the opponent(s), etc. However, the masses have to be aware of the candidate to vote for, his/her pedigree, and what he/she can do for them if elected, and then other things will follow.

In this political campaign strategy for winning an election in Nigeria, I will not bother you with all traditional ways (Television, Radio, Newspaper, Billboard, Posters, Banners, and Flyers; below-the-line-advertising, etc), and old methods of carrying out political campaigns, because I assume you know them. My political campaign strategy in Nigeria in this post will focus on a new media political campaign strategy in Nigeria.

Political strategies for winning election

A new media political campaign strategy is untapped in Nigeria; those who tried at all are either doing it wrong or in some cases halfway (therefore, giving room for opponents to strike – though for opponents who know what they are doing). For example, when Nigeria’s politicians hear about campaigning online they think of social media, and worst still think about it in terms of Facebook and Twitter. This is not only a limitation on the part of a candidate, he/she is simply telling opponents how and where to beat them.

Whereas there are thousands of Nigerian-based websites to employ for campaigns from Nigeriaonnews.com, Politicaltalktoday.com to Africatopforum.com, etc. Also, in social media, there are hundreds of social sites out there used by voters, and at least 6 categories of social media exist such as news aggregators, photo sharing, video platforms, social networking, forum sites, and file/presentation websites, etc.

Each of these 6 social media categories has tens of hundreds of sites existing in it. For example, in the video category, there are Vimeo, Youtube, Dailymotion, Socialwider.com, and hundreds of others. So using one or two sites alone are a limitation at the same time your account can be suspended at the peak of the campaigns.

You and your team should carry out situation analysis (fasten with strong SWOT analysis), select platforms that fit into the political campaign strategies, and apply as many as possible to win over rivals. For example, some platforms can be selected for awareness and enlightenment, others for hosting optimized political contents for search engines, others for campaign landing pages, others for proactively engaging voters across the cities, and so on. As you can see, one or two platforms cannot do all these and achieve the objectives needed to win the election.

If you do not know how to go about it, hire an online political campaign agency. I recommend AdHang, a world-class new media political campaign agency located in Lagos, Nigeria, Africa.

Ok, back to the main strategy. So what is the political campaign strategy for winning an election in Nigeria that will work for the new millennium electorates? The solutions are on new media political campaign strategies. I will not go into the nitty-gritty of each strategy. Below are the new media political campaign strategies.

The components of the new media political campaign

Listed below are the six components of a new media political campaign for winning an election in Nigeria:

Content marketing political campaign strategy: this involves the usage of persuasive online articles, emails, case studies, internet press releases, positive reviews, infographics, web political presentations, etc.
Search engine political campaign strategy: search engine political campaign method involves the usage of sponsored political message display, search engine optimization (SEO), etc.
Internet display advertising strategy: this political campaign format has to do with creating awareness using banners, contextual ads, online headlines, etc.
Mobile marketing campaign strategy: mobile marketing strategy deals with ensuring that voters get political messages through their mobile devices such as tablets, iPhones, feature phones, etc. Mobile political campaign tools are bulk SMS, mini banners, apps, responsive landing pages, etc.
Internet influencers’ campaign strategy: this ensures that target voters are enlightened, influenced, and communicated to by those they trust, or respect, such as internet political analysts, campaign news writers, and online public figures, etc. Common platforms influencers use are news portal sites, blogs, etc. Influencers do a good job of changing the attitudes of negative and hostile voters.
Social media campaign strategy: this involves the usage of sponsored posts, political campaign pages, and fan base to increase the number of supporters, reinforce political messages, and remind voters to vote for your candidate, etc.

Having listed “ the political campaign strategies for winning an election in Nigeria using a new media”. What are the new media political campaign types?

Above are the communications side of how to win elections in Nigeria, while the types of political campaigns below focus on political marketing contents.

The Types of political campaigns

There are generally seven categories of type of political campaigns. The campaign types are as follows:

The Name ID
The Bio
The Negative
The Issues
The Comparison
The Micro/Unstructured
The Get Out the Vote

Every political campaign type above has objectives it is meant to achieve. Aside from “The Get-Out-the-Vote” campaign which is a must (being a campaign type to run before the end period of the campaign window, or final day of the election’s date; which focuses on reminding voters to vote for the candidate – where, how, when, etc.). Situation analysis, and many factors, will determine the combination of campaign types above to employ.

Examples:

If a candidate is new or not so popular, The Name ID campaign type must be employed: this focuses on fostering the name of the candidate in the minds of the voters, and to make electorates relate to the candidate and letting them know the office he or she is for. It generally does not talk about any issue in depth (it is normally used on the beginning of a campaign). This campaign type can be run simultaneously or followed immediately by The Bio campaign type: this campaign focuses on the biography of a candidate–professionally, politically, and where he/she came from, pedigree, reasons this candidate is the best option and right person for the office, and so on.

If the opponents have upper hand in different angles – in terms of supporters, voters’ likeness, followers, and trust, etc. The Negative campaign process can be employed against hm/her in addition to other campaign types: this will focus on the opponents; showing voters what opponents stand on issues are, most especially issues electorates care most in the region or state. All campaign process should be prepared and carried out professionally and must be issues based (otherwise your campaign team must know what they are doing, because it can backfire, and other campaigns will lose their credibility).
What do I mean? Let’s assume that there is a worldwide seat called “World President” and the two major contenders are Peter Obi and Joe Biden, it will be easy to negatively brand Peter Obi than Joe Biden, because the later is well known worldwide, and people have their opinions and facts already about him.

If you have upper hand over opponents, a situation analysis (with serious SWOT analysis) should be carried out by experts to be sure, and to know at what aspects and at what degree, and then, there will be campaign strategies formulation. In short, it is safer not to assume you have an upper-hand over oppositions, and should follow campaigns holistically till the end of the election’s voting: studies have shown that in politics anything can happen at the last minutes.

Above are the new media political campaign strategies for winning an election in Nigeria and campaign types.

Don’t know how to employ political campaign strategies in this piece? No worry, AdHang will help

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The way AdHang team can achieve this (helping to win an election) is many and varied – depending on factors such as the candidate’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and rivals’ threats; campaign budget, seat contesting for, ads duration, etc. When hired, whether issue-based or not (depending on what the opponents are doing), AdHang is equal to the tasks and knows new media political campaigns’ nitty-gritty to navigate against, and around any political tide and battlefield, and will keep voters’ minds on the candidate and strategically positioning the candidate as the ultimate solution to their current problems in the region. Click here for full detail.

AdHang’s political campaign does not put a client in the same pedestrian with its opponents, the agency’s campaigning process will dominate all rivals.